Holds-the-Fire doesn't seem to have anticipated his reaction. She lowers the gun and phone fractionally, creamsicle stirring up around her edges.

That snaps Chester hard and cold into the moment. Her gold is bigger than magic, bigger even than the unicorns' mission—this is proof that other beings besides Chryssa-swamini have reached complete transcendence. She's a second enlightened master with emotions unachievable by mortals. Her aura intensity is nothing like the brilliance of the Holy Mother's, but that color doesn't lie.

And he's about to go two-for-two on disappointing them so much that they can't maintain transcendence in his unworthy, transgressive presence.

"Of course I'll help!" he shouts, urgently enough to startle the wolves. He flings himself desperately down toward Holds-the-Fire's feet, sending her skittering back orangely, and touches his forehead to the rock. "I'm so sorry, Swamini-ji, that it took me this long to recognize your perfection, I don't deserve your forgiveness but I beg it regardless, I shall dedicate the rest of my life to rectifying the error of this moment, the mantras have not yet been composed which can adequately express my regret—"

Human, her voice presses in against his babbling—and then again, with a burst of raw orange that shuts him up: HUMAN!

Chester whimpers and looks up. He's broken her. Peach and black and cream and orange, orange, orange, wolves baring teeth in the background and sidling backward, the entire pack on their feet and facing straight at him. She's in a half-crouch, on the edge of bolting, with an expression he suspects is a great deal like his.

… Too much? Then he's in uncharted territory. With the Holy Mother, that would have been an adequate start.

Chester swallows through a bone-dry throat and tries again. Much quieter. "I know I've already failed you, Swamini-ji," he says, "but I'll do whatever it takes. Please just deign to grace me with the honor of your transcendence again."

Holds-the-Fire's orange doesn't waver. What are you babbling about?

Okay. Breathe. Chester will have to do this on his own. He can salvage this. But not until he ratchets down the panic level.

How do you apologize in wolf? Is it playing dead? From old idle web browsing, he dimly remembers something about playing dead.

Chester slowly, deliberately, crouches, then flops over onto his back, going limp. He unfocuses his eyes, trying not to look at Holds-the-Fire—then realizes that, even if lack of eye contact is the correct play, he needs the feedback of his color sight too much. He risks turning his head toward her, seeing a frozen figure whose orange has drained away into a mad creamsicle swirl. Orange spikes anew at his movement, but it's just a momentary burst; for the most part she seems as utterly lost as he does.

… Okay, so not playing dead then. Was that for bears? Damn it, he always gets those two confused—

—wait, she's moving in. Circling him, orange-gray. Chester stays still, aside from tracking her with his eyes. Wait, are the other wolves moving in too? He can't see any other motion at the corner of his vision. But what if they are gathering just out of his vision, assuming that he really has perished? Are they going to start eating him? That would be the stupidest way to die—

Holds-the-Fire has reached his feet. Okay. Okay. Chester's pretty certain it's just her, and he needs to commit to the bit. He locks eyes with her, staying limp. She fidgets, her color finally settling in toward brown, and with that newfound resolve she crouches and approaches past his legs.

They eye each other for long moments. Then her brown strengthens, despite swirling threads of black uncertainty, and she leans in face-first toward his crotch—

Chester yelps in shock, sitting bolt upright, arms shooting downward protectively. Holds-the-Fire yips, bright peach, literally leaping backward. She lands rough, a leg slipping out from underneath her, and bounces down the boulder. Chester double-takes, and without thinking, flings himself after the enlightened girl in an effort to save her from a fall. Which just ends in him face-planting off the rock as she hits the ground at an angle and rolls with the impact.

The next few seconds are hazy with pain and dizziness. Chester's vision won't quite focus and his body isn't quite responding. But he's aware of a giant blue-gray form charging in, snarling, and Holds-the-Fire's skinny form interposing herself between them. She yaps sharply, flaring blue despite her own orange, and the massive wolf's color also echoes blue for a moment as he backs away. Then she turns and lunges at him, and he can feel her grip under his arms, and the world rights itself with a sickening lurch as she slams his back to the boulder. She's blazing orange and simmering red around her edges but it's hard to tell behind assaulting waves of a wordless blue. She is, somehow, battering him with an emotion she doesn't herself feel.

"You're trying to calm me down," he observes loopily, mouth on autopilot. Like last time, the blue is washing pleasantly at the edges of his mind, with no power to penetrate.

