A northland night stretched over the browning tundra, crisp with fall’s sharp bite, wind howling loneliness over the empty land. A slice of silver moon frowned down at a solitary figure in concern, stardrop gaze blinking curious confusion. Chill night, bitter wind, crystal sky, a vastness that inspired a feeling of insignificance on anything living: it fit Shira Shadowdance’s mood perfectly.

She trudged northward, cloak pulled tight about her shoulders, wind whipping her flamebrush tail like a banner. Each step was methodical, mechanical, the exhausted one…two…one…two broken only by frequent stumbling. All day, all night she’d walked,, not caring how her stomach growled and shrank, scarcely noticing the brutal gale, not stopping when fatigue turned frozen limbs to icy lead. To stop, to rest, to sleep was to dream, and the dreams…

The squirrel’s eyes closed tight and she shivered with a chill that had nothing to do with the northland autumn. She would not sleep. She would not dream. She would not remember!

One paw in front of the next, eyes on the ground, keep moving, don’t stop, don’t rest. Memory drove her onward, demons nipping at her heels, pushing her past exhaustion to mindless automation. Next paw forward, down. Time, distance, cold—all lost meaning, melding into endless numbness…

…until an unnoticed stone caught her dragging paws and sent her sprawling, a marionette whose strings had been cut.

The last bit of endurance that had kept the squirrel plodding through the tundra fled. She didn’t stir, fatigue weighing her entire body into the frozen earth, making movement impossible. 

Rest…

A whispered thought in her dulled mind, laborious just to think the single word. A stubborn thread of fear curled about her consciousness, insisting she shouldn’t let sleep overtake her…

…but she was too tired to care. Exhaustion weighted her eyelids down, darkness enveloping her mind before she even closed her eyes.

Too tired to resist sleep. Not too tired to dream.

Music drifted from the void, and something within responded. Music—she remembered the joy it once brought, the delight, lifting her clear voice in song, soaring soprano above her mother’s harmonizing alto. It brought forth memory of comfort, of happiness, and she moved towards it, floating through the night on dreamthought.

Her mother’s voice, low and rich, singing the gentle lullaby she’d written for her daughter. And now she stood before Shira, lit by golden sunlight, a beacon in the darkness. "Sing with me, Shirili," she said, her voice somehow still carrying the lullaby’s melody.

Shira’s mouth opened but no sound came forth, no music formed within her mind. I… can’t…

Sadness crossed her mother’s face, kindled dark in her expressive eyes. "Shirili…"

The lullaby changed, quickened, sped to a tempo that forced paws into dance. Shira turned in the void like a planet on its axis as her mother’s glow dimmed with sudden distance. Darkness enveloped the squirrel once more as she hurtled towards another light, a flame whirling in the distance, lighting leaping through the void.
 

The flames coalesced into a squirrel, a lithe dancer, purest energy and grace. He whirled, leapt, tumbled, letting the music flow through him, around him, become him… His laughing eyes, alight with life, fell up on Shira then and he drew nearer, every movement part of the whirlwind dance.

"Little Lunshea!" A smile flashed across the nutbrown face and he held out a paw. "Dance with me?"

Time froze, her father turned to stone, paw still outstretched. Dance… She remembered the thrill of letting sound overtake motion, remembered whirling in breathless dance, a physical manifestation of music, motion for the sheer joy of it…and yet she remained still, unable to accept the paw, unable to accept the dance.

Time resumed its course. Her father shook his head sadly, set off into dance as the music turned soft, slow, shifted to a haunting minor key. "You haven’t danced with me much at all lately, Lunshea…" His movements joined the music in expressing melancholy… regret? "You’ve been spending all your time with that rogue Furis. I wish you wouldn’t—he’s…"

"...fun, and interesting, and not nearly so dull as this little village!"

Her voice, and suddenly she was looking down at herself—a version of herself without the deadened eyes, the stilled tongue. No… A pleading cry, protest against the replay of memory, and completely useless. No, don’t; listen to Father, please…

A sigh from the older squirrel, light brown gaze turning away from the squirrelmaid with arms and legs akimbo whose eyes flashed fiery defiance. "I don’t want you hurt."

