Concordat

Night had touched their hilltop home, but to alert Skiltaire ears, not all was peaceful. Shyia walked from her post in the Great Hall toward her wing of Ogawa Castle. The main door was open, and in the larger room next to hers Shyia could see a light shining from beneath the bamboo door. She walked casually toward the second shoji, thinking it odd that Bill-San would be up so late. Shyia smiled, thinking the withdrawn Human had finally gathered the courage to ask help with the problem he had buried within him for so long. Shyia tried to appear nonchalant as she walked up to the door, standing close enough to cast a shadow against it.

The arboreal Skiltaire felt a familliar mind on the other side of the door... But then Shyia stopped, for she felt another, stronger wave of thought touch her mind. Bill was in the midst of his deepest sorrow! She had known her lifemate's teacher and friend a long while, but had never felt so strong or so dark a feeling from the intense Human. Sensing a note of surprise and urgency, she slid back her door.

"Good Eve to..." Her usual greeting was cut off by the sight of Bill-San sprawled out on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably!

Gently, Shyia walked over to the convulsing body, spread herself across Bill's back, and gave him a soft hug as her head dropped close to his ear.

"Whatever shadow hath touched thee, my Dear Bill... Speak it now that I might give aid to thee.."

"I--Can't..." Bill answered, his voice choked off by tears and fear.

"Bill-San..." Shyia began.

"Bill-San is DEAD... And I wish that I could be too!" The Human's words came edged with fear and self loathing so profound that even Shyia found them momentarily daunting. She sensed that these were the first drops in a torrent of bitter water that had welled in the Human's soul. She realized it best to let the flow continue rather than try to swim upstream.

"Why?" asked Shyia simply.

"I'm no good to anyone... Nothing I thought I could do matters anymore... Hell, I can't even be furry!"

Shyia knew better than anyfurry what her Human brother had come through to be made a member of their Pride, and what his soul felt once freed of his limited body. Bill's statements of surrender and abandonment frightened Shyia nearly as much as they did the Human who made them.

"Do not loose thyself, my poor Pridemate... Wherein have ye gone to discover within thyself such pain?" Shyia asked, probing gently.

Bill rolled over onto his side, to look at the beautiful female Skiltaire through swollen eyes, red with hours of anguish.

"If I'm not who or what I thought I was... Oh Shyia... Please tell me who in the hell I am... Please..."

Bill's startling supplications struck at Shyia's heart and stimulated her mind. For over a year, she had thought she felt a change in Bill-San, but always too subtle and personal a thing for her to mention. Outwardly, since their return from Kurusha, Bill had seemed reborn in the energy that he had shared with everyfurry at her lifemating with Ryokyo. Bill-San's health and well being had been restored, and the Human seemed to have become as animated and full of life as any of his Pridemates.

"Is it we then who have done ye harm, Bill-San?" Shyia asked.

Amid his sorrow and self pity, a look of terror crossed Bill's face.

"NO... No... Never...!" Bill answered quickly in a state of near panic. The Human reached out trying to cradle Shyia in his arms. She went more than willingly, almost throwing herself around his neck, hugging him firmly to try to squeeze the pain out of him. She reached out and ran a sympathetic paw across his forehead before Bill went on.

"You've set me free... all of you... I love you all so much... and I'm so scared..."

"Whatever fear seeks you, we can fight together... Be ye naught afraid..."

"Even if it's myself I fear?" Bill asked quietly.

Bill could see the glint of light in Shyia's gem-like sapphire eyes. Deep within herself, she found a moment of understanding.

"I lost myself, found all of you, and now I've lost myself again!" Bill said fearfully. "I'm not sure I know who I am anymore. Does that mean I loose all of you too?"

Shyia could tell from the rising fear in Bill's voice that the Human had come to deadly grips with what had terrified him so deeply.

"Is it so that ye have lost yourself, or have thee found thyself and seek to run away once again?" Shyia asked incisively.

The cool logic of the question had the desired effect. More than anything, Shyia sensed that Bill-San needed an anchor, a rock to grab in the middle of the river of fear that threatened to sweep him away. She saw the look on Bill's face change. Only then did Shyia dare a tentative smile. "I--I guess... Oh... I just don't know anymore..." Bill said, trying for the first time to cope with all that he felt.

*But soft, my Brother...* Shyia sent softly. Bill sat up on his elbows and let Shyia sit lightly on his chest, where she had slept so often. The gift of Psionics had been one of so many gifts that Bill had received at the Lifemating of his first two Pridemates. Now, if he wished, the Human could touch any of his Pridemates with the same surpassing ease as the Skiltaire lady knew and loved so well. In this moment of crisis, this gift would prove its value beyond price.

"Wilt thou share thine mind with me, my Brother?" Shyia asked the formal question aloud as a courtesy. Before she reached her last spoken word, Bill's response echoed weakly in her active mind.

*I am yours, my sweet Silvered Lady.* Bill's send was on a tight, narrow beam that drew nearly all the energy from his tired, worried mind. Shyia felt his energy wane, and moved to accommodate him. She padded gently up his chest, her weight and his fatigue combining to lay him flat on the floor again. Shyia reached out and put her dainty cocoa-hued paws to Bill's temples. The bridge between them was built of a single thought, shared and multiplied as their communication deepened. Their minds became extensions of one another. Shyia's vastly superior telepathic power gave her control over the flowing confusion of images that poured across the thought link at her from Bill's sub-conscious mind.

