"Merrick," she said, glancing over her shoulder.

He didn't move. "You don't see her."

She opened her mouth to point out that there wasn't anything there. "No," she said, changing her mind at the last moment. "I don't. Are you... sure of what you see?"

"No," he said. "Certainly not, lady."

She frowned, surprised by his demeanor as much as by the sudden change of address. "I was only asking," she pointed out, hoping she didn't sound as defensive as she felt.

Merrick's eyes flicked to her, and comprehension dawned a split-second before he spoke. The shift in his gaze, from the place just beside her to her... from someone she couldn't see, to her. He hadn't been talking to her at all.

"Forgive me, Princess," he said formally. His next words confirmed her guess. "Your... friend wished to know if she was interrupting."

"Merrick--" The scene in his room was all too clear in her mind. "There's no one there."

He lowered his head, and she bit her lip. Not this again. When he murmured, "As you say, Princess," she was almost overwhelmed by the urge to stamp her foot.

"Merrick, we are three thousand years removed from anyone who would care whether you defer to me or not, and if you don't stop calling me 'Princess' I think I may go mad!"

He looked up at her from under his bangs, and she thought she caught the faintest hint of a smile. He had heard her. She was fairly sure of that, at least. What else he might be hearing, though, she had no idea.

"Lady," he said, returning his gaze to the ground. "I wonder if I might beg your indulgence in borrowing the princess for a moment."

He had won May's instant affection by calling her "lady" the first time they were introduced, and the eccentric courtesy had continued as long as they'd known each other. It made her a little nostalgic to hear it now. She almost thought that if she listened carefully enough, she might hear May's reply.

"She leaves," Merrick said under his breath.

She couldn't help glancing over her shoulder, but the temple was as empty as it had been before. "She always did," she murmured. May had known, of course, of her close affection for her second protector.

"She's very... she was very discrete." He was studying her openly now. "You really didn't see her--?" She heard "Princess" on the end, whether he stopped himself from saying it or not, but she gave him a smile for the effort.

"I didn't see anyone but you," she admitted. "But she spoke to you? You seemed to... interact with her."

"And I remember it." He added this as though her questions were so obvious as to not require answers. "Not like the last time."

"You didn't lose consciousness this time," she pointed out. "Maybe that's why you remember."

"Or maybe the memory is simply less... disturbing." The suggestion was made with obvious reluctance. "Unlike some of the people you say I mentioned last time, I have no anger or discomfort associated with May."

"Was it a memory?" she asked curiously. "Did you see or hear May behave exactly as she did once? Or was it something else?"

He hesitated, maybe thinking about it, but finally he shook his head. "I don't know. She seemed to interact with me, as you say. And that would have to be new, not a product of memory, since I surely never said..." He trailed off.

"Are you sure?" she asked gently. "I heard you say nothing that you might not have said three thousand years ago."

Merrick was frowning. "She saw you," he said slowly.

"What do you mean? Oh--" She blinked. "You said she asked if she was interrupting. Interrupting... us?"

"Indeed." That was all he said, but the way he said it made her wish she had heard what he did. May had been discrete around other people, but she hadn't been above teasing the both of them if the opportunity presented itself.

"All right," she said slowly. "So if we assume May was real... how could she be here? Is she a spirit, a ghost of some sort?"

"Or has she been reborn," Merrick muttered. He was still clearly distracted. "Like Animus, or Master Org."

She looked around as though she might be able to sense the source of his distraction. "Then why can't I see her?" she pointed out.

He shook his head once. "No," he said oddly. "You're right, of course. You would see her." There was a brief pause, and then he offered, "I suppose you don't hear the music, either."

She held very still, but there was nothing. "What music?"

He lifted his head, and his gaze tracked across the horizon toward something unheard in the distance. "The evening revelry," he said softly. There was a dream-like quality to his voice, and she shivered as she realized where he was looking.

He wasn't looking off into the distance. He was looking across the valley toward the castle. Or at least, the direction in which the castle had stood before the valley of the wild zords had been raised into the sky, cutting the Animarium off from the rest of the country.

"Merrick." He didn't so much as twitch at the sound of her voice, and that made her nervous. "Merrick, the castle is gone. There is no revelry."

That got his attention, and he turned to her with a startled look on his face. "Princess. Will you take your evening meal here, then?"

He looked so earnest, so clear, that she tried to make his question make sense. She tried very hard. Unfortunately, the best she could do was, "Excuse me?"

"The revelry echoes from the castle, Princess. We'll miss the beginning of the meal if we don't start back now."

"There is no meal!" she burst out. "There is no meal, no revelry, no castle! Animaria is gone, Merrick!"

"Gone?" Far from understanding, he was giving her an amused look that seemed to indicate he suspected a joke on her part. "Gone in what sense, Princess?"

