Shen sat facing the chill wind upon his heels. The tops of his ankles, long numb now, pressed hard against the ever-cool earth. The dry soil and rough grasses offered their scents from the ground before him, his hands flat upon it between his spread knees. His posture - the straightened arms and back, level head, tail straight behind him held along the ground - spoke of his tranquil state, one of peace and of listening.

The quiet land gave much to hear. The wind spirits endlessly pushed the air from the dark and distant mountains across the wide plains. Upon it came the music of rushing grasses, hushly roaming beasts, and sacred running water. Even the whispers of the passing winds themselves, and the secrets of the lands over which they'd passed, could come to the quietest mind. For the truly listening heart, the song held boundless love, given unaskingly: a gift of the dance between the wandering spirits and the sky from which all, even they, were made.

The tips of Shen's sharp ears tingled in the cold, and he smiled slightly. The sensation, like the hard cold ground beneath him, the salty smell of the tears drawn to his temples from narrowed eyes, and the gently-suppressed shivers racing beneath his thick naked skin, was never discomforting, but even often exhilerating. This time, it seemed, the winds' touches were sweeter still.

Through watery dark eyes he lost his gaze to the horizon, the heavy grey ripples of clouds hanging infinitely over it, the bright pale yellow-white of the autumn grasses rolling toward him like the waves of a great golden ocean. All too soon, the freezing winter rains would come to push the broken shards of grass into the soil, and long there they'd be held in wet darkness, until the blue and white skies of spring drew them up again, new, green and fresh.

How blessed was this moment, this fragment of the short autumn. He lost himself in it...

Far below and behind him disappears his village, long and low amidst the high stalks of bamboo that endlessly line the wide meandering river of their plain. Within, his father's people, his people, make steadily their preparations for the rains. A large man shoulders a bundle of bamboo dried nearly to the color of his own greenish-tan skin, while a little silver-maned girl holds fast his long tail and follows behind. In woven huts nearby elder grandmothers weave and sew the soaked thatches into mats, clothing and baskets, creasing the thick bamboo with strong hands and splitting it with age-worn canines. Amidst the bamboo pale green and tan children duck and chase, some testing their thin stripes for hiding, all of them drinking up what remains of the autumn under dark skies. By the river a young man and woman steal a moment together before raising their basket of water from the current and drawing it up into the trails above.

He felt his body vanish for a moment, and therein came a rare but familiar feeling. He drew the air into him, and he felt the spirits whisper something to his soul. The rains were coming. Just over the mountains tonight the first of them would come, rising the river, marking winter's tide. He could almost see them in his mind's eye, roaring down the passes, carrying floods of red and gold leaves from the heights of the dark range down to wander the span of the plains, bringing the time where long-gone green passes through gold and into grey. He could almost dream that he heard the whispers, like his grandmother used to, of wind spirits roaring around and through him, bringing him visions, showing him distant lands and loved ones through their eyes. He dreamt they could carry to him his mother's words from wherever she had gone, deep in the places where her world-wandering people were said to go...

"Shenrakari... you are more..."

"Shenrakari!"

Nari's clear voice cut clear through the layers of wind to reach him, and his body returned to his attention, numb and shivering, though whether with cold he could not tell.

"Shen?", she asked, this time from closer behind him.

"Here, Nari," he spoke softly through a dry throat.

He knew her without turning, if not by her voice alone, by the way she called him first by his full name. He loved that about her, the way she spoke his name as if she loved saying it.

She'd recognized him, no doubt, well before her approach. His near-black mane stretching down his back and over his shortish tail was, like his dark eyes, a unique color he'd been given by his mother.

He slowly unfroze each of his limbs with slight motion and struggled against the numbness to rise to his feet and turn to her. He looked over her young form through clearing eyes. Her grey-gold mane and light skin shone out from her dark dress, and her dark markings and long tail were distinct from his own, both traits thinned by his mother's blood.

"Goodness, put something ON, Shen," she said, throwing him his woven loincloth and failing to conceal wandering eyes and a smile, "you look white with cold."

"Thank you," he spoke again, in his characteristic low and level tone, drawing his clothes over his tall form. "The rains are coming. Tonight."

"I know, Shen. The others have heard it, too." She offered a hand. "Come, it's growing late."

She led him over the rough ground down toward the wide ribbon of bamboo forest along the river, Shen shaking off the biting sensation in his limbs as their numbness subsided.

"You seem quiet. Is all well?"

"Yes, Nari," he answered plainly, "my parhen was deep. A welcome visit to end the autumn."

"It is said the winter will be long this year. I've felt so myself, a bit."

"I am not sure how I feel. This winter brings... change. Something different for me. That is all I can discern."

She paused for a moment by the bamboo's edge. "Do you fear for our harvest or stores? Or for our bretheren in the grasses and trees?"

"No, oddly, not at all this winter." His tone was contemplative. "No, there is no fear in it, in and of itself. It is something personal, direct. My only fear is of my unknowing of it."

"Shen," she placed a hand over his heart, "Parhen vitan. If there is no fear in it, then there is truly no cause for any. Do not put it there yourself."

"I know," he replied, "there is not much. But the last of it is always the most difficult."

Nari smiled silently. They turned and disappeared into the bamboo, making for the village nestled within.