So, here's the second chapter, as you're probably aware.

I've delivered it on time and there will be a chapter three, though I have no idea when I'll have it finished; there are some sequences in it that are hard to write.

As always, enjoy; feedback is appreciated.

Michaela thought that the humans having a location outside of town clearly labeled "Tie your slaves here!" was slightly odd, but then again, weren't the humans an odd people? Curt had marched her straight past it, whispering again that she'd never be a slave if he had any say in it. They rapidly found out that the slave tie-up wasn't a courtesy extended by the townspeople; you had to tie your slaves up there. Curt, however, had been clever. She recalled him yelling at the fat Templar who served as the town's sheriff,

"She has a control spell! I tell her not to leave, she won't leave! I will not buy your overpriced rope to do something I don't have to!" Curt was leaning over the little man, right in his face, the veins on his forehead throbbing as he shouted.

"Do you want to go into town or not?" the sheriff had yelled right back.

"Do you want me to spend my money on taxes that will end up on your paycheck or not? I can walk a few more miles, it don't bug me," he had said, pushing a finger into the sheriff's shoulder on the word 'your.' The sheriff had let her stay there, untied, and let Curt go into town.

Curt had told her that he'd hurry, but she stood with the other slaves—no, stood with slaves, she was no longer a slave—looking for Curt an hour later.

Finally, she saw him walking slowly out of town, a new pack with a wooden frame on his back, the larger black thing in his hands. He never even stopped as he walked by her, "C'mon, Michaela. Let's get out of this stupid place."

Acting like she was suddenly released by the control spell, she took off with him, at an even faster pace than he normally took, something Michaela took as a sign of his irritation.

"What happened?" she asked timidly.

"They're a bunch of bloody robbers!" Curt practically screamed back at her.

"Calm down, I can practically smell the anger," she said, trying to sound calm herself.

"Right, sorry," he said, lowering his voice and slowing down a little, "We'll get my pack and get out of here."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." She noticed that the spicy scent she'd smelled on Curt was fading slowly. She didn't know that a person's scent could go away. Actually, she'd been told that only magic could mask a scent, but didn't it make the scent go away completely and immediately? Humans are strange enough, Michaela thought, why'd I have to go and start liking the strangest one of them all?

They got back up to where Curt had his other pack hidden. He dug in the bushes for a second and retrieved it. He sat it and the new pack with a wooden frame beside each other, carefully transferring contents between them, organizing neatly. When he came to a certain pocket on the new pack, he stopped, "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I got this for you," he said and pulled the item out of the pack, handing it to her while hiding it with his large hands for as long as he could. Michaela guessed that he'd used the technique before.

Unable to wait any longer, she finally just grabbed his hands and pulled them apart, causing him to grin widely and revealing the little hairbrush he held.

She was unable to resist the urge and practically tackled him with a hug, licking his face. Realizing what she' done, she stopped, jerked off of him and covered her muzzle with both hands, shocked at how she'd been unable to resist both urges.

He laid there in shock for a couple of seconds and Michaela feared the worst—at least until he broke out laughing. She loosened her hands off her muzzle and cocked her head, "What's so funny?"

"Here I am complaining about my situation, when I'm about the luckiest man to ever come from my planet."

She shook her head slightly, "What?"

"Here I am grumbling and complaining about getting thrown out into a new world that I've no knowledge of, and I don't realize how great it really is."

Michaela didn't understand at all. She thought that he didn't like her, that he was only with her because of the promise he'd made. Had she read too much into his words and actions?

"You don't follow, do you? No, I don't blame you, it ain't very obvious. I'm lucky because I've got a beautiful girl who likes me (imagine that, liking me) and is as happy as a dog is every time she sees me. I've always thought that mankind could learn from a dog's love; always happy to see you, no matter how long it'd been."

Michaela stared at him in disbelief... "Wait a second... Did you visit the tavern?"

"Let's just say yes..."

She sniffed him, especially his face. "That's the first time I've ever seen anyone lie to say that they were drunk when they weren't."

"What the heck is wrong with me?" Curt muttered as he stood up.

"You saw the light?" Michaela said hopefully.

He smiled warmly, "Maybe. Maybe."

Michaela heard a rustle in the woods behind her. An ear shot up and rotated itself in the direction automatically.

"You hear something?" Curt whispered.

"Yeah."