That seems to shock her back into speech. I'm trying to make you stop being strange! she screams at his mind, orange and red still clashing. But it doesn't work any more! She took that from me! She took everything! And I need more tools for my pack, I need to be HUMAN, but I can't make them work, and I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

That last bit coalesces into sharp, brutal yellow. Chester flinches.

Abruptly, Holds-the-Fire lets him go, then crumples down into a loose ball on the ground nearby. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, letting out a soft crooning howl, bleeding off yellow like a teakettle emitting steam as her aura washes toward a grief-stricken white.

Chester swivels his head around. The wolves are circling uncertainly. A few of them look downright unhappy—lips pulled back to reveal teeth—but none seem bold enough to get close to this absurd little psychodrama, not even the enormous blue-gray one from earlier.

Did he say uncharted territory? This isn't just off the map, it's in a different universe. A transcendent being needs help. His help.

Chester draws in and lets out a long breath. No pressure.

He slides his back down the rock, sitting down in place, keeping his legs bunched up to avoid intruding on her personal space as he assesses his approach. That's some ugly pain. He's seen plenty of it while recruiting for the Holy Mother; this, at least, he knows his way around. Normally, he'd be trying to mold it—kindle it, coax it toward green, and hand the prospect off. But with another transcendent being, what's the point? Holds-the-Fire doesn't need Chryssa-swamini; she already has enlightenment. She just needs a friend.

And frankly, Chester realizes, he feels a lot better about helping her through that pain than he does trying to shape it.

Either way, it starts with basic contact. "Hey," he says, reaching out a hand with palm upturned, putting it within her reach but far enough away to not be intrusive.

Holds-the-Fire doesn't look up, but her colors stir with orange and her body tenses. Chester, too, freezes; simple kindness might not be sufficient here. He's still the strange one, the human in a world of wolves; if that comedy of errors back on the boulder was any indication, they don't share any common context or language.

… Or do they?

Chester gathers his thoughts, the same way he did with Twilight back in the car. It's a lot easier, and feels a lot less silly, the second time. He's not certain of the exact boundaries of what can be sent through a mental link, but he visualizes a gentle, sympathetic prod to go along with a query:

Hey?

Holds-the-Fire's head jerks up, revealing wide eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Her white shatters into fragments of violet and peach (one of those surprises which you're entirely uncertain how to feel about). Those war for a moment, and violet wins: You… can crown-talk?

The term means nothing to him, but the context is clear enough. No, Chester thinks. But you can, and when you did it to me, that was enough to let me talk back. He gives her a smile—and then realizes a wolf might mistake that for baring teeth, and closes his lips. I'm not sure I can stop being strange, but maybe we can be weird together.

Holds-the-Fire is bursting with conflicting emotions now, but this time the preponderance is cool colors. You… heard the calming-command which did not work, earlier? she violet-says, and then there's flashes of faded yellow and hesitant blue: Since losing my crown, none but pack even know when I make the attempt.

Chester hesitates. Building rapport is good right now, but "Of course I can, because I can see emotional colors, because according to the magical talking unicorns, I'm this world's version of a changeling" is one of those truths that would lead to far more questions than answers. (Such as, "What's a changeling," and then he'd have to go into that whole love-eating shapeshifting bug thing, and ew.) But what else can he say? A dozen plausible answers could trivially find their way to his lips, but he doesn't have the heart to Chet Land his way through the conversation. This poor lass deserves him, not a sales pitch.

Not seeming to notice his inner turmoil, Holds-the-Fire slowly tilts her head, that tiny pool of blue intensifying and growing. She sniffles, and smears the back of her wrist across her cheeks.

I think this is another lesson I should have learned from the world of fire, she says slowly. The muddy orange of shame washes through her, with a paler orange underlying the blue as she reaches toward Chester's outstretched hand. You are comforting me like a packmate. You can hear my pack-calls. I should have treated you as pack.

Their hands touch. She rests hers atop his, fingers flat. Chester isn't certain whether he should clasp her hands, so he takes the safe option and responds in kind.

He sees a ripple of pastel-blue gratitude creep through Holds-the-Fire, but it fails to dislodge any of the other colors. Will you choose a pack-name?

I, uh, I'm Chester, he says.

Ches-ter, she echoes, as if rolling the name around in her mouth—and then momentarily suppresses her oranges to project a wave of cerulean out to the wolfpack, returned with a brief flash of collective trust. Our hunt is your hunt.

