That first week after her breakdown, Azura had spent all of her time in her room. Lucas had tried coaxing her out and talking to her but she had not responded and had just spent most of her time in bed. Nightmares had plagued her mind every time she had dozed off. Blue-eyed snow leopards attacked everything they came across, while she was helpless and could only watch as their fury destroyed everything. Blood reigned in her nightmares, death was something that was forced upon her, either dying herself or being the one that killed everything. And then there were the flames, the voice, and the Phoenix.

She had refused to talk to Lucas, driving him to his wit's end. He’d even eventually contacted Rose to come over in the hopes she would be able to get through to Azura. When that hadn't worked, he’d just given up. After consulting with Dr. Jensen, he was just making sure she was at least eating properly, and woke her up whenever she was freaking out.

In the second week, Azura came down more often and slowly tried to pick up from where she left off before her breakdown. Nicolai had visited her a few times since to see how she was faring, but she had refused to say anything about what had triggered her. Rose had come by several other times and as long as the conversation stayed light, it was fine and they would have some good fun, but as soon she would try to talk about what had set Azura off, she would completely shut down. Lucas had told other people she had a bad case of the flu, not wanting to tell people what really had happened without her consent.

It had taken her over three weeks to feel like an average human being again. Things had slowly returned to normal once more as both she and Lucas picked up their lives from where they had left them before her breakdown. He’d had to explain to her about the first week, as she barely remembered anything from it, but after that, she decided to just move forward and he had agreed.

From what she had gathered from Lucas, there had been no other sightings of snow leopards in the area and that had reassured her a bit. She was curious about these leopards that were like her, but she was also scared. Scared to find the truth about her heritage, or what they were like.

That last fear was strengthened even more by the rumors she heard around town. The only person she could freely talk to about it was Dr. Nicolai, and he was not so keen on the subject, convincing her to focus on the task at hand; learning to control her temper. So far the only thing she had learned was that blue-eyes snow leopards were dangerous creatures, with no morals, ferocious, and lusted after blood.

It had frustrated her and that had resulted in her having a shorter fuse than normal. Something Lucas had effortlessly picked up on and had made a sport in which to annoy her even further to the point she would eventually punch him in the shoulder because she had no other response available. He just laughed it off, eventually making her laugh as well and thus easing her frustration in a not so conventional matter.

Azura closed the door behind her as she returned from a visit to Sheila, Jeff’s wife. The fireplace was burning and Lucas sat hunched over on the floor in front of it with papers and binders scattered all around him. Except for the crackling of fire and the flipping of pages, it was quiet in the house. It was never quiet when he was home. There would always be some music playing or the TV would be turned on.

"What are you doing?"

He looked over his shoulder, pen in his mouth and his hair sticking up on all sides. She cocked a brow as he took the pen from his mouth and sat back up.

"Getting used to the silence."

"And all this?" Azura had walked over to him and pointed at all the paperwork scattered around.

"Research from my dad to keep me occupied while the silence feasts on my brain."

"And with all this, you decided to sit so close to the fireplace? Good choice… If you want to burn down the house."

He slowly got up, stretching his back and legs and flashed her a sarcastic smile.

"The fireplace makes noise." He sat back down and quickly scanned the papers in front of him before putting some of them in a pile to his right and some in a pile to his left. Azura scanned the binders and noticed they were all placed together by topics. He was now sorting through the loose papers. Some were only scribblings, while others had full reports written on them.

"Need some help?" She kneeled down next to him and tried to assess his working method.

He gave her a sarcastic reply without looking at her.

"With accepting the silence? All you need to do is to stop talking."

"Nah you idiot, for that you need therapy like me. Join the looney bin, we have coffee!"

He grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it in her face. She snickered as he did so, tossing it aside and ruffled through his hair.

"You're cute like this you know! All messed up like me..." Lucas let her do her thing for a while, rolling his eyes as she messed with his hair and poked him in the sides.

"...Maybe we should rename this place the Looney Bin. I mean, we do have coffee here, and a firepl-"

"Enough!" He placed his hand over her mouth, shushing her while holding back a laugh. "You're crazy, did you know that? And you hate coffee." She nodded while he still had his hand covering her mouth. "If you really insist on helping, you can help me sort these papers. I know my dad did research on werecats, especially snow leopards and I guess now is as good as time as any to start to enlighten myself and maybe the town council and mayor as well."