He quickly shifted so he held the black thing where the larger end was up against his shoulder, the smaller circular end pointed into the forest where her ear pointed. "Who goes there?" he shouted and motioned for Michaela to get down. His form was odd, but it seemed very much like combat forms she'd seen soldiers use, right leg straight out behind him, left leg with a bent knee, his back straight, his whole form bent forward slightly at the hip. "Don't make me start making fire randomly out there. Come out, hands where I can see 'em!"

Curt didn't know magic. Good bluffer, Michaela thought.

"I don't think so," came the reply from a voice clearly her former master's.

Curt shrugged, breaking his rigid form for half a second. "Very well. Michaela, cover your ears. This thing is loud." He used his thumb to flip a little switch she'd never noticed on the thing before as she held her ears against her head as tightly as she could. Suddenly, he pulled back with his right forefinger and fire leapt from the front of the thing. Possibly the loudest noise Michaela had ever heard came from the thing alongside the fire.

Pain bolted through her ears and she fell on the ground, curled up, holding her head tightly as the noise kept repeating over and over again. She felt the pain tear through her in waves each time Curt made the thing spit fire. Tears poured from her eyes. Why was he torturing her like this? The fire didn't reach where her master was; it only went a foot in front of the black thing! She screamed in agony.

The noise stopped. Curt ran over to where she was, dropping the black thing and wrapping her in a hug. "I'm so sorry, Michaela! I know that hurt." He paused, still holding her tightly, before pulling his head where she could see his evil grin. "I got the sorry abusive drunkard, though."

She returned the hug in full. "It was worth it, then," she said lowly, though her ears still reminded her that she wasn't fully sure it was worth it. The pain subsided and she was able to think straight again. "But how? What is that?"

"Long story. We call it a 'gun.' That one that I just fired is called a rifle or a long gun, the one on my hip is usually called a pistol. What it does is fling a projectile, kinda like a little metal arrow, at hundreds of feet per second. My long gun's bullets (that's what we call the projectiles) go faster than the speed of sound."

"Is it magic?" She asked, confused. Magic could be used to make arrows fly faster and straighter. Was that how this... Gun worked?

"I've already told you, I have no magic. It's a chemical reaction, kinda like matches. Now, let's go see if he's still alive," he said, offering her a hand to stand up.

She took it, noting again the courtesy Curt always gave her. Hehe, courtesy Curt, courtesy Curt, curtsy Curt...

They came to where her former master laid, breathing heavily. Michaela smelled the iron stench of blood very strongly, and noted the lack of alcohol on him, which was unusual. She grinned toothily, which looked evil with her fangs. "Hello, former master. You never let us call you by your name. Doesn't matter now, does it? Look who's the master now. I may not know your name, but you know mine. And right now, it's 'master.'" His stubborn pride kept him from begging her to heal him as his life slipped away.

"Alright, let's get out of here. It's only a matter of time before the people in that freaking town hear the shots and come running up here to find this," Curt said, rushing her back to the bags. He quickly wadded up his old bag and threw it in the new one, which he slung on his back before he took off running, dragging Michaela with him. "I have an idea. C'mon," he said, almost as though he wasn't dragging her. She didn't think that his usual charm and courtesy were fading; he knew what to do in such a sticky situation. Michaela sure as heck didn't.

She ran behind him and crouched behind a set of bushes in the forest with him. They were deep in the forest, a long ways from the body, but she could barely see it as the townspeople came running up the hill. They found the body and some started fanning out through the forest while others went back to the town, no doubt to get dogs or Keidran to track down the murderer.

"Alright, we need to walk back along the exact path of our previous scents so it looks like we hadn't been there before, lead the way," Curt whispered to her.

"But they'll see us!"

"Walking up ten minutes after it happened. See the beauty of it?"

Michaela did. If the others were going to find their scent anyhow, it might as well of been as they walked up, making it look like they were coming to look after they heard the noise, shots, Curt had called them. So, she led the way, following their scents from before. She noticed that Curt's scent had changed drastically, too. It now smelled like a normal humans'—it was still his own, but normal, not like the otherworldly spice from when she first met him. What caused that? She decided that she would have to ask Curt when they got out of the situation in which they were currently stuck.

They came upon the clearing. "What happened? I heard something," Curt said, actually sounding very shocked to Michaela's ears.

One of the people from the town replied, "We've had a murder. A slave trader from outside of the village was killed by some kind of magic we've never seen. Wait, you've got a Keidran? Get it to find the scent of the murderer, if it can."

"She's a she, not an it, and go on, Michaela. See if you can find who committed this... atrocity. Take us to the body, maybe she can smell it better there," Curt said. The man from the town was a little surprised by the first sentence, but forgot about it by the third and led the way. They arrived at the body.

