She's still singing, isn't she? Even though the radio is off now, you can hear her voice, words turning into melody turning into rhythm and spinning off into dreams. She never learned that. Never was taught it. It was always there. Sometimes she has what she thinks are dreams, of warm arms around her, singing to her in tones that no one else heard, high and low, tones that matched the shades of things around her. She doesn't have these dreams often, though. They hurt too much.

She has the smells, instead... and the sights... and the sounds. She can mimic sounds well, it was her only talent, she was told once. Then her keepers had her, and they showed her singing. Music slow and steady, heartbeat music. Music fast, loud, thunder music... and there was the music of summers, and the music of petting, and music for everything. She decided that maybe she tasted music.

She tasted nothing else - it all was the same, it seemed... all dull, bland, frightening with its sameness. Textures everywhere... sounds and colors... but taste? She was not given that.

Blood she knew - metallic and hot. Food she knew - warm, gooey, and blander than most things. She knew water, cold and wet. Dust, the clogging seasoning on everything. That was all.

The boy was there next morning. He came in on all fours, and she again said 'wolf', sang it lower this time, and he heard it. Blinked. He shook his head, then put it quickly down, looking so frightened of his own movements, she thought perhaps he was a Prize too. She knew that fear. But he didn't have the Collar, he didn't have the scars, he hadn't been fire-touched. She didn't understand him.

Hand out, hers to him, through the cage bars. He came close. She waited, held still, instinctive human-to-beast reaction, and he laughed, brittle sound, her head tossed to hear it. He flinched again, but padded closer. Sniffed. He knew this game... and licked her hand, and she laughed.

"Wolf, still a wolf, but your face is a fairy's, your face is a man's. You have stolen a man's fur, wolf. You have stolen a woman's hair and skin. A child's touch. You are a wolf inside, though." and her voice was pure... you've heard that song, haven't you. "Wolf". It was a hit a couple months ago, it's still playing, it was on the "Memories" album. The one with the cover showing a bloody handprint. Do you know where they got that cover? Oh, you'll know soon. This is a tell-all, is it not?

He shook his head, hair falling in his eyes, and she laughed now, soft, pleased with this. They'd never given her anything like this to watch. People, yes... but on the picturebox, or walking past, or people who came to listen and left with tears, their bodies smelling of fear or hunger or sorrow or joy, never the same twice... but not this.

Not another Prize. She tilted her head, pressed at the bars, and he blushed. Key in his hand. There was a key in his hand. She was shocked, only her keepers had a key, but this boy carried one wrapped in leather, bound to his wrist as if it was a bracelet. She knew about bracelets, she'd had one for a whole week once when she was very good. It had glittered. And now he wore her freedom on his wrist like a sparkling charm.

The door was opened. It'd be foolish to say he opened it, because he handed the key to her. It'd be equally foolish to say she opened it, because it was his hand on hers that turned the key, she had never done so before and could not make it move right. So they both opened it, it became a portal rather than a barrier, and she was touching him, fascinated. Hair where fur should be. No muzzle. No tail.

But a wolf nontheless.

He tried to talk once, and she sang back at him. He didn't speak again that day, just listened, pressing his fingers against her lips when he wanted to hear more, and sometimes she would oblige him, but sometimes she would wait, smiling, until he kissed her instead, drunk on this little taste of a power she'd never had before.

Exploration takes a long time, and she had never been able to explore a person before. Her hands slipped under his clothing... he gasped and she pressed more, there, watching in fascination as it shifted. Then her attention was caught elsewhere, she held her hand up to his, matching lengths, her palm almost lost in his despite his small stature.

There was dirt under her fingernails, none under his. She looked at them for a long time, her head tilted, and then "Free" spilled out, unbidden, and he blinked. Shook his head. Confusion then, both of them seeming lost, but finally the words spilled out, her questions, wondering what he was, why he wasn't standing, why the key... he was talking too, kidnapping - she didn't understand, she had always been just taken away when people wanted her, how could anything else happen? ...And there was talk of this place. It wasn't until she asked the bad question that he was taken away again.

He tried to shout to her as they dragged him out the door. Tried to talk. They gagged him, and he couldn't answer, couldn't tell her what was beyond the door and the hall, couldn't tell her how to go find the fairies or the wolves or the sky.

One day. Two. She knew when it was night, because the lights dimmed, and she could see the moon in the little window that opened. It didn't move much, her moon... it rose and set sometimes, other times it just stayed there, changing shape like the moons in her books. She'd seen a sunrise there once, too... and once seen a fire, flickering, all night long. Sometimes she imagined that it was real, but she knew better... nothing but another picturebox.

There was no scent from it. No heat. Nothing but the light and the sometimes-sounds. Crickets, she thought... and wolves, sometimes... sometimes other animals, coyotes, dogs, cats... she liked the cats, liked all the animals, but wolves were her dream now. She dreamed about this new wolf, three nights, four, five... it was a week before she saw him again.

They threw him in this time, and he was not gagged, not bound at all, but there was no key, either. She touched his lips, curious, and he flinched. Opened his mouth. There was something wrong with his tongue... and now she was the one who screamed, pulling away and then pulling him over, shaking her head, the worst nightmare she'd ever had was loosing that song that she could bring out, the creature, despite its separation, was her only companion. She couldn't imagine loosing it. She was sure he felt the same.

Laughter, and she was stunned, how could he laugh? But his arms went around her and he laughed, mumbled something, and she tried to smile. Perhaps it would heal, she knew about healing. She sang at him, trying to coax his creature to heal, wanting his soul to come out again. He didn't sing... but he spoke, and maybe he would talk with her.

You know, in all her songs, she only mentions taste twice. Every other sense is explored, explained, worshipped. That one? Ignored, mostly. It's in two songs, though. One of them is "Drown In You", do you remember it? Surely you've heard it, it's played at every wedding in the known world, it seems. There's a line in it, "I never knew that every tear had flavor, every time you touch me I can taste your soul"... she learned that from him. She learned to taste him.

His fingers, his lips, his hair and throat and feet and hips, his entire body, she licked him clean once. She remembered seeing wolves do that, and wondered if he missed it. He petted her, and she laughed again, the first time he'd heard her laugh in pleasure rather than humor, and the sound was so many tones at once that he almost hid from her.

She learned to tell when he was in the room, just because the air tasted different. She bit him often, wanted to taste his blood, and every time she bit him he whimpered and curled up as if he was a puppy.

He cried the first time she let him in, cried because he felt her break around him, knew what he'd taken. She had her mouth open, screaming, but so high that he only felt her pain and not the sound itself, and his tears dropped in her open mouth. When she swallowed, when she tasted his regret that she couldn't understand and couldn't comprehend, she came.

--- to be continued ---