"Furis wouldn’t hurt me!" Insistent, angry. "Why can’t you understand? Just because he borrows things—"

Her father’s eyes narrowed, the normally carefree dancer transformed into a protective parent. "Call it by its name, Lunshea. He’s a no good thief who’ll never set down roots and he’ll steal more than just pies and trinkets. He’ll steal your heart and he’ll break it and then…" His countenance softened, saddened, concern clear in the angular features. "…where will my spirited dancer be then?"

She looked away, not meeting his gaze, stubbornness written all over her. "I like him. He’s fun. He’s smart. He knows things other than music and dancing. And he’s been places, more than just this little nowhere town."

"…you were happy enough here before he came." Soft, almost hesitant. Afraid?

"Maybe I just didn’t know enough about the outside world before he came." The obstinate set to the memory-Shira’s jaw brooked no further argument. She’d not change her mind, not on this matter. "Can I go now?"

The dancer closed his eyes against the pang of loss, of losing his daughter’s admiration and trust and close companionship. "Yes, you can go."

She didn’t even notice the pain in his soft voice, or if she did then she didn’t show it. The young squirrelmaid turned on her heel, anger stiffening her shoulders, and stalked away into the void.

No…! Can’t you see he’s worried about you, he loves you, he knows more about otherbeasts than you! Don’t go to Furis, please don’t go to Furis…

…but her tormented thoughts went unheard by her relentless memory, and the song continued, grieving for the inevitable.
 

"Shirili Lunshea… A beautiful name."

A dashing squirrel stretched out on the grass, propped up on one elbow, amber gaze fixed on Shira’s face. He was handsome in a roguish way, a beret perched jauntily over one ginger-red ear. His smile was a match for his devil-may-care manner, irresistible to a squirrelmaid growing up with nobeast but farmers for companionship.

But it was the memory-Shira once more, sitting on a flat rock, charmed by the wandering thief. The dream-Shira could only stand apart, watching, helpless, fearful. Anguished…

"It means ‘my song.’ Shirili does, anyway." She felt inarticulate next to the smooth, worldly rogue, but he listened with such attentive interest that it hardly mattered. "Though most people call me ‘Shira,’ that just means ‘song.’ Lunshea’s what my da calls me. It means ‘moon fairy.’" Her own dark eyes shifted away, to the sliver of moon in the sky, embarrassment preventing eye contact. "Silly, I know… I think they named me for my mark." One paw rubbed the silver crescent across her nose ruefully.

"Oh, no." The thief smiled, his tone easing embarrassment into self-consciousness. "I think it’s a very pretty name, and it fits you quite well. You dance like I believe a moon fairy might."

She could feel her face growing warm. "Er… I…" Breathe, Shira. She drew in air, long and deep like when she had a song to sing, calming butterflies and blowing away the stammer. "Thank you, Furis."

"May I call you Shirili?"

Blankness enveloped her mind, surprise at the request. Shirili was a rather personal name, used mostly by her mother; she didn’t think she belonged to anyone. Only her mother had the right to call her that. To everyone else she was just… a song. Shira.

Furis must have sensed her hesitation. "I can just call you Shira if you prefer… but Shirili has so much more music about it, fits you far better, and you are a song I carry within my heart… I’d like it if I could call you my song. My inspiration."

If it were a song somebeast had written, Shira would immediately dismiss it as terrible—but it was not a song, and Shira was thinking anything but good songcrafting at the moment. Her eyes widened more than they had at his initial request and finally she nodded, slow and wondrous. "I—yes. Yes, I’d like that."

The night wore on in chatter, time spinning forward, night to dawn to dusk to night again and again, days whirling by with blinding speed as the grieving strains soared above it all.
 
 

Dream and memory fused, horror and fear mingling uneasily with laughter and thrill. She ran at the heels of a grinning Furis, not noticing or perhaps ignoring the cruel gleam in his eyes, the fear-crazed edge to his smile.

In the woods, new moon invisible, trees garbed in endless shadow. Advancing on her, still smiling, and she finally noticed the feral cast to the expression. Uncertainty eliminated the laughter in her eyes. "Furis? Is something…"

"Wrong? Na, na, nothin’ wrong." All elegance gone, gaining an almost vermin accent, voice harsh with fear not quite disguised by an empty laugh. "Just a horde comin’ this way. Th’ Nighthunt. E’er heard of ‘em, Shirili?"