He removed his hand and gave her a pile of papers.

"You can place the relevant ones here next to me. I write a number on them, skip through the content and write down what they are about in this notebook. So after the sorting process, I can easily find back what I want to read by checking out this book."

"You should have become a sorting officer in a library or something like that... You thought about everything haven't you?"

He scoffed. "I didn't think of a solution to keep this pestering human being at bay." He prodded her shoulder as he said it.

"It would be useless anyway so it would only be a waste of time." She stuck her tongue out at him and casually grabbed the papers and started to sort through them.

They worked in silence with the fire and the papers as their only source of noise. Azura would occasionally glance over at him, seeing his lips curled up just a bit. She turned back to her papers and put most of them to the side, some about astrology, some were just random scribblings she did not understand, and others were just notes on which books to read.

She even put an old shopping list to the side, she grinned as she read diapers and baby food on it. A very old shopping list it was, as Lucas would be turning thirty soon. She stared at it for a short moment then moved to the next set of papers. They were stapled together and on the front, someone had written 'Important!!!!' The handwriting was sloppy, obviously done in a hurry. There was nothing else written on it and she turned over the first page scanning the next one for information.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

It was a map of the country with a big circle in the area where they currently resided. There was an old photograph of a big snow leopard standing proudly in the snow with the words ‘yellow/green’ written underneath. A line was drawn from the picture to the circle that was around their area.

Azura traced her hand over the picture as she stared at the physique of the leopard. Compared to herself she could tell this one was huge and much more muscular, she didn’t resemble it in any way. Her eyes moved back to the map and she noticed another, smaller and less clear circle on the other side of the country. The only word written down was 'blue' with a few question marks behind it. She gasped as she noticed there used to be a picture there just as there was with the first circle.

Lucas looked her way and scooched over until he was next to her. He looked at the papers she was holding and eventually took them off her hands. He quickly turned another page and it was only one sentence. 'Place of birth defines us. But why?' He flipped over the next one and it only contained more old black and white photographs of snow leopards posing. Written beneath the photos were names, places of birth, and other dates and times. Some were readable and some weren’t as the ink had faded.

Azura noticed the dates were old. Most of them around the 1930s. All the leopards looked similar to the one on the previous page. Big, muscular, and strong, but there was a single one which stood out. The photo was unclear as the leopard was not posing, but running as if it didn’t know about the picture being taken. She noticed its physique was different, leaner and smaller like an actual normal snow leopard. More like her. There was no name written underneath the picture, only 'Not from here.'

"That one is smaller." Lucas pointed to the photo she was looking at. "Most likely it's a blue-eyed snow leopard."

"How do you know?" She traced her fingers over the photo as if recognizing herself.

"I think these were the records of my grandfather. My old man was inspired by his dad's work and wanted to continue it. My grandpa used to tell me stories about the leopards here and one of them was about this small snow leopard that came around one day. At first, the town had accepted him without problem, but apparently, things went downhill. He was aggressive and eventually committed several murders. They banished him and stricter rules were set into place about accepting newcomers. These rules still apply today, though they’ve never been put into action."

Azura stared at him quietly, not knowing what to say. He took the papers and placed them on top of the pile he had yet to archive. She stared at the ground trying to muster up the courage to ask him one last question.

"Are... are you a snow leopard?" She knew the answer straight after asking him. He just nodded and carefully examined her reaction.

"The picture on the first page with the map? That was my grandfather." Her eyes almost popped out of her skull as the realization dawned on her.

"Holy shit... He was huge!" Her reaction caused him to chuckle.

"Apparently the bloodline I come from is one of the oldest around here. It has its perks but I am not the biggest in town."

"Holy crap... I have so many questions I keep forgetting all of them! You just bamboozled my mind!" She was still in shock even though somewhere in the back of her mind there was something saying; You already knew from the start.

Did she? She recalled Nora back in the days when they had first met him. She had come in just before he did, said there was a guy outside looking for his father and that his scent was different. She didn’t think much of it just that it was something she had not smelled before. Azura fiddled with the ring she was wearing now and also back then. It had prevented her from smelling anything and she just had to take Nora’s word for it. At that time, it was not important at all.

