Concordat

His paws clean and dry, guest and host reversed roles, and Roci displyed remarkably fluid grace as the Savage washed the Human's large hands in the time honored manner.

Body and spirits clean, the pair turned and walked across the segmented stone walkway that led into the teahouse. Bill ushered Roci inside with a bow, and then paused to remove his shoes before entering himself. The interior of the ceremonial room was purposely austere. The tatami and surrounding walls were all a soft white or natural bamboo color. Against the far wall, there was a simple teak wood frame bearing a hand brushed kanji that signified tranquility. The only furniture was a small table for two guests and a teapot. A pair of white silk cushions waited on opposite sides of the table. Bill bowed Roci to the table and let his honored guest choose his seat. Roci returned the bow, and chose the right side, away from the door, somehow knowing Bill's preference for the left. Once Roci was both seated and comfortable, Bill fired up the brazier. He opened a special compartment beneath it, selecting three of the well aged pieces of sugi to build and light the tea fire. Using slow movements with the yard long matches, the wood seemed to spark by itself, giving the dancing flames animation all their own. Soon, the small room was filled with a pleasant warmth against the slightly cooler sunset. The Human bowed to the fire, turned and bowed to Roci, and then rose slowly to bring out the teapot. Bill opened a small compartment below the wall kanji, and lovingly took out his special teapot. He made a head bow to the ancient meaning that the pot held. He held it slightly above his head, then he knelt at his seat and put the teapot on the small table.

Slow, rhythmic movements were the key as the Man removed the lid, turning it slowly in his hand, so his guest could admire the craftsmanship of more than four centuries past. Roci paid homage to the teapot, the craftsman, and his host by bowing low with his eyes cast down. When he rose again, Bill bowed his gratitude, and rose again to bring water, his guest having accepted the invitation to try the pot.

The water for the ceremony was as important as the vessel. There was a small trough of bamboo built into the wall of the small house, built-in near the small firepit. It opened with the lifting of a small stone cap, and allowed a silver stream of water to fill the antique tea container. Roci was permitted to watch the progression of ceremonial movements, and as Bill placed the teapot on the brazier with a slow, gentle, but sweeping movement, Roci thanked him with a bow. But the Human's role as host wasn't yet half done. Making the tea was only half of the ancient rite's purpose. The other, equally important aspect was the attention to the appointments that the invited guest would use, and to his comfort and peace of mind.

Bill turned and reached slowly into the compartment again. He brought out a tray and a set of cups. He set them gracefully on the table between his guest and himself. Roci's eyes sparkled. Bill reached down and brought up another white cotton triangle. This one he folded in half lengthwise, and with a practiced, methodical slowness, he turned each cup in his hand, wiping the inside of the cup free of any offending dust which might have violated the air tight compartment or his guest's sensibilities. He plucked up the other cup, refolding the cloth to a clean surface, even though the cloth showed no trace at all of anything save it's own pristine whiteness.

This cup he turned slowly in his fingers, allowing his guest to see and admire the artistry worked into the four hundred year old cups that were brother and sister to the teapot. Each cup was small and slightly round, in a green earth tone, with relief calligraphy on both sides. One Kanji meant peace, the second was friendship. Both of the cups were alike, and Bill held them out to Roci. He indicated his choice with a simple gesture, and Bill bowed again before setting the cup on the table in fron his guest.

Now came the tea. An herb as ancient as the ceremony, but as unique in its way as the non-Earthlings that performed it. Bill turned again to the cabinet, bringing out a large brown block with a texture more like tobacco than tea. Coarse-ground and heavily aromatic, it's peppery scent filled the still air within the teahouse. Bill used a small bamboo stick to break off the corner of the block and carry it across the table to Roci's chosen cup. Pausing for a ceremonial bow of approval from the Skiltaire before popping the tea into the cup and tapping the stick on the side of the cup, to be sure his guest received the full measure of the herb. The Human then repeated the action, being sure to give himself slightly less than his guest.

Once both had their portion of tea, Bill pardoned himself with a bow and turned to the brazier to bring the heated water to the table. He set the venerated pot down on it's ordained place on the old tray. Both guest and host bowed to the gift of the water, each sharing the unspoken hope that the tea ceremony would bring peace and understanding between them that would flow, like the water, from one soul to the other. Bill picked up the teapot and, with a motion as fluid as the liquid that poured from it, cascaded the water into Roci's cup. But the Savage Skiltaire knew better than to drink before his host performed the final act of hospitality.