This feels like progress, but her own knot of orange isn't loosening. If anything, it's gradually building—a panic which, now that he's observing it, he has to make an effort not to share.

Chester deliberates for a moment, then goes for the direct approach. I can tell you're still scared, Chester says gently, trying to calm himself and project blue back, trying to hold still so he doesn't startle her again. Is it something I'm doing?

Holds-the-Fire fidgets—her last shreds of blue retreating into an unsteady cerulean as she fights a losing battle against the growing orange. Her eyes flick around, as if she's not even certain whether to meet his gaze or not. I still can't understand how you feel, she says. I thought that accepting you as pack would make it make sense. But your emotions are too different from a wolf's. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Chester blinks. You have color-sight?

Her reaction answers the question for him, because she jerks her hand back from his, orange blazing. Chester hasn't moved, and the question was as non-threatening as he could make it—he would estimate that he shifted to violet threaded with green. So it seems like she sensed that shift but had no idea of the new colors' interpretation, and is on an absolute hair-trigger right now.

He feels his heart quicken, mindful of the irony that he's battering her with new sensations again. No! It's okay! This is great! he quickly thinks. Me too! I can help you understand! What colors are you seeing?

Holds-the-Fire's orange softens and muddies, drawing out cream and… chartreuse?… no, but something close. Not jealousy but inadequacy?

She looks away, dipping her head and drawing her body in tighter. It is not color, she says. It is… skin-feel? But inside me. She's clearly flailing. Like… remembering the run of water without the wet, or rock-cool but not rock-hard, or the heat of sunshine, or the tickle of dust in the nose when the air is clean. Those are bad descriptions but there are no good ones.

Chester thinks for a moment. It's alright! he says. Maybe I can't teach you how to understand everyone, but I can teach you how to understand me. Like right now! He reaches out, snatching her hand again before she can react. I'm excited! This is a huge breakthrough! How do I feel?

Holds-the-Fire's orange spikes at the contact, but fades back into a paler worry, along with black and some cautious threads of violet. She fights to gather a blue that won't come, but manages at least to smooth out her palette. Slippery? she finally says. Prickly but not painful, in lots of places.

Is that what it feels like when you're excited yourself? Chester asks.

No. she says, not quite able to hold back the rose pink of disappointment. When I am excited, I just feel excited.

Chester has to think about that one. Okay, he says. I've watched you make your wolves feel emotions that you're not feeling yourself. Like the 'calming-command' you tried on me when we were both freaking out. What does THAT feel like? What sensations are you pushing outward?

Holds-the-Fire stirs violet, but quickly deflates into the black of uncertainty. I cannot describe it.

Then do it at me, Chester says.

It won't work, she counters, with a tinge of bitter yellow.

That's not important. Chester tries to calm himself and looks her in the eyes. Trust me for a minute.

Holds-the-Fire lets out a sharp breath, shakes her head, then stares back at him, settling her swirling emotions down to brown determination. She extracts her hand from Chester's grasp, points it at him with fingers spread, and then waves of blue are lapping gently over him.

It still has no power to penetrate him, but this time, Chester closes his eyes and immerses himself in the sensation, bathing in the blue like a swimmer in a lake. He's never practiced feeling artificial emotions as purely as this moment requires—with Esau, familiarity meant an approximation was good enough to carry meaning, on the occasions the situation benefited from silent communication—but he can use Holds-the-Fire's effect as a crutch. He tells himself that everything is going as it should. He takes a deliberate breath, long slow in, long slow out, and grounds himself in that effort for a moment, letting go of his thoughts. And while he's at it, he untightens his muscles and leans back against the boulder.

What now? Holds-the-Fire black-says.

Chester opens his eyes and stirs himself the minimum possible to respond. "Feel my emotions," he says languidly, because speech takes less focus than projecting back at her.

Holds-the-Fire stares at him. Then she sighs pinkly. It's different. You—wait. A sudden violet spike, which brightens as she studies him. There is a moment, after I command the pack to calm, when I know it has worked. You feel like that moment.

Chester sits up, excitement stirring anew (immediately breaking her test sample… oops). "I saw that too!" he says. "When you projected blue at your wolves, I saw a flash of blue go back toward you. That's why it feels the same!" Possibilities start blossoming, and he reaches for the low-hanging fruit. "I'm excited again! Tell your wolves to get excited! Compare me against that!"

