The Stranger's Mirror.

Dogfire:
 

"It's not the same, Prell, " grimaced the small boy with the hint of a mask 
covering his face. Watching his reflection in the mirror, he ran fingers 
through dark, almost fur dense hair. He touched the mirror's frozen surface, 
it did'nt feel watery like the creek before.
 
"Of course it's not the same, you have fingers now." Timulty's sister 
replied, watching her brother try to use his fingers to groom himself. 
"You're a Stranger now and must use a hairbrush."
 
She had the same yellow eyed look and appearance as her brother, thick 
bodied but graceful.  She moved past the hallway mirror, keeping her back 
end away from the wall. Then, she remembered she had nothing no longer 
trailing behind her. She said, "The yellow bus will be here soon. Don't 
tarry."
 
"Mother took my collection out of the box I found." He said sadly. His stash 
of shiny metal keys, camera lenses and a muzzled raccoon Halloween mask, 
found eroding away in a woodland dump, was gone. He tugged on his now flat 
face and snub nose, his only mask now.
 
Prell replied, "She needed the box for the papers. We mustn't loose them. We 
live in the city and all...", she scavenged thoughts for a word, "Shape 
emigre must blend in."
 
Early that morning, Prell and Timulty had watched their mother place 
documents into the metal box that once held Timulty's treasures. Letters 
filled with tax numbers, license numbers, numbers of security, account 
numbers. Their new identities. Timulty had asked if the papers, like the old 
ring-tailed skins kept hidden away, would allow reshaping should they need 
them?
 
Their mother had looked down at the papers, forged and lifted from a 
blizzard of binary records that lay cloistered elsewhere. The condensed 
artifacts of civilized identity. Upon hearing Timulty's question, she stared 
outside the window for a while, looking at the pillars of concrete and 
petroleum mists swirling in the outside air before turning to her kits.
 
She had shook her head and answered, "Only Strangers ever see them. Only 
Strangers ever use them."


Tarka:


The bus arrived a few minutes later and Timulty looked around at all of the 
strangers in the bus. They were young, all of them, and didn't seem to know 
how to be quiet. How to hide or disappear into a jungle. He held his bag to 
his chest and waited to get to a place if higher learning.
 
Someone tapped him on the shoulder from behind. He looked over his shoulder 
at the stranger that had touched him. It was female with sky blue eyes. 
"Hello. Wots your name? Mines Mindy."
 
Timulty wasn't sure what to say.

"Your kind of shy arn't you? THis your first day to this school? I 'ave never 
seen you on the bus before."

He frowned. If he didn't say anything this stranger wasn't going to stop 
talking. "My names Timulty.".
 
 
Athalon:


But Timulty wasn't really shy.  Or he'd never been before.  It was just all 
these kits.  Kids, he reminded himself.  They were all so - hmm, he did'nt 
know - free?  Something... Laughing and yelling.  Tussling and having fun.  
Like they were used to it or something.  Used to...
 
Then he got it.  They were born into those bodies.  He'd only recently taken 
on skin in place of fur.  And it wasn't just the feeling of the air, cool 
that morning, on his bareness.  It was, well, a sort of feeling of something 
missing.  Of something taken away.  Not just a thick, warm, banded coat.  
But, rather, like part of his soul.  It was a lonely feeling.
 
But Mindy was waiting.  She wasn't going to be avoided that easily.  He 
imagined her nosing at him, trying to rouse him out of his dark mood.


Dogfire:

 
Timulty had endured the private cuffing he received and the lecture. He 
followed her meekly down the hallway, the faint maskoutline almost visible as 
his face contorted between a whimper and something foreign, tears.  

Prell had eased to the front hallway, she watched Timulty stare into the 
mirror, running his fingers through his hair as if he could take his 'mask' 
off. 

Mother had been stern with him, but she had to find out. "Timulty? I heard 
you scuffled."

"I was talking to..a girl in that open ground and ...kits, I mean kids called 
me something and one of them swung a fist."

Timulty's voice was flat, Prell realized what had probably happened. Not used 
to the strangers ways, he had used that hidden swiftness of gripping fingers, 
strenght that could crush and teeth. The boys had been badly scratched and 
their necks bruised. 

"I did'nt start it, I was defending myself!" Timulty sobbed, running his 
fingers through his hair and staring at the mirror's image wanting to see 
familar eyes and masked muzzle again.