Her eyes widened. "Horde? I—no, I’ve never heard—what…?"

"The Nighthunt. Expert fighters, merciless, an’ yer liddle village’s no match fer ‘em."

"But Byrne will fight, she’s a good warrior…" Shira grappled with the implications of the news. "And I’m bladetrained. Riala’ll fight too. And you’re here, you can fight, I know you can."

Another haunted laugh. "Shirili, Shirili, so innocent, so naïve…" His voice smoothed into a caress but with a whisper of a taunt. "I’ve lived alone ‘cos I ain’t a hero. A horde like th’ Nighthunt, ain’t nothing te do but run." The usual roguish grin twisted into a smirk. "I’m a thief, Shirili. Not a hero."

"But…"

"A thief. An expert thief." He drew her into an embrace that she was too stunned to resist. "I steal more’n sweets an’ treasures, you see… an’ yer an easy bit te steal."

Shock coursed through her; she stiffened in Furis’s arms. "You’re… you’re going to kidnap me?"

He chuckled at that, genuinely amused. "Na, I’m not so foolish as that. I’m goin’ te steal somethin’ far more…rewarding…"

No…!

Drawing back, realization dawning, but the wiry thief’s arms were a cage and all her martial learning fled her mind from the consuming fear.

Don’t touch me…

Knowing it’s nightmare, knowing it’s only memory but unable to wake, unable to tear away from the scene, unable to resist.

Leave me alone!

Caught in the nightmare memory, forced to relive every shame, every pain, every moment. Helpless…

Leave… me… be…

A whimper as the useless screams wore themselves down into sobs, as she curled into a miserable ball of blood and sweat and tears, as he rose, caressed with a calloused paw. Flinching away and he laughed at her revulsion, her fear, her pain.

…no…

Staring mindless, soulless, broken. Not hearing, scarcely caring as he turned, as his footpaws crunched away in the autumn leaves, fading to silence.
 

The music surrounding her huddled form changed again as the scene dissipated into the void, leaving naught but memory whirling through a series of images and words. Her mother, staring in shocked concern when she stumbled into the village, bleeding and battered and silent. Her father, seeing that Furis was gone, guessing that the two young squirrels had been attacked by the Nighthunt, assuming Furis had been captured or killed. The villagers, mourning the death of the thief they deemed a hero for protecting their Shira.

Herself… sitting silent wherever she was placed, staring into nothing, locked into an endless cycle of memory. The music—gone. The dance—gone. All life, all spirit—stolen from her by an expert thief.

Not eating, not bathing, not moving, not speaking. Fearing sleep, for sleep brought nightmare, forcing her to relive that night again…and again…and again…
 

She would have died. Would have been happy to waste away to a ghost but her parents wouldn’t let her, forced food down her throat, tried all they knew to bring back the carefree Shirili, the exuberant Lunshea. No success. She remained silent, dead to the world.

Until her mother spoke prophecy.

The gentle bardess reappeared in the void of dreams, pinpoint starlight expanding in an eyeblink to a squirrel-shaped glow, eyes wide and staring in the thrall of prophecy, mouth moving in a sing-song chant. Dancer—who stole your life? Singer—who stole your song?
 
 

Silent still, she took up her sword.

Silent still, she donned traveler’s garb.

Silent still, she walked to the village border, gazed to the north.

Her parents found her there, stopped at the light of purpose in her still-lifeless gaze, and then the silence cracked with the blow of a single word.

"Farewell."

They let her go.
 
 

The void released her, the memories faded to murmurs in her mind, and sunlight pulled her to consciousness. She drew in a deep breath of crisp northland air, cleansing after the night of memory and nightmare and torment. The squirrel rose, shook off lingering fatigue, and set her face to the north once again. The wind, lessened to a breeze, swirled about her with the echo of a sing-song chant on its back, the whisper of a melody. Shira Shadowdance closed her eyes, nodded in slow acceptance, and set off to the towering stone building on the dawn touched horizon.