Bill took a whisk from the compartment cut into the table. It was done with a flourish, so as to show the brush, like mixing tool, to be suitable to the honored occasion, and fit for the use of both guest and host. Roci bowed again to the brush as Bill set it gently into Roci's cup. The Human took the cup in his left hand, rotating it slowly to the left with his fingers, as the right-handed brush turned slowly the opposite way. The counter-mixing motion signified the meeting and mixing of yin and yang into one whole being. The stirring was done in full view of the guest, so that the meaning of the thought and symbolic action could be seen, felt, and understood. As Roci bowed his thanks, Bill could see the wild male's eyes mist with tears. Bill offered the teacup to Roci with an eyes-down bow of supplication. With quivering paws, Roci accepted it, setting it gently on the table between them. Then, the Skiltaire took the cup, lifting it slightly and giving the cup a third of a turn each of the three times Roci picked it up.

As Bill watched the handsome male accept his symbolic gift and all of the meaning behind it, his throat closed with a lump. Roci picked up the turned teacup, and drank a full, slow draught from the ancient stoneware cup. The length and depth of his taste of tea went far beyond his obligation as a guest. Roci knew the legend that said the longer and deeper the drink was, so much deeper would the relationship be. Bill watched in disbelief and wonder as Roci sipped the cup dry, bending far back to bring the last drop of the bark tea to his muzzle.

As Roci set the cup back on the tray gently, no trace of tea remained at all.

Bill's Zen discipline fled from him. Some small voice told him that there was no shame in what the Human dared to feel. He could trust what he felt about Roci and himself in turn, for in the same instant, Bill acknowledged that they were one and the same. Bill looked at Roci and saw him looking back across the table. Roci bowed with a smile and made a fluid leap, to be scooped up and embraced in Bill's arms a moment later. They looked at each other, and themselves, and for the first time they knew had to be done.

In an instant, they were there. But as Bill stood again in the awful, cold shadow cast by something he could not see, but was there nonetheless. As the Man the sought out the prison that he had built, he realized that there was... someone else beside him this time. There was a small, bright flame that seemed to burn somewhere within him that held back the clammy fingers of fear that imprisoned his mind. The icy, swirling mist hovered near, but they could not touch him! Bill was still trying to figure out why, when another feeling altogether made him turn from the misty scene. Bill and Roci took a single step forward together. In the light of the same fire that held back the mist, both could see the wall...

They stood still for a moment, one within the other, and looked solemnly at the stark barrier made of hurt, pain, and loneliness. The sight made Roci sick. Not with pity, as Bill had been given all these years as an antidote, but with a wild Savage rage, so profound it shook his soul to the very root of Bill's being.

Both found themselves charging as one toward the immovable, impenetrable darkness that chained them. Within their shared ears, each could hear the others roar of Savage rage. They met it together, roaring for themselves and everyone beyond the wall that Bill had ever loved. Human hands and paws became one powerful entity as they tore at the cold, grey stones. They seemed to melt with curious ease, passing away into the mist as they were touched with something beyond feeling. Bit by bit, a single block at a time, the wall that had cost them all so much melted and ran away from them, just as the icy mists seemed to recede from both of them.

So profound was their rage that they barely felt the pain within them change as slowly as part of the wall before them collapsed. The rebellion against their own chains became a labor of resolution in the same instant. For as some stones past away while others remained, both could sense there were others on the other side of the wall... Others that they knew...

After a single moment, the wall stood before both of them, breached by them as surely as it had been built by them. From beyond its limits, they could feel a familiar calling...

There was no sound, no great, crashing moment of sound and noise, only a shared moment of quiet peace and knowing where they must walk next together. Bill felt Roci in his arms again as both walked through the breach in their wall!

The space beyond it was somehow familliar and somehow alien. They felt no fear... only strangeness...

"Irashaii, itoshii Bill-San...!" A familliar voice said. The sound of it knifing through the somehow benign darkness of this new place.

"Ryokyo...!"

"And have ye no greeting for the rest of us, Bill-Sama?" another more musical voice asked from out of the still darkness.

Shyia!

As both Bill and Roci shared the thought of her name, the darkness was split by the soft blue light of a sphere of tamed electrical energy held between her paws. Gently, she willed it to expand, and its light was cast over a circle of familliar faces. Without any prompting, the group moved, opening a place in their circle for two, who had become one, who had become many.

*Come... Claim thy place, as it has 'ere been open to thee, Our cherished Roci. Come, claim thy place amongst us as one, and we welcome ye...* Shyia and his Pridemates sent to him as one.

"What about the wall...?" Bill asked.

*Those stones which remain, we must break down together, Roci-San... It will take time...* Shyia sent softly.

Roci stepped forward into the circle, bringing with him all that was himself and the Human. As Roci was seated in his place in the group, he felt Bill answer in Roci's voice.

"We have all the time that our hearts can hold, My dearest Pridemates."

And then, the Human turned, to feel Roci within and outside of himself. His heart overflowed and the darkness seemed to take on the glow of sunrise as he whispered "Welcome Home, Roci-San, welcome home."