Prell pursed her lips, she was a quick learner, "I know, I know. But you 
must'nt act your strength. Strangers have to be read, then distracted."

"Kits, go to your rooms." Their mother had reappeared, "The strangers, 
principal of the school has suspended you. But I expect to have you in 
another school within a week. Across town, Timulty, you must learn to keep 
your masks in line."

The kits bowed their heads and went to their respective rooms. Timulty spent 
a sleepless night, watching and dreaming of fields of marigolds and streambeds-
...and whimpering as it was all gone now.  And he was riding a hurricane of 
diesel smoke, bus tires rolling over concrete to yet another school...

The learning had been hard won, numbers to recite, a smirk to imiate, a 
hollowness of jealousy, like his classmates.  Hollow enough to be cool and 
let other strangers in paper magazines and video screens tell them what to 
do.  

He grew taller, surpised at how slow, yet fast for Strangers. Once he did 
find the skins keep hidden and ran to a park. A dark hulking shape.  His 
mother had followed him, sobbing, begging him to return home. It had been a 
sorrowfull week, Prell had vanished, on her way from a job she was doing for 
one of her new found friends. "Courier Mule". It was not above board and 
promised money.

Timulty sensed she had been killed and fled to the park. He had been coaxed 
back to being a stranger again.  There would be no more images of her talking 
to him in the mirror while he combed his hair. He found himself filled with 
something strange, a strangers way. Vengence.

More years and the medium height, thick shaped man was noticed by recruiters 
at a university. They noted his quiet, watchfullness of everything around him 
and his movements that disguised hidden strenghts. The watchers smiled, here 
was a candidate.
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
Timulty looked down upon the fresh turned earth of his mothers grave as the 
tears welled in his eyes. They dripped down his mask an onto the black black 
cloths that strangers wore to show their sadness. He held his hand to his 
face and wished that he had his whiskers again. He turned away from the grave 
and looked at the few friends that had gathered. Mindy was looking at him 
with concern.

"Thank you for all coming. My mother would be so very proud to 'ave known 
that all of your cared for her.." his voice broke there... and he walked away 
from her grave. Mindy came to him after one of the other strangers gave his 
mother into the hands of god. What there god would make of his mother he 
didn't know. They didn't have their own.

Later that night he looked in the mirror he kept by the door of his dorm room 
and touched his face... the skin was hidden in the closet... so tonight he 
would ware it again. Now that he was alone. The only one of his kind in the 
new country. He went to the hiding place and pulled out the skin, with its 
ringged tail and soft fur. He quickly took of his strangers cloths and 
slipped his mask off and let himself feel his fur for the first time in 
years. 

There was a rap at the door and then Mindy opened it. "Timulty, do you need 
someone to stay with you tonight?" She looked around and saw him and froze. 
He looked back at her for the first time with his real eyes.... and could see 
the fear in her eyes.
 
 
Athalon:


Timulty reacted.  In a flash of natural speed, he knocked Mindy aside, 
slamming the door securely.  The penalty for being found out was only to real 
to him.  He stood panting, more from fear than from effort, leaning against 
the door.  Only then did he realize about Mindy.

She was lying in a heap.  The absence of fur on her person - something that 
Timulty had never really gotten used to - made her look awkward like that.  
And she was crying, frightened by his sudden violence.  She knew his secret 
now, the secret he'd protected all these years.  She knew.  And he couldn't 
let the secret be jeopardized, no matter what.
 
That he was in fur that very moment seemed so ironic.  His pelt tightened, 
his fangs showed white as his muzzle drew away from them.  Claws ached, 
missing the ancient sensation of tearing, ripping.  It came upon him quickly, 
the need for defense, and the primal reactions bred into his genes by 
millenia of evolution.

She looked up at him, Mindy, so much of her still the little girl on the 
school bus.  They'd shared years together, growing, learning.  She was part 
of him.  As much as the fur he was now wearing, maybe.  The fur he resented 
losing even more that losing his mother.  He had to act.  But could he stand 
another loss - Mindy?  
 
"Mindy, you must trust me.  This isn't what you think..."

"Oh, I KNOW what it is!," she replied, taking the advantage with the coolness 
of an iceberg.  

She has me, Timulty thought.  She knows I can't hurt her.  And I don't want 
to.  I don't...

"I trusted you, Timulty!  We've been friends since we were kids.  And you're, 
you're... a damned animal!"
 
