Hearing a slight squeak of sorts and a few muttered words Diemos opened her eyes and glanced down to see a fox in a panic. Rolling her bright eyes she went back to closing them and taking a nap in her favorite tree. As if timed perfectly the panicked fox decided to bump into her tail causing Diemos to jolt awake. This further caused the small fluffy female to fall to the ground in a thud.<br /> <br /> "Ugh you imbi--"<br /> <br /> Diemos was going to continue until she set eyes upon the fox. He seemed to be in a rut and he was heaving his chest taking in big gulps of air.<br /> <br /> "Uhm, sir? Sir? Are you alright?"<br /> <br /> Chewing on her bottom lip, a nasty habit she had, Diemos watched with bright eyes as the male in front of her had a darn near mental break down. <i>What do I do now?</i> She thought to herself. Looking around the desert Diemos found nothing to aid her in this rather odd situation. Sighing she did the only rational thing she could think of, she smacked his muzzle.<br /> <br /> "Snap out of it boy."<br /> <br /> Her orange eyes turned dark with amusement as she watched the male before her. <i>I wonder who he is.</i> The thought ran through he head as a slight breeze ran through the two.<br /> <br /> "My name is Diemos, and you are?" She asked softly. It was a start right?

As he plodded on, nearing town but not quite at its borders, Dimitri began hearing...voices. Well, <i>a </i>voice. He'd known for a while that his sanity was likely to fall apart with all the...stress...he'd been going through, but this was a surprise! It sounded very real, but he couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from; the open desert surrounded by the red, rocky plateaus confused sound, making it dance around and echo until you couldn't tell if it was coming or going.<br /> <i>If sounds come and go</i>, he thought - quite clearly for someone going nuts, he noticed - with a frown. <i>I suppose they'd have to, considering you can hear 'em sometimes and then you ca-</i><br /> This trainwreck of thought came to a sudden and startling halt when the voice came from somewhere that sounded closer, although it wasn't very loud. Maybe it wasn't a trick of his overtaxed brain finally stripping its gears...flattening his ears to his head, he cast a quick glance around, suddenly sure that the voice's owner had snuck up on him, would in fact be right behind him!<br /> <br /> He spun to see nothing but open desert, of course, eyes wide and thin chest heaving almost comically. Backing up as a sudden wave of paranoia and near-panic overtook him, he began muttering under his breath.<br /> "I'm fine, I'm fine, it's okay, I'm fine." He went on in this manner continually. This was his mantra of sorts, just to calm himself, he knew he was okay, this was just an episode of-<br /> Then he backed into a...what was <i>that?!</i><br /> He turned, a small cry of fear and astonishment escaping, only to find he'd run into...a tail? Hanging from a tree? What new, fearsome trickery was this? And he was muttering again, suddenly sure he'd found a corpse hanging on that branch and he didn't want to look up at all, no, because what if <i>he was right?</i><br /> "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm okay..."

"What a beautiful night."<br /> <br /> A soft voice sounded from the trees on the outskirts of the town of Mesa Verde. Looking around you would think you were alone but glance up and squint your eyes a bit and you will find the source of that soft voice. If you were to by pass it and not think to look you would believe you were hearing a child but in reality you are hearing the voice of 24 year old Diemos. The small female wolf stood at a tiny 4 feet 8 inches tall at the ears but matched with a personality from Mesa Verde to the moon, she balanced herself pretty well. <br /> <br /> Clad in a simple pair of blue jeans and a white, rather revealing t shirt, the female didn't know much about conserving herself. Her dark charcoal fur contrasted greatly with the white and the contrast only furthered with her bright copper patches scattered throughout her fur. Bright orange eyes gleamed in the night as they glanced around the ground below and back of the sky again.<br /> <br /> "Ugh, must it be so muggy out?"<br /> <br /> Completely different from her first thought of the night but that was just who Diemos was. It really wasn't she just loved to complain about things, even if there was nothing to complain about. In the 4 years Diemos had been living in Mesa Verde she had complained about pretty much everything. Don't let that fool you though, she does it to hide what she is really trying to do. Diemos is trying to figure herself out. She may have moved here 4 years ago but that's it in her mind, everything before that is completely blank. Nothing comes to mind anymore and no one just loses 20 years for no reason. <br /> <br /> Yawning and laying herself along the thicker branch she let her black tail hang off towards the ground along with her right leg. Bending the left one at the knee she rested her hands behind her head and watched the stars through the trees. Sighing she let out a grumble.<br /> <br /> "When is something interesting going to happen?"

---

1970. A year for new beginnings. A decade to show the world that humanity was more humane than hateful. It was a time to do away with racism and sexism and anything that wasn't peace and daisies and love. It was a more interesting time for some.<br /> <br /> The night was warm, dry, and clear; the map of stars stretched out as far as the horizon would let it, and the moon drowned out those closest, even though it wasn't quite full. It seemed one could see every, single star from every system that existed, because there were no blinding lights to obscure them...nor was there urban jungle noise to silence coyotes in the distance and smaller, crawlier things underfoot scratching about amongst the sand.<br /> Mesa Verde is a place of historical importance, a place of natural beauty, and a place where tourists go to be lead about by a guide with too white of a smile. It was close, to be sure, but far enough off that few hiked out this far...and certainly not at night. The artifacts and carvings here were far less disturbed and the caves and steep trails certainly more dangerous to navigate. Still, for some reason, that is where we find ourselves.<br /> <br /> <i>Sand and stars</i>, the man seated at the edge of a mesa thought as he stared upward. <i>Sounds like a curse. Or a country song. </i><br /> <br /> He was a little on the short side, 27 years old...although he was carded when buying alcohol, more oft' than not. The best way to describe his build would be "wiry;" all five-and-a-half feet of him slim but streamlined. He looked like he might be best at home fighting some current upstream half his life, although quite what current that might be, he didn't know. <br /> Describing him as more than "colorful" could be difficult; the black-gray-rust-white-tan-silver fur that covered his body was mottled and patchy, but in some specific way that evolution hadn't clued him in on. The slight fox had one eye the color of golden honey...the other, however, stared blindly into the dark, the color lost to the permanently dilated black of the pupil. He usually wore some sort of colored glasses or a patch to hide it, but who would ever see him out he-<br /> <br /> "Dimitri!"<br /> <br /> The small device at his hip crackled to life, squawking his name out to echo endlessly amongst the sudden silence of the desert. Fumbling what looked like a small "walkie-talkie" off his belt, he managed to respond, his shaky tone giving away the start it had given him.<br /> "S-Sorry, Doctor Sharp, I'm here-just getting ready to head back."<br /> "How much longer will you be?"<br /> "An hour, perhaps." He paused, pursing his lips and eying the steep and shale-lined trail he'd less blazed and more scrambled painfully up the side of the plateau. <i>An hour to get down from here</i>, he noted, mentally.<br /> "An hour, then," came the static-muddled reply, and then silence.<br /> <br /> <center>-----</center><br /> <br /> An hour-and-a-half later, Dimitri was finally able to see the lights of town, indicating he was getting closer to home...or, at least, to civilization and the task Dr. Sharp had sent him out to accomplish. He walked over the sand steadily and slowly, in no obvious hurry, neck craned a bit to see over and around the surrounding brush and the occasional sand dune.<br /> He didn't expect company, but he wasn't exactly the most at-ease individual ever in existence. His clothes - a nice, if dirty, set of khakis and a used-to-be-baby-blue t-shirt - were vague and inconspicuous enough to keep him out of public notice...usually. Perhaps he was a bit on the paranoid side, but then...when you have the genetic disorder he did, perhaps you had a right to be.