Michaela dutifully stooped beside the body and sniffed it up and down. She couldn't find any of their scent on the body itself, which made her let out a sigh of relief. She shook her head, "Nothing on it, nothing around it."

"Must've been some kind of long-range spell," the man from town muttered. He looked to Michaela. "You smell anything out of the ordinary around here, then?"

She stood up and walked around the area (especially where Curt's bags had been, their scent was strong there), sampling the air with her nose. It was all a show, she knew, but she kind of got into it. "Nothing that I can tell."

The man from the town and several people that had gathered around the only Keidran in the area shook their heads or made murmurs of discontent. "Can we trust her? She's a bloody Keidran!" One of them shouted.

"I made the control spell myself," Curt said. "It makes her always tell the truth." Darn good liar, Michaela thought.

The first man from the town nodded. "Okay, then." He scratched his beard. "They must've hid their scent using magic... Only assassins should know how to do that. Why would an assassin want to kill a slave trader who doesn't really bother anyone?"

"He bothers Keidran," Michaela said. Everyone stared at her. "There are Keidran assassins, you know?"

The man with a beard looked at Curt, "You should teach her to keep her mouth shut when she doesn't need to open it."

Curt shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. You know, she has a good point; you shouldn't discard it just because of who she is."

Many of the people from the town broke out laughing. "New here, ain't you?" called the same one that had questioned Michaela's accountability.

"Yes. What problem do you have with her theory? It stands to reason that a slave trader would be a target for Keidran assassins."

"Do you think that they could've made their way this far into human territory? You're out of your bloody mind! We're twenty miles from their border!"

Curt shrugged. "Well, then, let's leave, Michaela. It seems that our usefulness here has ended."

She nodded and came with him as they marched south, towards her home. They arrived at another forest about half a mile on the other side of the town. Curt shook his head as they entered them. "What is it?" Michaela asked.

"So that's how they treat y'all, huh?" He shook his head again. "That's horrible."

"You get used to it."

"Nothing either of us can do about it, I don't guess," Curt muttered.

Michaela caught a good whiff of his scent and guessed it was his true scent, after the spicy one wore off. She shook off the mental fog, "No, there isn't. I suppose I was getting too used to being treated like a person by you. I forgot that I'm still just a Keidran."

"Just a Keidran? Just a Keidran?" he said, staying just below screaming. "You are not just anything. You are as much a person as I. Haven't you seen that by now? I'm not treating you specially. I'm treating you like I would any human."

"Any human female," she corrected. "Yeah, I guess you're right, though. When you get told that you're something enough, you start thinking that you are that."

He blushed a little, which was easy to see on a human, but he nodded. He pulled a strange looking compass out of a side pouch on the pack, checking their direction and re-orienting them properly south. "Forgot I had this," he muttered, motioning to the compass as he returned it to his pack, "I had been using the sun."

They walked for a long while in silence, Michaela submerged in her thoughts, many of them centered on Curt, who she assumed was in deep thought himself. She wondered what he thought about. "It's really a beautiful day, though, isn't it?" Michaela finally asked, not able to stay in such gripping silence for so long.

Curt looked up and around him, "Too cold for me, to be honest with you," he said.

"Even now? It won't be dark for a few more hours."

"Yeah. Same as my gun was loud to you but didn't bug me."

She stood an ear up fully. "That's because I have these big things," she motioned to it, "You've but small ones."

"I was also right by it, but that's another argument for another time. That did remind me of something, though."

"Oh, did it, now? You're good at avoiding arguments," she said playfully, grinning.

"I've had plenty of practice, believe me you. There's a little pocket on the bottom left side of the pack. Open it, there's a pair of headph... You wouldn't know what headphones are, would you? Uhh... There's only three things in that pouch. One's a folded up canvas tarp, the other's a pair of binoculars... You don't know what those are, either, do you?"

Michaela stared at him blankly. What did he want her to do?

"There's two things in there you don't recognize. Give me both of them," he finally said.

She giggled, opened the pocket and grabbed them, handing them to him. He looked at them for a second and handed her one of them with the words, "Put these back in the pack." She did so. He stopped walking, saying, "C'mere." She walked a little closer to him, facing him. He used one hand to lay her ears down. "Next time I have to fire my gun, put these on." He took the 'headphones,' two large circles attached by a band that looped over them, and pushed them down the sides of her head, down until they covered most of her ears. She could hear her heartbeat, but, she suddenly realized, she couldn't hear anything around her anywhere near as good.

