Wynn set the bowl down in the room's center. Even as she backed to the bed, the animal didn't move. Its gaze shifted only once to the bowl.
"It's all right," she repeated, but the words made no difference.
Finally the majay-hì rose.
Holding its place for a moment, it then padded one careful step at a time to the bowl. Lowering its muzzle to lap the water, it never took its eyes off Wynn. A wave of sadness washed through Wynn as she thought of Chap—and the majay-hì's ears rose up.
She couldn't help a stab of regret that this four-footed stranger wasn't him—not by its color, let alone that it was obviously female. She remembered the pack that had helped her and Chap find Leesil's mother in the an'Cróan's Elven Territories. A yearling majay-hì had run among them.
This charcoal-colored female looked about the same age, if Wynn guessed right. But then, she didn't know the life span of the majay-hì. Its color was almost as dark as that of the grizzled pack elder. By contrast, Wynn remembered Lily, Chap's beautiful white companion with yellow-flecked blue eyes that looked green from afar. Lily's strange attributes were rare for the wild protectors of those faraway elven lands.
The strange female stopped drinking and lifted her head.
Wynn couldn't fathom how this young one, maybe only a yearling, had traveled so far from home. And why had the dog come to her, let alone at the moment the black figure appeared? She crouched to the dog's level and hesitantly stretched out her hand, palm up.
"It's all right," she said again.
The majay-hì shrank away with a twitch of jowl—but she cocked her long head as well.
And a moment passed.
The dog stretched her neck just a little, reaching out her nose, though she remained well beyond Wynn's reach. The majay-hì sniffed at Wynn, and then shook herself all over, and those pale blue eyes gazed intently into Wynn's.
The same way Chap had sometimes studied her. And the way Lily had looked her over when they first met.
The young female huffed suddenly and took a step.
Wynn remained still, with her hand extended, but the female paused as if waiting for something. The dog finally backed up. That brief instant of near acceptance—and its sudden passing—frustrated Wynn.
The majay-hì pack had also had a hard time accepting her. The grizzled black elder had barely tolerated her at all. Lily was the first to allow Wynn close.
The young female's ears pricked up again.
Even Lily wouldn't have let Wynn touch her without Chap present. How was she going to establish trust with this lost sentient being—without getting bitten? Wynn leaned forward with her hand still outstretched, until she had to brace her other hand on the floor. She hesitated every inch for fear of startling the anxious female.
The majay-hì finally extended her head in like manner, until her cold, wet nose touched the tip of Wynn's middle finger.
A barrage of memories erupted in Wynn's mind. Wobbling under the onslaught, she barely caught a glimpse of one before it washed away under the next.
Chap, his silver-gray fur glinting in shafts of sunlight lancing through the forest canopy…
Lily running somewhere nearby, more brilliant white where the light touched her coat…
Violet-tinged ferns in the underbrush whipping across them within the vast Elven Territories…
Wynn snatched her hand back with a gasp and dropped sharply on her rump.
Hazy and blurry as they were, there was something very wrong about these memories. She'd never run with Chap and Lily—not in such a moment as she'd just remembered.
The young female cocked her head and huffed once.
Even with lingering fever's heat, Wynn sat shivering on the cold stone floor.
Chap could evoke anyone's memories that he'd seen in them once before. He played upon people who were completely unaware of what he did. But he'd left the Elven Territories nearly two years ago.
And those memories had come to Wynn at a touch.
Only the majay-hì could do this. They communicated among their own kind through "memory-speak." But this wasn't possible for Wynn—or anyone. Resting one night among the pack, she'd tried to «listen» in among them, but nothing came to her.
Wynn had remembered Chap and Lily in the forest, as if running with them, but that blurred imperfect memory wasn't her own. And it couldn't have been passed to her, a human, from a majay-hì. Nor could one so young have known Chap.
What had just happened?
In shallow breaths, Wynn lurched forward onto her knees. The female didn't shy away and stepped two paces closer. Wynn reached out slowly, touching the soft fur between the dog's ears. The female raised her head, forcing Wynn's hand to slip down along her neck.
As Wynn's fingers combed through thick fur, separating the hairs, she saw an almost cream undercoat beneath the outer dark charcoal. She lowered her gaze, meeting the animal's own.
Wynn stared into crystalline blue irises… with the faintest flecks of yellow.
Another image of Lily surfaced in Wynn's thoughts, as if from nowhere.
