When Chris returned home from his new job, he halted at the entrance with a feeling of trepidation. Mac's place was quiet. Too quiet.

He opened the door to the guest room, hoping that Anne was just sleeping more quietly than expected, but fearing the worst. She had been getting worse instead of better, and he'd arranged to take two four hour shifts instead of a single shift per day so that he could make sure she took the medicines at least close to the prescribed schedule.

The bed was empty.

He checked each room.

The apartment was empty.

Anne was gone.

Chris considered looking for her for a moment, but she wasn't his captive. She had never even asked for his help. She had even actually helped him out quite a bit, by gifting him with Juan's identity.

There was no note or message indicating that she would return, but it was always possible that she had gone to gather her possessions or fulfill some other obligation and meant to return. Or he and Amaru might have scared her so much that running away while deathly ill still seemed like the safest choice.

It took him longer to realize that Mac's iPad was also gone.

It probably meant that she wasn't planning to return. He didn't hold it against her. It was a valuable resource and a practical choice, although he wished that she'd at least taken the medicines too. She might have even thought that he'd gifted it to her instead of lending it.

Unfortunately, it left him with another debt which could never be fully repaid. He could replace the tablet eventually, but not it's value as a gift from a grandchild.

At times like this he thought that the human need for daily sleep might be comforting. Most of the time he just wondered at how much they managed to get done when they had to interrupt their activities so often for food and sleep. He looked around, and decided that delaying wouldn't gain him anything.

Chris began the process of cleaning. Everything that had been touched or breathed on needed to be washed before Mac could safely return home.

--

Anne was really glad that she'd insisted on putting on pants before leaving Chris's place.

At first, she'd been afraid that the dragon who appeared to be a golden sea in her vision was simply going to drag her to the place that he wanted her to go, but he had carried her most of the way instead. Not as comfortably as Chris had carried her, but much farther than she could have walked with the cough that kept stealing her breath.

Amaru took her all the way out to the suburbs on the mountain side of the city, near where she'd been when she'd seen a dragon landing near the river in the distance, but farther out. She thought that the dragon silhouette she'd seen had been less oriental and more like a western dragon than Chris and Amaru seemed to be.

"Are there a lot of types of dragons?" she asked nervously as Amaru completely ignored a set of signs warning against trespassing, and carried her over the fence with a graceful leap that an athlete might envy.

"Every dragon is different, but also no more or less than a dragon," Amaru replied calmly.

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Anne wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean.

Most people didn't realize that the farther you got from the hustle and bustle in the city, the more people who didn't fit in stood out, and the dragon was no different. She felt like they were going to be reported at any moment, but he didn't even slow down.

And then suddenly, he came to a stop, and let go. Anne grabbed at him reflexively as she fell, and snatched her hand back almost as quickly as she staggered away from him. He might be wearing a human form, but his clothes felt like living skin or something. It was an incredibly creepy sensation.

"Now you can tell me about the plant that is not a plant while you replenish your energy," he instructed.

"Here?" she asked disbelievingly.

They were standing at the edge of some rich person's suburban estate as nearly as she could tell. Their trespasses were probably being recorded on security cameras, and he sounded like he wanted her to just sit here and rest.

"Yes, can't you see the pool?" he asked.

She almost said no, before she realized that the waves weren't coming off of him anymore. Instead ripples were now moving toward him and being absorbed into the golden sea. Everything in her vision wavered so badly when she was near him that she hadn't noticed the change, and couldn't tell if there was a visible edge.

"Maybe?" she replied hesitantly. "It looks like water is flowing into the sea that covers you, instead of rolling out of it? But I can't really tell if there's a pool."

"You can see enough. I am absorbing some of the energy naturally, let yourself do the same," he instructed again.

"How?" Anne asked blankly, with another nervous glance around. There were quite a few large trees and some bushes that might be protecting them from view somewhat, but she still felt like they could be caught at any moment.

He glared at her and suggested, "Be less fearful and more welcoming toward what surrounds you."

"I can't help being afraid that we're going to get caught!" she protested. The sharp words made her start coughing again.

"I will insure your safety," he said with an irritated undertone to his words that seemed to shake the air.

She shook her head, but stopped when he began to unfold. He kept unfolding until the golden sea faded, and a dragon more massive than a house coiled himself into a circle like a shimmering wall of scaled colors. He was at least ten paces from her in every direction. He surrounded her, and familiar golden ripples danced along his bright colors.

His eyes were huge, but familiar. He had wisps of fur or feathers that drifted in the air around his face giving him a whiskery and somewhat bearded look. The ruff of softness around his face thinned and tufted along his long back. His forefeet looked more like hands with sharp retractable claws like a cat with long fingers. His wings were feathered like some ancient Aztec god instead of a dragon.

"Well?" he demanded impatiently.

She sat down meekly and closed her eyes.

Without the distraction of open eyes, the water leapt into focus even faster than normal, but the ripples weren't a stream, there was no feeling of a boundary and there wasn't a single direction to the flow.

There was a vast golden rim surrounding everything, and as she focused on it, she realized that she could still see the dragon's shimmering form even with her eyes closed. He was a being crafted from wavering gold, like the sea that she hadn't been able to see through, but diffuse compared to that compressed endless depth.

The rippling pool that he surrounded reflected green leaves and blue sky as strongly as she'd ever seen them, even though when she looked up instead of down and around, there were only the same ripples across darkness, as though she were looking toward another bottom. The water didn't seem to be flowing into her the way it mingled with the golden ripples of the dragon.

She couldn't see herself at all, except as a quieter space where there were few ripples. She had no idea how to let the ripples flow into her. She didn't know how long she sat there trying to will the water to move toward her, before she wondered if she just needed to drink it.

She reached out her unseen hands and tried to cup the intangible water, and Amaru asked a bit crossly, "What are you flailing about for? Hurry up and begin strengthening yourself so that we can begin to trade our knowledge."

"How?" she asked plaintively.

The dragon glared at her, and then seemed to roll his eyes. Her eyes popped open as she tried to see if what she was seeing behind her eyes matched reality at all.