She smiled, so he was thinking of me, too, huh? "Thank you. You've got no idea what it means." She paused and hugged him, hoping he'd take it. He did, but she noticed that his eyes were closed. "Your eyes are closed," she said.

He chuckled, "I didn't want you to lick me in the eye again."

She licked him on the cheek, "That better?"

"Much. C'mon, we'll only go until we get to a good place to camp today," he said, waving her on.

"Why?" She said as she took the silly headphones off and put them in one of the pockets of the jacket Curt had lent her.

"For one, I'm tired. For two, it may be difficult to find a proper place to camp with this tent and a good place to bathe."

"Bathe?"

"Yousmell like a dog. Ismell like a sweaty human."

She laughed, "Fair enough," and picked up the pace.

"In a hurry, are we? You're walking about as fast as I usually do," he said, matching her pace.

Michaela started walking faster.

"What's the rush? I'm an old man!" he called after her, though she noted that he was hurrying up, too. She giggled and started running. "Oh, now that ain't even fair," he muttered.

What was that funny word he always used? Michaela grinned, "Y'all ain't soft where you come from, are y'all?"

"Alright, you asked for it!" he yelled and took off running. She ran ahead of him. She looked behind her and realized that he could keep up with her. Actually, not only could he keep up with her, he could outrun her. She ran as fast as she could, panting heavily, her thighs burning, but there he was, right on her tail (literally, he grabbed it playfully). He picked her up and suspended her over his shoulders. She looked at him, shaking her head. How'd he do that? She noticed that he was still running.

"Gosh, we're worse than an old married couple," she muttered.

"That a good thing or a bad thing?" he asked, looking to his left, where her head hung.

She rolled her eyes. "If you'll let me down, it'll be a good thing." He stopped and put her down with him now breathing heavily. She could hear his heartbeat from a few feet away, still strong and clear. She smiled. "Definitely a good thing." She leaned up to kiss him, in the human manner this time.

He rapidly turned around, "Oh, look, this'll make a good campsite."

She let out a growl of anger. "Now it's a bad thing!" she called after him. He pretended to ignore her, but she saw his smile widen. She breathed a sigh, rolled her eyes and started walking.

He sat the pack down and pulled a sack out of it. "Tent," he explained. "There's a small creek over there, you can bathe there," he said and tossed her a bar of soap and a towel. "The merchant said that both humans and Keidran can use that kind," he said and motioned to the soap bar, "Not supposed to dry your fur."

She shrugged and started walking toward the creek. Maybe it would work. She couldn't remember the last time she'd bathed with real soap; usually, master (good riddance!) gave her water with nowhere near enough soap dissolved in it. He only did that much when she had fleas. Maybe that was why she liked Curt so much. Maybe she just liked him, too. Heck, she really didn't know. She shrugged, now was no time to worry about it. She removed the jacket Curt had given her and sat it and the towel on the top of the bank of the creek. She climbed down the three feet bank and into the water, only about three and a half feet deep, but crystal clear.

Curt sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. The tents in this place were old ones, not like the ones with collapsible poles and Gortex-coated rainflies that Curt could've set up with a blindfold. He hadn't set up a tent even remotely like the canvas and wood monster since his days in Boy Scouts. He had to remember his knots, that was for darn sure. He hounded the last stake into the ground, making sure the line was taunt as he did so. He let out another sigh, this time a sigh of relief. He undid his right and then left boots; he hadn't taken them off in a little less than two days. His socks were soaked with sweat and when he removed them he wasn't surprised to find blisters and calluses. You've violated every rule of hygiene and personal maintenance you've ever learned, you dolt! he thought. Had being with a new pretty girl distracted him that much? No, he decided, It was the stress. I didn't even think of it. At least this place seems to be getting better. He smiled. Michaela was the reason and he knew it, but he didn't mind. She was how much younger than him and he didn't mind? Now that thought scared him, until he realized that, without cellular regenerative therapy and the other technology that had kept him alive and young back home, he'd probably have a lifespan similar to Michaela's. He grimaced. That was a good thought and a bad one wrapped all together. He shrugged. Death was as much a part of life as life itself was.

He heard Michaela shake herself off down at the creek. He smiled. He couldn't believe how much she acted like a dog while still being a human in basically every other way. He had an even harder time believing how much he actually liked that. Curt had always been a dog person, he'd kept many good hunting dogs since he was a boy. But she wasn't a dog, was she? No, she was a Fox. A Fox Keidran, she'd called herself. He shrugged. He still liked her just fine.