He was laughing out loud now, relieved she had not run away the moment he told her. Azura was still staring at him forming silent words with her lips. She eventually grabbed the sides of her head with a dramatic theatrical gesture to show him how shocked she actually was. He laughed even harder as she started to put on a show.

"Azu, calm down! You might hurt yourself from surprise if you keep going like this." She stopped and kept pointing at him.

"You did this man. You kept this hidden all the time and now you're calling me crazy?" He knew she wasn't seriously blaming him.

"I never kept it hidden, you just never asked."

That shut her up straight away. She just eyed him as he cleaned up some of the paperwork that served no purpose.

"Would you stop gawking at me? I'm not going to shift if that's what you're wondering about." He didn’t even look at her to know what she was thinking. She could see he was trying to be stern, but he could barely hold his face that way.

"I never asked." She grinned and took another look at the last papers they had found and stared at the picture of his grandfather. She then looked back at the question written next to it. Defined by place of birth.

"Lucas, what do you think this means?" She pointed at the question and he looked over her shoulder.

"That's my dad's handwriting. Judging by the map he drew and all the other things in here, I would say he thought that where a person is born, determines which type of snow leopard they are. Maybe even which type of big cat across other regions as well. It would explain why there are only greenish and yellow-eyed leopards here. If this is the only region where they are born, it might also explain why we are one of the rarer cat shifters around. It is a scarcely populated area and this city is the biggest around."

Azura looked at the smaller, less clear circle on the west side of the country. Maybe a few days travel away. If what Lucas was saying was true, and this drawing was correct, that was her place of birth. She felt a tightness in her chest as her fingers played with the ring around her finger.

She wanted to tell him so badly, tired of hiding her true self, but she wasn't ready. Nicolai had warned her not to show herself and Azura had most definitely picked up on Lucas's words about the city not accepting strange snow leopards easily. Especially her kind. She gritted her teeth and put the papers away before answering Lucas, trying to sound as normal as possible.

"What about this area? It's so much smaller and there is barely anything there. I guess your dad believed the blue-eyed ones came from there?"

"I think so, but that part is almost uninhabitable. It's harsher than here, tougher conditions. There might be some small villages around, but nothing major. It might be interesting to find out more about it one day, but for now, I'll let it rest. Behavior and way of living, for now, are more interesting to me."

He placed the paper on top of the rest and finished cleaning up. After placing another log on the fire so it wouldn't die out, Lucas got up and pulled Azura up by her hand.

"Would you-" She never got to finish her question as he rudely interrupted her.

"No, I will not shift! You might see one day, but not now." She started to pout and he just let out a tired sigh, shaking his head. "You're hopeless, tiresome, and a nuisance sometimes, you know that?" A wide smile was the only answer he got and he couldn't help but smile as he saw her proudly boasting.

"So tonight Jeff and I are going to the bar. You're welcome to join if you'd like. You can annoy someone else other than me and that person might actually enjoy it!"

"Are you serious?" All the playfulness in her voice was gone in an instant. Her posture had changed to a determined and slightly aggressive stance. "I’ve spent three weeks crawling out of a big black hole which was triggered by something stupid and now you're really asking me to go to a bar, again, with tons of people in a tiny cramped space? How is that a good idea? If something triggers me there, you'd best just kill me. It would have the same effect! I'm not ready for that, Lucas!"

She was yelling at the end, unable to vent her frustration any other way. He let her blow off the steam regretting he had even asked. He rubbed his short beard before looking up and meeting her gaze.

"I won't stop asking you and it's no use to freak out about it. A simple ‘no’ will do. I know your state of mind and I know what it enthralls." He sounded harsher than he had wanted to. "I just want to help, and sometimes you need someone to get you out of your comfort zone, but I do respect you and your wishes and I do want some of it in return, instead of you yelling in my face. I am not your enemy."

Azura backed up a bit, not expecting him to actually oppose her. He had not done it before and it caught her off guard. The tension between them rose fast as they kept locked in each other’s gazes for a few minutes without talking. It was a standoff and finally, Azura lowered her eyes accepting defeat.

"I'm sorry..."

He relaxed as soon as she said it and gently grabbed her shoulder, pulled her close to him, and placed his forehead against hers. She froze, wide-eyed at the closeness of him, but the calm he radiated had her loosening up and even closing her eyes at the foreign gesture he was offering.