 
Dogfire:


Mindy had not fled, but chose to speak. Instead of fear, it had become a 
parlay of words, between her and the man shaped creature with a ringfurred 
tail and raccoon face she had known as Timulty.
 
No one had passed through the back hallway during the conversation between a 
woman and the odd looking creature.  In the end, Mindy realized she had felt 
there was something different in Timulty.  They had parted that night, still 
friends. 

Exhausted from the emotional drain of the Funeral and the long talk with 
Mindy, Timulty scampered back to his dorm room. One swift yank, his furry 
shape shriveled and muzzle retreated into the flat faced mask.  He slept an 
uneasy sleep.

Only Mindy and himself had been in that corridor, yet he felt as if he had 
been watched.  

The Watchers had noted the incident in their logs and made a few bawdy bets 
amongst themselves.

Timulty spent the semester in classes, his ability to find missing objects 
and talents in finding patterns in the University's Particle acclerator logs 
had brought unwelcomed attention from the mathematics department. And the 
watchers decided now was the time for 'recruitment'. 

Mindy had seemingly wanted to renew their friendship, but she stated that any 
attempt to show up in his 'natural' state would end it for good.

Timulty set off on his long walk across the quad, a 10 acre plot of undevelope-
d grassland at the edge of the university. Flat and featurless, he was 
surprised to see two strangers casually approach him from the opposite 
direction, despite having seen them from far off.  He had no sense of who 
they were till they were within yards of him.

Two men, one thin and spindly, the other stocky. It was their movements, 
familiar but alien. Timulty felt his hackles rise.  And he forced himself to 
be calm. He had the sensation that even if he should bolt. The tall, spindly 
man could...run him down no matter how much distance he had in advanced...

Timulty stood and then spoke when the trio were a few yards apart, "I don't 
know who you are, but what are you intentions?"
 
The tall, spindly man, who's face masked something canid spoke first, "Only 
to ask you a few questions." His collegue, stocky and with a head of hair 
that had a leonoid manish look to it, grumbled. "We've been watching you for 
a while."
 
 
Tarka:
 
 
"Will you come with us for a while Timulty? We would like to talk with you 
for a little. You will not be hurt or detainned longer then your lunchtime. 
Would you come with us?

Timulty looked at the two other animals, looking at them one at a time in 
their eyes. Different then strangers. "I." He was about to say no but then 
remembered how lonely he was for his fur. For his own kind. "I will go with 
you."

They led him to a picnic table that was well removed removed from all the 
others and sat down. Both of the other animals looked at him with cunning 
eyes and a brightness behind there their faces. "We have questions for you 
Timulty. Are you lonely?"
 
"Lonely? What kind of question is that? What are each of you?

They both looked at him and the wire like animal talked first. "WildDogwear 
my wearraccoon friend."
 
"I'm a wearcheeta." said the other.
 
"So. Are you lonely?" asked the first.

Timulty looked at the both of them. Then nodded. "More then you can imagin 
sirs."

The wearcheeta smiled "We thought as much. Would you like to meet more of 
your kind? There is work to do for this nation of strangers. We can't say 
more now... but we thought that we would give you that thought for now."

The wearwilddog held out a card to Timulty. "There is a number on her. Call 
if after you think it over."
 
 
Athalon:


Timulty watched them leave.  There was an eerie feeling in his middle.  His 
tail (which he wasn't wearing) would have twitched.  He longed for it.  
Longed to have himself, have completeness again.  Whatever the price.

Price.  How much would he lose?  How much would he be willing to lose?  He'd 
done well in school, and was assured a career.  He had friends.  He had 
Mindy, too.  Sort of.
 
But Mindy didn't like the fur.  She didn't like him... in the fur.  

He sighed.  How could he ever resolve that?  Mindy was special to him - he 
admitted that now.  Shed been with him when he learned of his mother's death. 
 Shed helped him through all the strange rituals of mourning that seemed to 
be the norm in this world of skin.  She held his hand as the mother he's know 
and loved was lowered into the bosom of the earth.  

They recited of his mother's spirit, then.  "Come to her aid, ye saints of 
god.  Hasten to meet her, ye angels of the lord."  But Timulty knew.  What 
was left of his mother, of her life and deeds, sank slowly into the earth 
before him.  

He had losst so much.  And for no reason.  Could he let go of Mindy, even for 
the promise of wearing fur again?