She's already violet herself, and in a moment, there's a surging wave of it heading out from her. A vibrant echo returns from the pack as the wolves sit up, wagging their tails. Then Holds-the-Fire yips, color intensifying. Eureka!

The next ten minutes are an excited blur of comparison and discovery, as Chester makes himself feel a range of strong emotions for her. Orange is trivial (allow himself to contemplate how much trouble he's in after that phone call), as is cream (think of his inadequacies which have countless times caused him to disappoint the Holy Mother). Violet and blue they've covered; purple (think of the unstructured time in the ashram when he could retreat to his room and paint) and green (Chester's unrealistic but fervent yearning for transcendence) come easily. Black is profoundly uncomfortable (letting himself stew in his doubts about the Holy Mother), and he finally has to admit he's incapable of working himself into red, but he does at least manage a pink (thinking about how aggravating it was that Celestia and Sunset and Twilight wouldn't give the Holy Mother the benefit of the doubt).

Then Holds-the-Fire asks for pack-sense. He has to ask for a demonstration to realize that she's referring to the cerulean of trust. And he finds that that comes with shocking ease.

He just takes Holds-the-Fire's hands, stares into her eyes, and smiles.

It surprises some part of Chester that he can trust Holds-the-Fire without hesitation—this strange girl literally raised by wolves, who's a known gun thief and (according to the magical talking unicorns, at least) a villain who invaded and laid waste to Twilight's home. But how can that be true? She's enlightened. Chester saw Holds-the-Fire's golden glow with his own eyes. The others were wrong about the Holy Mother, too; maybe they're working off of awful intel, or… well, it seems ridiculous to think that their villain-fighting was the world's most perfect con-artist scam, but he has to at least consider the idea.

Plus, in the short time they've spent together, Holds-the-Fire has been refreshingly free of guile. He doesn't understand the wolf things she does, but she's not doing any of the human ones that force him into the endless, exhausting social dances of people without color-sight. She decided to trust him, and then he was part of the pack, and everything she's done since has felt genuinely aligned with that decision.

Even more importantly, they've connected. Holds-the-Fire is an amazingly quick study, and now that she's cracked his color code, she's reacting instantly and instinctively to him in a way that he didn't realize he was missing—such as projecting a wave of blue and interposing herself whenever one of the wolves gets too close and spooks him, before he even has a chance to panic. He hasn't had someone feel him at that deep, instinctive level since Esau stopped talking to him, and it's like stepping outside for a breath of fresh air after being trapped in a moldy room for years.

Holds-the-Fire, too, is relaxing. Now that she can read him, she's no longer holding back, and that background orange wariness has evaporated bit by bit. She's been echoing his enthusiasm, cool colors dominated by a violet excitement that feels incredible to share. And now that they're standing together hand in hand, with Chester projecting a trust they both know is relaxed and sincere, there's a rush of deep blue rapport as she stares up into his eyes. And then she, too, shades cerulean—with swirls of green, a spike in pale orange nervousness, and subtle threads of a gorgeous cyan matching her skin.

Her blues and greens brighten. Chester feels his heart flutter, too, and every color intensifies as they stare at each other, silently confirming their respective readings. It must be as intoxicating for her as it is for him, skipping the hedging and dancing and probing and landing directly in an intimate certainty of mutual trust.

Holds-the-Fire steps in, her hands sliding up his arms and coming to rest on his shoulders. Their faces are close enough for him to scent her breath, sweet and acrid over the earthy musk of her body. Orange fear creeps into her outline, but she smothers it in pastel blue—and rocks forward onto her toes, mouth slightly agape, her eyes bearing into his.

Chester stifles the inner voice screaming reproach at him. He knows exactly what the Holy Mother would say about this, but how can following the lead of another enlightened being be wrong? He just needs to not push the moment beyond the platonic intimacy of Holds-the-Fire's vibrant blues, and leave the problem of later moments for later.

He reflexively rests his hands lightly above Holds-the-Fire's hips, closes his eyes, and parts his lips for a kiss.

Then he flails, eyes shooting open, as her tongue slips deeply past his teeth and licks the roof of his mouth.

Author's Note

This isn't suddenly getting horny, I promise, it's actual wolf body language. (So was, uh, the other thing.) For as quickly as they've found common ground, Chester still has an awful lot to learn.

Tune in Wednesday, Aug. 14, for "Taking His Licks"!