Every now and then, it was nice to wander about the forest in reindeer form. It wasn't the same as roaming the tundra with her father, but then again, that might have been why she liked it so much. The openness of the tundra never appealed to her the way it did to most of her people. Perhaps there was just something different about her. It was certainly the reason she'd left the herd, that last migration season, and spent a year wandering until she found what immediately claimed itself to be her wood, and promptly made it her home, as well.

Brianwen, hooves clicking with each step even in the soft loam beneath them, wandered her woods with ease. She paused every now and then, ears up and nostrils flaring, to test the air and look for any other living presences around her: birds, animals, people, anyone. Birdsong was quiet, subdued but still present, with the slowly setting sun. Animals went quietly about their business, preparing for the winter hinted at by the turn of the leaves, not minding the presence of a foreign four-footed species. They had long since grown used to her, and a few even deigned to call her friend; a rarer few spent nights or days at her cottage to be in her company. There were no people in her forest, not so close to night; even if there had been, they would know not to shoot at the tempting target. The village knew what she was, after all.

She walked on.

When she stopped again, a few moments later, it was to dip her furry muzzle into the undergrowth, sniffing and lipping the different plants there, testing them with senses and magic for the types present. There was nothing there that she could use that she didn't already have in abundance. She was the herb-healer for the little village on the edge of her wood, and since she tended animals as much as people-- sometimes more than people-- she liked to be well-stocked. It meant fewer would be sent away without proper treatment. This winter she would be well-stocked, for it had been a generous summer.

So on she walked, following trails she had found useful, and some she'd made herself, through the underbrush and low-hanging tree boughs that caused her to step aside or dip her head, to avoid getting her antlers caught among them. The sun had nearly set; she knew she should be turning back for the village, and her little cottage at its edge, but she didn't particularly want to. Despite shunning the vastness of the tundra, she still wasn't often content within four walls. The air smelled fresh and clean, the leaves both rustled in the faint breeze and flew around her, cushioning her step as much as the soft soil did, and for the moment she was free.

So Brianwen walked on, hooves clicking, refusing to give in to civilization just yet.

She had paused to pull up a few shoots of grass and chew contentedly on them-- it was no substitute for the dinner she would make when she got home, but it would tide her over until then-- when she felt a sudden chill. Looking up, ears turning this way and that, she felt it again: a wind, and a cold one, ruffled her fur. It was too early for winter winds, wasn't it? The leaves had only started to turn their fantastic shades a few short weeks ago. Yet this wind smelled like snow and chilled like winter.

And felt like a person.

Brianwen went suddenly stiff, ready to flee if the wind turned into a trap or a spell or both. She was a natural empath, and hiding the presence of another mind from her was difficult. Carried on the wind, she thought she sensed emotion, thought, sense-- but she didn't know where it was coming from, nor could she pinpoint what the emotion, thought, or sense was. All she could have articulated, even in her own thoughts, was that it felt like whatever sent the wind was watching her. It made her afraid, though she didn't know what she feared, and she wasn't particularly inclined towards being fearful.

What else does a reindeer do when frightened? She runs. And so Brianwen ran, loping swiftly from track to trail to path, towards the safety of her little cottage, where she could close the windows to shut out the wind and light the lamps to dispel the sense of fear.

By the time she reached her little cottage, Brianwen was laughing at herself for letting a breeze and her own imagination fool her. She shifted into her human form, fully clothed in a comfortable skirt and blouse, as she stepped from the trees, and was immediately accosted by animals.

Brianwen had many pets or, as she preferred to say, many friends who happened to be animals. Some were native, others were not. Her current welcoming committee was hardly the entire compliment, but it was enough to make her laugh aloud and shoo them off. Mostly they didn't listen. A ferret shimmied his way up her clothing to perch on a shoulder. A fox trotted at her right heel, tail waving casually, and pointedly ignored the rabbit-- his natural prey-- hopping along at her left heel. The blue, winged and furred rukel-- a feline creature not native to the woods, or even the planet-- rubbed around her ankles, doing her level best to trip her. A bright green, winged creature with floppy ears-- a dralisk-- grunted and clucked at her from a few paces ahead of her, and stalked towards the house like an honor guard, or a protective guardian. A brown, golden-eyed head with a white horn on its forehead-- a dodrian, and a fairly stuck-up one at that-- peered at her from the shed-like enclosure she'd built for him when he'd hatched and bonded her, and she knew he'd grow to the size of a horse.

