A/N: I don't own them, as is pretty obvious from the way I let my muses practically escape me for a month. The good news, at least, is that part of an upcoming chapter is already done; I just realized halfway through writing what will become Chapter 65 that in order to tell you that story, first I needed to tell you this one... Ah, but that's what buffers are for, if I had any left...

Cher had stopped breathing for a moment when the third form rose from the brush. It was not alchemy that stilled her or brought the all-too-familiar form following docilely, if rather expressionlessly, after the two women and their captives, or at least not the same kind that Jaguara had displayed earlier. This one did not appear as a wolf, as the oddly familiar dark young man had.

Come to think of it, there was a touch of recognition in the back of the scientist’s mind for the white wolf as well, but then Cher had never had a great memory for names and there were other things more pressing at the moment. Like this blank-faced specter from Freeze City…

“You insist you have not seen my wolves, then?” Jaguara smiled coldly as the scientist stared at the newest arrival. “V-45 will verify the truth of that soon enough. Does this woman know X-23, V-45?”

“I don‘t even know X-23. How would she?” Bright blue eyes squinted against the sunlight reflecting off the armor, turning away from Cher and the two other wolves, though the addressed creature followed stiffly after them into the heart of the garden.

“Much more rational than the last,” the noble murmured to herself, sounding more quietly pleased than she had since the gray wolf had tried to throw himself at them. “The technique is improving. Since you appear to know something about this one, then, I will leave him with you to clean up and interrogate,” she added to Cher. The tallest of the three captured was moving on his own feet now, but Cher doubted that it was entirely under his own will. “Ask him what you will, Degre-Lebowski, but remember that he has not yet been properly indoctrinated.” The look the yellow-eyed young man shot the taller alchemist was designed to kill, but unlike the noblewoman, the lean gray-furred wolf was limited to the range of his hands and teeth when it came to causing actual damage. Jaguara simply smirked below her mask. “The white wolf… I have plans for this one,” she added slowly, turning the unconscious male in midair and once again lowering his human illusion to reveal the wolf beneath. Cher had never seen such a thing before. How could he look even more familiar that way? “You are of course familiar with The Book of the Moon…”

Cher nodded, her eyes flipping between the alien form of the insensate floating wolf and the one she had seen so often before coming face to face with revealed wolves, wolves that obviously didn’t care to be examined. The book had been banned in many cities now, but the scientist had received a copy when she was a little girl, obsessed with nature and fairy tales and lost wonders of the ancient earth. She didn’t mention that she still had her copy, sheathed in the battered jacket of The Adventures of Macintire and Appledelhi and stuffed in a locked drawer in the threadbare apartment she’d gotten since her separation. “You believe that these are… them?”

Cher had known that girl that her employer referred to merely as a letter and number; first vaguely as the daughter of her husband’s friend, and then later as Hige’s fiancée and a capable, quietly charming young woman in her own right. It was hard to think that Blue Yaiden might be a wolf, much less one of those chosen by the lily-white distiller of time… Speaking up might have earned the gray wolf some time, but Cher didn’t want to give Jaguara any information about Blue than she had to, and she doubted that the noblewoman would grant her a private interview with more than one wolf.

“The eyes have it,” was all Jaguara was willing to give her. “Paradise requires both blue and gold.” The golden-eyed young male‘s face might have been set in stone, but his back stiffened further at this statement, if such a thing was possible. “Sit down.” The chair Jaguara motioned the tall wolf man to was solidly built, and a trio of thin metallic straps closed automatically across his throat and wrists as she pushed him down. “Learn what you can from this wild one; perhaps your observations shall assist my own yet.” The lady left Cher with the strange wolf in human form in a shady nook beneath the shade of the flowers, trailing the white wolf and the stoic-eyed creature that so resembled Blue after her.

The muddied white-blond shook himself as Jaguara retreated, growling and testing the limits of his restraints, his yellow eyes no longer focusing on anything within the dome. Cautiously, Cher reached a hand out to his ripped sleeve. “Who are you?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “How did you and Blue end up here?”

Golden irises snapped towards her. “Why the fuck would I tell you?”

“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” Cher attempted to reassure him. “I want to get you and your friends out safe, if I can trust you.”

The dark mouth twisted upwards in a mocking smirk. “Good luck with that, dog of the nobles.”

Cher withdrew her hand, standing up straighter. “You know as well as I do that Blue doesn’t act like that. I don’t know what Lady Jaguara did to her, but it’s not right. I know you have no reason to trust me, but you can’t afford not to. Are you going to throw away any chance of help without even considering it?”

The dirty gray wolf in human form refused to let himself be outstared. “If you really want to help us, human, find the ones waiting for us at the gate. Jaguara’s hounds will be after them next. Best that they get a little warning.” He turned his eyes back to his restrained arms at last, trying to hide a rueful half-smile. They were still shaking. “Zali would appreciate it, at least.”

“The gate?” Cher asked in confusion, but the wolf refused to clarify.

“I’ve told you too much. Even if Jaguara doesn’t have a way to listen in directly, she’ll have it out of you.” Fisting his scraped hands, he pulled harder against the restraints.

Cher placed a hand upon his without thinking, reluctant to see this creature so odd and yet so human wound himself further. It felt like hairless, dusty flesh beneath her hand, warm but wet from a multitude of closing tiny wounds. “Not if I can get someone there first. I know you don’t trust me or even necessarily Blue right now, but we can try to protect these friends of yours. Then I’ll see what I can do about getting you out of here.” She released him slowly, stepping back into the grove of white flowers in twining vines to make her call as the yellow-eyed young male slowly released his fist, though he continued to wriggle it incessantly against the square-edged metal.

The scientist’s first call didn’t go through, receiving nothing but Hige’s voicemail. Although she had hoped to avoid this, that left Cher Degre-Lebowski with but one option.

She had barely glanced at the tangles of pale flowers staked throughout the dome or the irregularities that said flowers displayed as she dialled the dreaded number: here a thickened trunk, there fingerlike leaves... “Hubb?”

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