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In the end, did it really matter what others thought of him? His answer would be a tentative yes, as a man's reputation was one of the few things to outlive him. The idea of having to make a positive impression was a burden, and though Hemming seemed to have done it without thinking much, that weight was starting to become real. In fact, it was one of the few things that seemed real at this moment, as the sun reached out its shaky light-beam arms to the horizon, the dark night in tow. As the male's fingers lingered in the sand as if tethered by some unremarkable thought, as Dagrun watched the sky with a nonchalance that was almost enviable, the rest of the world seemed heavy. It was the only word the wolf could use to describe it, the only adjective he could grapple with and win. The sand was pushing up on him, the sky pushing down, and the air was wrapping around his face as if it was a kidnapper trying to smother him. Words, fragmented lines of poetry and thought, drifted through his mind, and the wolf thought briefly and vacantly, Maybe it is a kidnapper. The earth spun around and every living creature had no choice but to go with it, they relied on its sustenance, and they were practically unable to leave its gravity. Hemming and the rest of the kidnappees spun around endlessly, and many of them - the tawny male included - had fallen in love with their kidnapper.
Other realities became secondary, and despite all the laws of physics that Hemming had read about and failed to understand, time seemed to stop. Perhaps this night was a dream, the only place where wolves could, albeit temporarily, escape from the hard lines of physical law. Though this scene was surely something strange, especially for the wolf who was so prone to cheerful fantasy and levity, Hemming felt as if it was completely commonplace, a sure symptom of muddled dreaming. Through the pores of the real world he had gone, and now he was wandering in the dream world. The other's coat, though not an impossible coloration, was surely caused by the magic little glitches the brain was so wonderfully prone to. His eyes seemed to contain all the stars of the heavens, the nebulae and the miles and miles and miles of empty space that lay between them. What a lonesome place, outer space, what a strange quality to have trapped within flesh and layers of living cells. In a flight of fancy so wild that Hemming was not sure in which world he sat, he wondered if this wolf was a representation of the universe, turned inside out so that the cosmos swam inside and, well, what really was on the outside of the universe? Perhaps there was a universe that lingered within each living creature, and the reason that theirs was expanding was not dark energy but an all-you-can-eat buffet in another dimension completely. Something about the air, the sky and this strange wolf before him made the thought seem worth thinking, though perhaps it was not.
Hemming still had a very poor understanding of what Spirit Guides were. In some way, he knew, he and Dagrun were connected, but in what manner he had no clue. Surely she was not truly a part of him, for he had lived so long without her, or, perhaps, she was a part of him that had grown and budded off right before their union, as if the journey that the AniWayans took to find their Spirit Guide caused them to grow it themselves. She was rather unlike him, too, at least on a shallow level. At this moment he felt as if they were conjoined, but awkwardly, as if part of his brain reached up through those scrawny little legs and established itself within the body of a bird. He could feel her feelings, and were they not often his own? Was she the manifestation of a part of the wolf that had previously been within his own mind? It was hard to say, hard to think any thoughts that did not have fragile gossamer edges, hard to come up with an idea that held any water.
When he spoke of her, Dagrun turned her black eyes to the wolf, ruffling her feathers quietly. For a moment Hemming could tell that she was surveying him, and it seemed completely plausible that Dagrun had a secret night life that he didn't know about. It was another of his questions of the spirits; were they stuck in their physical manisfestations, or were they able to weave through the fabric of reality and of imagination, dreams, with equal ease? The idea was compelling, the other male's contemplative gesture making a feeling swell up within the gray wolf, as if he might have some kind of evidence that Spirit Guides were not stuck in their earthly form. As if to help the wolf remember, as if the name might prompt a sudden remembrance, Hemming said gently, "Her name is Dagrun."
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