He lowered his face to his hands.  How much he longed to feel fur there, a 
narrow pointy muzzle, a cool, moist nose.  The pads and claws of the paws 
he'd missed so much.  What the weres spoke of was just too much to be 
believed.  Too good to be true.
 
But could he accept it?  Could he pay the price.?
 
 
Dogfire:


The phone call led him to an office, and a few interview by strangers. 
Questions, numbers, then once again identity changes. Much like that his 
mother had to do you years ago to establish a 'paper trail'.

The spindly weredog, for Timulty did'nt think of them as strangers anymore, 
came in a few times. "You'll be tested, relexes and things, and what's called 
basic training will begin."

He had been prepared, the cover story made. He had to head back to the old 
country of his mother to look up relatives who did not know of her death. 
Mindy had for the first time shed tears, sorrowful tears. She felt he 
would'nt return.
 
"Timulty, please, write to me will you?"

"Yes I will, often." He said, not knowing if any letters he sent from 
training would reach her. And he left, his remaining memory was her standing 
in a drizzle of light rain arcing down on her.

Timulty guessed his training was funded from one of the Stranger's intelligenc-
e agencies. Not much was given on history, other than that in the past, some 
were had sold their services and talents to those agencies. Some of their 
instictive animal talents had been put to use, tracking skills for weredogs, 
stalking and close up assination were favored assignments for felids.  
Timulty's testing showed he had a good round about of skills, tracking, 
hunting and defensive skills. "A jack of all trades for a bandit!", joked 
Ralph, his recruiter.  The werecanid had tapped his flat faced mask, "Nose 
knows."
 
Rounds of classes, situations, mostly with strangers, but occasionally with 
other weres, he could now sense and spot which species they originated from 
in an instant. Yet he felt a bit askance, for the first thing they did was 
confiscate his ringtailed skin. They had borne it away for 'safekeeping'.  
Timulty had put it out of his mine, that it was the leash that now bound him 
to his employers.


Tarka:
 
 
Years went by in trainning and Timulty learns much while he was there. They 
never let him see his skin but he could feel that it was still out there. And 
safe... so he only asked about it now and then. The answer was always the 
same. 'The skin will be returned t you when your trainning is compleated.' 
Then one day he got an interbuilding letter.

"Sir!" Timulty jogged up to Bastor holding the letter. "Is it true about my 
training? It is over now?"

Bastor, one of the few wears teaching, turned to him and looked at the 
letter. Then he smiled and noddles. "Aye. It is true Timulty. The watchers 
must believe that you are ready. It has probable been a long time sense last 
you wore your skin. They will let you loose into the park tonight.

He could hardly beleive his ears as he wondered back to this drom room. He 
would be able to ware his skin again tonight. Tonight he would be able to run 
gree again! To look beyond his mask once again. When he got back to his room 
there was someone new waiting for him. A box in their arms.
 
"Your Timulty?
 
"Yes." His eyes darted down to the box in the others arms.

The other held the box out to him. "Be well wear. The east park is yours for 
the night."

Timulty took the box and went back into his room and openned the box and 
looked in. His skin was waiting for him. He grinned and ran his fingers over 
it. Loving the feel of the fur.

That night, he dashed though the bushes in his fur. Felt the grass under his 
feet... and clawed at the trees with his paws. Living again in his fur and 
finally.... curling up in a bed of dry leaves, and sleeping tell mornning.
 
----------------

Timulty looked accross the road and watched Mindy walk into a 7-11, dragging 
a young stranger behind her. The youth was about four now. Small and still 
looking at the world around her with intereste. Mindys child.
 
He needed to see her again, so picked this moment to do so.
 
 
Athalon:


The child has moved behind a display, inspecting the toys and things hanging 
there.  Mindy was at the counter, fumbling with her purse.  So looked, well, 
beautiful.  For the first time, he realized he wasn't looking at her 
features, and disappointed to find only skin.  He hadn't thought of her in - 
how long?  He couldn't remember.  Training was that intense, that he often 
went to bed not even knowing what day it was.  But while his head was crammed 
to bursting, and his time taxed to the fullest, his heart still remembered.

He'd never resolved the feelings he'd had for her.  Never made peace with her 
discomfort with his fur.  She loved him - she had to, he knew.  She'd done so 
much, and been his friend for so long.  He owed her more than to let it go.  
But she'd never gotten past his fur.  Never accepted him for what he was.  