She greeted each animal-- temporary resident, transitory friend, or bonded companion alike-- as she walked the rest of the way to her small house, fear from the forest all but forgotten. She forgot it entirely when she caught sight of a large, black rat sitting up on his hind paws beside her door, bright black eyes glittering in the darkness and completely ignoring the threateningly waving tentacles of a plant-creature-- a frazzle, to give him his proper name-- clinging to the door frame above him. "Tavarez!" she laughed, and ducked to scoop the rodent up, kissing him on the edge of his whiskery muzzle.

"In the fur!" came the familiar voice, albeit small and squeaky due to coming from a very small throat and mouth.

"It's good to see you! Come in, you can share my dinner."

"I would be delighted. My things are already inside, I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not."

It was, in fact, always a pleasure to see Tavarez. He stopped by whenever he was on the planet and in her general part of it-- which usually just meant being on the same continent-- and he always brought with him news of off-world, a new little friend for her, or both. This time, she discovered with glee once they'd demolished the stew she'd had simmering for her return, was one of those times it was "both".

"You're collection seems to have grown since the last time I was here," Tavarez-- now in his human form, with thin black hair, sharp black eyes, and a decidedly rodent-like face-- commented, eyes bright with mischief.

"Most of them are just here for a few days," Brianwen admitted. "Like him," she pointed to a silver-furred wolf curled in a far corner, licking at the bandage on his forepaw. "He had his foot caught in a trap, so I had to bring him here to recover."

"And I see Glorielle hasn't changed a bit."

Since the flitter from Lantessama-- one of her first non-native pets, in fact, and a gift from Tavarez himself while still in the egg-- was curled up asleep on her special cushion, as she always was whenever the sun went down, Brianwen had to agree, chuckling. "She's still my only flitter, too," she said. "I've just not had the chance to pick myself another, yet."

"Interested in changing that?" Tavarez said, the end of his long nose twitching with amusement.

"If you're offering," she answered, casting him a sideways look.

He didn't disappoint her, checking various pockets in his slightly-ragged, fur-lined coat until he produced a cloth bundle that smelled like magic, which contained a single, smooth, orange-shelled egg, and set it right into the palm of her hand. She knew the drill, when it came to looking after eggs, for though she only had one flitter, her dodrian Marquis had also come from an egg, as well. Besides, egg-care was one of those things all pet-lovers had to know. "I don't know exactly what kind of flitter will come out of that," he warned her lightly, "I never saw the mother, and I didn't have much of a chance to ask the, ah, donor."

Brianwen didn't care; she knew she'd love it. She returned the favor by gifting him with the usual: useful herb-packets, his favorite of the teas she made, and pick of her current collection of random items she'd picked up since his last visit. Some of them she'd literally picked up, some of them she'd purchased, and some of them had been given to her as payment for her services as a healer, when the gift wasn't food or coin. Very little of it she had any use for, but Tavarez was an avid collector of anything at all-- Brianwen suspected he lived up to the "packrat" stereotype, though she'd never seen where he lived to test her theory-- and often found something he wanted. Tonight was no exception.

After the gift-giving, they turned to news. That news, though it spanned politics, innovations, and the happenings at various dragonries, always ended up including something about possible pets. Somehow, it always did, though it wasn't always obvious.

"Star City closed its doors to public, off-world hatchings again," Tavarez began, after a thorough discussion-- full of giggles and not-quite-clean comments-- of the upcoming Flurry, which was basically a yearly winter-themed dragon-orgy. This was a more serious topic, however.

"Oh, that's sad," Brianwen commented. "I always wanted to go and take a look around. It seemed so... different."

"Well, it's not closed to tourism," Tavarez chuckled. "Just to dragons from off-station wanting to clutch there. You could still visit, I'm sure."

"Do you think there would be anything there to interest me? It's all metal and technology, nothing green and growing, no animals...."

"They do have a kind of pet," Tavarez mused, but he looked at her skeptically. "Not an animal, exactly, but you might be interested." Noting her instant interest, he chuckled and explained, "Cyberbots. They're as metal as the station itself, but they have whatever intelligence you program it for, and they come in some very odd shapes."

"I've never had a-- a cybernetic friend before," Brianwen giggled. "Maybe I'll take a look."

Tavarez raised his brows at her. "If you do, also look into a place there called the Abstract Destiny. You might find something there of interest, as well."

However, despite all her questions, Tavarez refused to say more on the subject. So, she decided after he'd gone on his way again that she'd just have to go and see what he was talking about. She hadn't been off-world in a while; it might be a nice way to stave off the cramped, closed-in feelings she always had to deal with when winter came and her forest wanderings became curtailed.

After her new flitter hatched, of course!

Brianwen's Story

Chapter Two

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