Giggling, and a small elf child comes running into the room of the Tokyo house, followed by a platypus. She runs to the door which leads to the bar, pulls it open, and runs through...

A flash of light...

And she isn't in the bar, but a crystal palace...

...

Ember slowly opens her eyes and looks around. She's at Howling Rock.

Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she remembers. It wasn't a dream. It was a memory. She had been at Milliways as a child...

She groans, holding her head in her hands. "Dung."

Sighing, she stands up and starts walking, heading toward the forest, watching her feet. She stops when she sees a shadow in front her. Looking up, she gasps.

"You..."

...

[ooc: The following comes straight from canon. I didn't write it at all. It's just what happens right before Ember comes back to Milliways]

...

**There's more at risk than just them! Look at him! He's too valuable to kill. Just as we're his greatest prize, he's mine! To have a human as good, as wily, as strong, as honorable, as wise as he is on our side is something I won't risk!**

...

**You still say "don't kill?"**
**Yes.**

...

In the white silence of a winter wood, a frozen tableau stuns the Howling Rock Wolfriders. Driven beyond reason by the capture of Pool and Dewshine, Scouter has challenged Ember for the chief's lock - and won!

Tyleet softly sends to him, **Jial...* Scouter reaches for his lifemate, not taking his eyes from the fallen Ember. "I didn't... didn't expect..." he whispers hoarsely.

"What? To win?" asks Mender, stepping in to heal Scouter's wounds. "You should have thought of that, wolf-chief, before you challenged." Feeling the word enfulf him, Scouter softly breathes, "Chief..."

"That's right. Now we're YOUR litter to lead." Pike, the eldest, gathers Scouter's hair back into a lock and binds it with a leather thong. "Hold still! You'd best get used to wearing this."

Marked with the emblem of all Wolfrider leaders since Timmorn Yellow-Eyes, Scouter feels all eyes upon him. "This isn't what I wanted," he says. "But I've dug my den and must live in it."

Turning to Mender, Scouter explains, "There's no other way, packmate. We've got to trade you to the Still One so you can heal Dewshine...make him give her and my son back." Knowing this may mean his death, Mender gravely nods. But Scouter's next order astonishes him.

"Good! Soon as you're sure we have trail between us and him, snap his heelstrings as you did to his hunt cubs. Then make it permanent!"

Tyleet's lock-send bursts into Scouter's mind. **But we promised! Cutter, in his worst trials, never broke faith with humans like this! Where's my good Jial... already strangled by the chief's lock?**

Scouter whirls on her fiercely, shouting so all can hear, "He's human! A human who's tricked us and makes it clear that he wants up dead! The Way is the Way! When a new chief fairly wins his place, you obey without question!"

With that, Scouter strides back to the clearing where Lehrigen awaits. Silently, the elves fall in behind the new, inwardly terrified chief, leaving the conquered Ember abandoned in the snow...

...for that, too, is the Way...

She was sobbing. She was chief of the Wolfriders. She wasn't suppose to be crying. But she couldn't help it. She had been so happy, and now...

She took a deep breath, and looked over at the caves. She couldn't sit here and cry her life away. She had to live in the Now. And that meant taking care of the tribe.

She reached up, taking the necklace from around her neck. Staring at the shell for a few minutes, she stuck it in her bag and headed back toward Howling Rock.

Toward the Now.

She has been away from Milliways for a couple of days now. She can't help but wonder how everyone is doing. She sighs as she looks over the wide open space. Her necklace is tucked away in her cave, so that she doesn't make anymore unexpected trips. She looks behind her at the tribe. Sust and Pool are fooling around as usual. Dewshine, Yun, Mender, and Scouter are talking in one huddle. Krim, Pike, Tyleet, and Teir are talking in another. Teir looks over at her and smiles. She smiles back. He looks away, and her smiles fades. Last night they had joined. And the whole time she had imagined curly hair, fur on his body, horns... She sighs again, and looks back out away from the tribe. She imagines that he is busy, working with the rats she had seen in the kitchen. She hopes that the Bar is working soon, so that he won't be as busy, and perhaps they could... She shakes her head. Later. She'll think about it later. Right now, there is the Tribe. And later, there will be him.

Ember gets up and moves away from Teir. Usually, she sleeps wonderfully in his arms, but this time... she's restless, and her mind keeps wandering.

Wrapping herself in one of Tyleet's blankets, she leaves the caves. Patch looks up, whining, but she reasures him with a scatch behind the ears. Content, the wolf lays his head back down. Ember continues walking, heading toward her favorite rocks. She looks around, making sure no one is nearby, before settling herself now. She sighs.

How do I keep getting there? It doesn't make since. There is no connection. First when I was in the Palace, next when I was going into the troll caves, then when I was just walking, and this last time when I slipped down that hill chasing after that wolf. She absently mindlessly rubs her left arm where Mender healed it.

Why all those times? I wish I could understand. I wish I could tell someone... Ember looks back guiltily toward the caves. Teir knows something is the matter. Usually I can tell him everything. Him or Mender. But for some reason, I can't seem to tell either of them about this. Why?

She lays her head on her knees, staring out into the plains, thinking. What is with me? I feel so different. That place... it's changed me, somehow. She sighs. That still doesn't tell me how I got there. I want to know so badly. She blinks. Or do I really? It would be easier if I could control it, but if I learned how, perhaps it won't work anymore. I won't be able to return. I won't be able to see my new friends. I won't be able to see... She blushes and shakes her head. She shouldn't think about him. Not now. Not after being with Teir.

She sighs again, and thinks back to when she was in the Palace with Sunstream. What was she doing when it happened? What...

Ember gasps, sitting up. She knows. She knows how she got there. Standing up, she runs back to the caves. Careful not to distrub Teir, she digs through her clothes. Finding what she's looking for, she sneaks back outside, but this time only to sit against the rocks right outside of the cave. She holds up what's in her hands, dangling it from its rope of hair. A shard of crystal glints in the moonlight. A piece of the Palace, seperated by Ahdri. So that the Howling Rock Wolfrider chief would always be connected to her twin in more than one way. The rope was made of hair, just like the original rope of Skywise's lodestone.

Looking at the crystal, she remembers. Sunstream had been putting it around her neck the first time she arrived at Milliways. And then the other 3 times, it had fallen out of her top. Well, one of the times she was playing with it as she walked. The shard must have been what sent her there.

Ember's eyes widened as the crystal began to glow. "Oh, d..."