She walked up the bank and dried off with the towel. "Your turn," she said, jerking a thumb at the creek. "The soap is on a rock. It works, by the way."

"Got it, thanks," he said, grabbed a change of clothes, his bath kit, a fresh towel, and walked down to the creek. Once down the bank, he removed his dirty clothes, reeking with sweat, grabbed the wash cloth from his bath kit, and cleaned himself. The water was a little shallow for the task, but he'd managed with less in Korea. The soap was actually good stuff and, along with the pack, map and hairbrush for Michaela, was one of the few things he hadn't been stiffed on in the town. He wished that he'd of included soap in his bath kit, but he figured that the base in China would have some. He shrugged. He had no way of preparing for the world he'd landed in. He chuckled to himself when he realized that he'd brought laundry detergent in his duffel bag. Laundry detergent, but no soap. Nice going, Curtis. He sighed. He'd always joked that the job was driving him crazy. He suddenly realized how right he may have been. Or maybe it was the death of my whole family, he thought. That was probably a more accurate assessment; he'd been obsessed with revenge when he packed his bag, why else would he've brought his long gun? There was no need for it. He sighed again, still washing himself. He couldn't help the past, but was he ever glad that he'd brought the rifle now. His pistol would have limited rounds and would leave shell casings. The long gun didn't produce casings, which had helped with escaping after killing Michaela's master; he hadn't needed to police the brass.

He finished washing, dried off, and put his clothes on. Suddenly, he realized that he'd forgotten to get a shirt or a jacket. He shrugged. He had his pants on. He walked over to the new pack and dug around for a shirt. He realized that they were still in his duffel bag, which he'd never finished unpacking thanks to having to run. He pulled the duffel bag out of the framed pack, unwadded it and pulled an olive drab T-shirt out. Michaela walked over, brushing her hair down. It looked pretty when she combed it down. Heck, she was pretty, period. What are you thinking, Curt? He asked himself. He shrugged imperceptibly to himself, deciding not to fight it and to enjoy it while he still could. "I've never seen a human shirtless," she said.

"I'm not the best example for my kind," he muttered.

"Why not?"

"I'm old, Michaela, I'm old."

"So y'all" -she still used the word awkwardly, but he liked it when she did- "have some fur on you, do you?" she said, motioning to his chest hair.

"I wouldn't call it fur," he said. "Too coarse."

She smiled, rubbing it, which felt weird, "Close enough."

"Alright, alright, settle down and let me get dressed," he said, looking down at her small frame.

"Fine," she said, rolled her eyes, and walked off, still brushing her fur. Curt walked over to the bank and grabbed the deodorant and body spray out of his bath kit. He applied both and put the T-shirt on. He cleaned up the mess around the creek, re-packing everything. Michaela walked over, sniffing as she did so. "That spicy smell is back! It's really strong now!"

Curt looked at her. "Spicy smell? Oh, my body spray!"

"I like that! It smells so good. It's the scent I associate with you."

He smiled, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I'm glad you like it, then."

A few hours later, they sat on a log in front of the fire, Michaela leaning her head on his shoulder, just like the previous night. It was quiet except for the popping and crackling of the fire. Michaela looked up at him and quietly asked, "What did you do? Before you came here, I mean."

"I was a general."

"A general? I don't know much about the military, but I know that a general is powerful.

Yeah, I was. I lead an air command; like a large army in the air."

"Dragons?"

"No, you wouldn't get it if I explained. There are mechanical vehicles (think of it like a horse carriage) that fly, driven by humans where I come from. I commanded many hundreds of them. Before I commanded them, I was a pilot; I flew those flying machines. Before that, I was what they called 'pararescue.' If a pilot was shot down or stranded, it was my job to go rescue them. There were many times I had to do that in the middle of enemy territory."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Yeah, it was. At first, I would have to use a special one of those flying machines—we called it a helicopter—to go in where the pilots were. Then, we invented this thing we called a 'portal.' You just walked through it and it would take you anywhere on earth. I would come out five feet from the pilot I needed to rescue and then we'd jump back through the portal. That made it much less dangerous." Curt paused. "It wasn't until I went back through it thirty something years later that it messed up and sent me here."

"That's what put you here? The portal?"

"Yeah, it wasn't supposed to, but I'll be darned if I ain't glad that it did."

She smiled. "Me, too." One of her ears rotated towards the forest rapidly. She whispered, "I hear something. Several things. They can't be anything but people."

"Put the headphones on. This will probably get ugly."