He was stronger now.  Stronger inside.  The discipline of training had built 
a confidence in him.  If she was going to dismiss him, to react with fear or 
pity or hate, he'd not let her turn the tables on him again.  Not like last 
time.  This fur was his.  This was what he was born to.  

And yet, she'd been open, that once.  Strangely curious about the fur, about 
the feeling of it.  The feeling of being furry - furry in the heart.  She 
wondered at the feeling of furriness from the inside, and Timulty was 
suddenly without speech.  He couldn't explain.  Then she'd asked about the 
feel of fur from the outside, against her own skin.  

Timulty had been taken aback.  This wasn't a toy, furriness.  She'd forbidden 
him to wear his fur - to FEEL his fur.  And now - what? - she was making a 
fetish of it?  He felt nauseous remembering.

But they'd been drinking, the comfortable private sort of relaxing as between 
good friends.  For the second time he'd had to restrain himself from 
violence, torn as he was, the better part of him floating on waves of 
alcohol.  She'd laughed at him, in her cold I'll-get-what-I-want way.  Mindy 
was a friend, he'd told himself, and somethings about skin-friends I don't 
understand.

Timulty approached quietly, admiring her hair.  Like the leaves in the fall, 
he thought, mature and ripe, at their very best.  Time would have passed for 
her, too.  She'd had a child - he could sense it.  Her life had gone on, even 
after her letters had stopped.  What would he find when he spoke to her?  Who 
would she be?

"Mommy", called a small voice.  "Can I have this?"  The child emerged from 
behind the display, a plush fox toy in her small hand.
 
 
Dogfire:


The smell of faux fur and a hint of fur drifted up to Timulty's nostrils.  
His newly different flat mask face twitched on it's own accord. For his 
training had shown, he could assume other guises besides his original one. 
No! He thought to himself, almost dropping a magazine, it cant' be!  It was, 
the wafting odor of a young kit...Thoughts churning who's what how, mine?  
Mindy strode over to her child and smiled, she ruffled his head, "Thomas, no 
foxes for you today, but tomorrow perhaps?" She smiled and she heard a rustle 
of a newspaper hitting the floor and a blue jacketed man bolting out the 
door.  For a moment her face paled, different hair and face, but the an ease 
of movement from.  She froze.

"Are ya going to pay for dat Mam!" The clerk's voice forced her back to earth 
and she payed the man before hustling Thomas out.  She looked around the 
parking lot and saw no sign of the running man.

How long he spent combing his hair in the bathroom mirror, he did'nt count.  
Instead of the his long dead sister's face, Ralph's face eased in past the 
door.
 
"Not the best way to break the news to you."

"You arranged that!" Timulty said in a low voice as he used his fingers again 
instead of the comb to comb his thick furish hair.

"Your training clouded your memory a bit. We picked you that morning from 
your then girl friends place..."

"I don't even remember giving her the big poke if that's what you're 
insinuiating!"

Ralph twitched his phantom canid tail, "Memory's a fuzzy thing Timulty, and 
it's malluable. Okay, maybe you dont' remember, but we did get word she was 
pregnant during your intial training period."

Timulty kept combing his hair, how could he forget? What now? Did she know 
that Thomas could carry the same shape as he?
 
Ralph patted his shoulder, "It'll take you a while to sort things out. But 
she has been given a stipend of sorts, discretely. Perhaps, when your first 
mission is done, we can even broach the subject of setting up a formal 
contact...between you and Mindy again."

Abruptly a winking sound came from the ceiling loudspeakers. "Briefing 
session. See ya in the briefing room Timulty."

Ralph patted Timulty and strode out. The trainee will go through confusion, 
resignation then acceptance.  Best that he did'nt know that modern exvitro 
fertilzation from a lab was the cause.  The deed's done, the weredog though 
as he paced smoothly through the hallway.

Having unexpected progeny ensures their loyalty remains bought.  And all the 
better, the disguised dog thought.

For without them, they would be no quality of mercy in this civilization 
Strangers have trapped themselves in.
 
Timulty took a deep breath, as he finished combing his hair, "Well sister, a 
long ways to go before I track down your killer." He said, speaking to no one 
but the reflection in the mirror. "And it will take longer now that I have a 
kit to take care of."   He stared at the reflection, of a stranger, in a 
stranger's mirror.