Adammair Walker

Adam watched the squirrel warily.

The little animal was the exact color of snow the second day fallen, a jaundiced ivory that was both beautiful and yet suggestive of something not quite pure. Its black, beady eyes regarded him in return with unfathomable emotion from its nest in the corner of the bedroom.

Alraune had already taken the little demon to her heart and Adam had to admit that the pale silk of its fur lay beautifully against the dark luster of her skin when she cradled it to her bare chest.

There was a painting for Reywal if he ever returned: seductress with squirrel.

Of course Adam would never harm the creature and he hoped, at best, that he and Pearl might find some mutual understanding that involved, on Adam’s part, the beast not being rendered down for pie filling and, on Pearl’s, the sanctity of sandal leather and a resolute desire only to poop outdoors.

The duke had meant well. Any suspicion that the gift had been a ploy intended mainly to discomfort Adam must surely be dismissed as unfair. Surely.

And if the creature fulfilled any maternal instinct Alraune might have, well then, so much the better. With half the women in the world suddenly fertile unto bursting, he needed all the insurance he could find that fatherhood would be a condition deferred indefinitely.

Tentatively, Adam put out his hand with a bit of corn in it, a peace offering to his new housemate. Pearl looked skeptical, tail twitching in nervous bursts, like white smoke from a hidden flame and scampered a few feet closer.

He was struck with a sudden memory of a world long ago and far away, another life, when he had been a boy in the blighted land on the other side of dreams.

A wolf cub, wild as un-dammed floodwaters, its spirit visible in the ripple of its young muscle, the twitch of its ears, attuned to sounds no man would ever hear, and Adam’s hand stretched out, the first gesture in a dance that would end with the gentling of dragons.

He felt a welling of emotion in his chest that had nothing to do with the adorable little creature who had begun nibbling corn from the palm of his hand, memory and a sense of loss and then a realization that he could do it again, learn the ways of animals and make them his allies and comrades, one soul at a time, one precious life.

He smiled down at Pearl, amazed at the gift the Duke had unwittingly given him, grateful for the sudden sense of purpose and renewal.

Then the damned squirrel bit him hard on the thumb and ran chittering back to her corner, sounding for all the world as though she were laughing.

__________________