The arboreal Skiltaire felt her entire body warm as she tapped the reservoir of emotional energy that came with the images of Bill's life with his furry Pridemates. Yet, as time repealed itself within the motion of his thoughts and memories, Shyia could feel something entirely different. Beyond the pool from which Bill had learned to draw his life energy, She felt a cold, clammy feeling sweep over her. Shyia had seen combat many times. She knew this sensation. And then, in a moment, an icy, cool moment, she understood what threatened to consume her Human soulmate.

Shyia had felt many thoughts and emotions, from tens and thousands of other beings, alien and familliar. There was a universality to the stark, grey-black feeling. It felt like its cousin, death, but was worse because this feeling could and would torture it's victim all through life.

For a moment, Shyia had difficulty accepting what she thought she felt. With all of the Pride so much a part of him, it was difficult to imagine Bill-San as being lonely--but the miserable, empty coldness that crept over him had no other name. And now, it threatened to impose a living death sentence upon him.

Shyia steeled herself against its bite as some part of Bill's feelings fought to keep her away from his pain. Bill and Shyia consciously combined to push their merged thoughts beyond the onyx darkness that had eaten its cancerous way into his being. Bill was afraid, but Shyia used her strength to sustain both as they plunged deeper into the darkness. For the Skiltaire knew better than most that the seeds of darkness lay somewhere deep inside itself. If Bill-San were ever to know light again, they had to breach the blackness.

Her gentle but uncompromising probe of Bill's thoughts touched another cold, almost metallic presence as she groped with him through the darkness. Shyia paused, linking again with Bill so that they could pass through whatever barrier lay ahead. Shyia felt Bill's thought energy rally, swirling up from the dark mists like a beam of sunlight through a dusty attic window. Shyia helped her Human friend focus all their energy against the obstacle that lay ahead, cloaked in the dark of loneliness. Within the light of feelings, Shyia could now see the obstruction she could feel just as well.

The thought beam from their combined being touched the wall gently, almost benignly. There was no sound, but in the mirror of their thoughts Shyia and Bill could see a small piece of the seemingly boundless, dark grey wall dissolve into the swirling cold mist that surrounded it. All of their combined will had struck the wall like a laser beam, and broken from it a piece only as large as a sugar cube!

Suddenly, Bill's mind felt Shyia waver, her thought impulses flagging dangerously! Feeling the amplitude of her modulation wane, it was Bill who found himself fighting to extract both himself and the Skiltaire he loved from his own darkness! For the human, it was as if he had plunged his hand into electrically charged ice water! It tore at him like a thousand knives, each cutting deeper than the one before it. They sought not to rend his flesh, but to dismember his mind and tear apart their combining!

He focused all of his remaining energy into one mighty heave against the adhesive blackness. Together in the space and time, the Human felt his body convulse, wrenching and tearing every fibre of him as surely as he felt his puny bones snap!!

After a moment of unequalled suffering, Bill forced his eyes open, to see Shyia sprawled out on top of him, her fur and his skin both soaked with clammy human sweat! Bill tried to suck air into his lungs to fight the pain, but his chest and ribs racked him with pain that made pleurisy seem pleasant. The Human gasped, drawing in small breaths to conquer the agony. Bill looked up at Shyia's limp, exhausted form and was filled with momentary panic until her eyes fluttered open weakly. His hands found strength to wrap around her gently as she lay on top of him, totally spent.

They lay dead still for twenty minutes, neither having the power to send to the other. But there was no disguising what Shyia had attempted to do, and Bill knew it. As he lay with her in the midst of a silent cry, he realized for the first time in his life that maybe... just maybe... someone cared...

Bill felt Shyia's active and energetic mind spark again, begin to rally. Two hours passed before Bill felt a familliar probe touch his thoughts. His own leapt out to grab it, using all of his restored energy to guide Shyia's thoughts to him.

"Thank You, My Sweet Shyia..." Bill praised her gently aloud, his exhausted mind too weak to send his thoughts to her.

*I did nothing, My poor lonely one. I sought to break through thine pain and did nearly end us both. I have done you hurt, and I am sorry. I grieve with thee, my poor Bill-San.* Shyia sent her thoughts on a beam of energy that was strong and deep.

"I love you, Shyia-Kun..." Bill said, his words coming on a whisper.

*I have naught the power to aid ye, my Bill-San. For this barrier is of your own craftsmanship and only ye may topple it.* Shyia sent, her thoughts full of regret and sorrow.

"Have I no resource? Can no one help me?"

*As such as ye have built these walls, so must the means to breach them be within you, even as we all are within you, my Dearest Bill-San.* Shyia thought at him softly, her soft sapphire eyes filling with tears.

"Where must I go? What... How?" Bill's questions turned from fear to panic as something inside him felt himself being left alone again.

"Ye must seek within thyself. Therein shall ye find all that ye shall need." Shyia said aloud. "Rest now, as I and the Pride rest with ye. We are ever near to thee and will abandon ye not. Rest now, and bring the light of thyself to bear against the darkness. I can say naught more." Shyia spread her exhausted body across Bill, hugging herself close to her Human soulmate as both allowed sleep to take them away from fear and regret.