"Gone!" she repeated. "It--it's..." She stopped as she realized she actually knew very little about the details of Animaria's demise. Merrick had saved the country, after all, and it had lived on long after he had been imprisoned as Zen-Aku. Long after his loss and the draining of the Ancient Warriors' power had made the Animarium irretrievable.

Long after she had gone to sleep, certain his would be the first face she saw upon awakening. Three millennia had passed during the time she had thought would last only days, and the earth had changed almost beyond recognition. It had been Taylor who made her understand that Animaria no longer existed, and her information on the history involved was understandably limited.

"It's just gone," she murmured, troubled by the answers she still didn't have.

"No," Merrick said firmly. "No, Princess, not at all." Then, to her infinite surprise, he took her hand and pulled her toward him. "Come with me," he urged, stepping back. "Come, I'll show you."

He was tugging her along gently, and she couldn't find it in her heart to resist. She let him lead her up the stone stairs carved into the temple's outer wall, wondering if this moment would pass with the abruptness of the others she'd seen back in his room at Willie's. Certainly she preferred his solicitousness to his anger, but the reasons for both were equally baffling.

"Look," Merrick was saying, as he stepped out onto the roof. "See there?" He drew her up beside him, free hand sweeping across the valley to indicate something that only he could see. "Animaria lives, Princess. Strong and victorious."

The war was over, she thought distantly. Whenever he was, whatever period his mind saw, he was between wars somehow. After the battles of the east, and before the resurgence of the Orgs. When the land was fertile and healthy and the animal spirits graced them with an almost constant presence. When the valley where they stood was but one small, protected area of a much larger kingdom, and the castle and its wards dominated the view he indicated.

A view now composed of clouds and sunshine and a vast expanse of blue where the Animarium simply stopped and the skies of this modern earth began.

She lowered her head, prevented from turning away by the hand he still held in his. "I don't see it," she whispered, because she could see it in her mind's eye, the palisades and the towers and the flags flying from the keep. She could see her home, but she saw it for what it was: a memory of something long gone. Nothing more.

She felt tears prick her eyelids, and she shook her head quickly when his gaze turned to her. "I'm sorry, Merrick," she said with more determination. "But there's nothing there."

"Don't cry," he said softly. He didn't even seem to hear her. "You know I'm helpless when you cry."

She closed her eyes, and the movement dislodged the tears that had gathered there. The next thing she knew, gentle fingers were wiping them away and she was paralyzed with indecision. He wasn't himself. She should push him away and try to explain again...

But this tenderness from him was rare to the point of nonexistence lately. She couldn't make herself give it up. Even when she felt his arms enfold her, drawing her close in his embrace without so much as a "May I?" she felt so warm that the thought of letting go gained no ground.

They stood there for a long moment, together on the temple roof in the bright light of a sunset that came later at this altitude. For the space of a single heartbeat, she let herself pretend that they were exactly where he thought they were, back in the land of their birth, back when the respect they two were accorded--both individually and together--meant that nothing was impossible. Back before the wolf and their own grief had come between them.

She felt him shift subtly, and the illusion melted away. Anything could happen now, with no more warning than this. She probably shouldn't let him so close for the sake of her own safety, if for no other reason.

He didn't let her go, but she heard him murmur, "Princess?"

"Don't call me that," she whispered, her fists clenching against his chest.

"I know." His tone was awkward, and not only had he heard her but he had clearly understood what she meant. "I'm sorry."

She lifted her head, drawing back just enough to look him in the eye. "Merrick?" she asked cautiously.

He just nodded, uncertain but unmistakably apologetic.

"I can't tell when you're with me and when you're not," she said with a sigh. "I think I should be able to, but I can't."

His hands squeezed her arms gently, and his gaze dropped briefly in acknowledgement of their position. "Apparently I'm always with you," he said, making no move to let go. She thought there was a hint of humor in his eyes when they met hers again. "It's just a matter of which you I think I'm with."

She bit her lip, touched by the familiarity of his teasing. "Don't call me Princess," she repeated impulsively. "When you're here, now... call me by my name?"

He still didn't move, but his hesitation was obvious. "I'm not sure I can do that--" He stopped, and she heard the title he didn't say. Then, very softly, he spoke as though the gods might strike him down at any moment. "Shayla."

She let out a breath of relief. "Thank you," she murmured. She could only guess how hard that was for him to say.

He sighed, but his mouth quirked upward at the corner in acknowledgement. "I'll try." He looked down again, and the humor vanished. "I'm sorry... for this," he said awkwardly. "For all of this."

She would have given a great deal to know how much "all of this" he meant, but she was resigned to the fact that asking would not provide the answer. Instead she said simply, "I'm not."

When he lifted his head, she added, "Do you remember?"

That made him hesitate. "Just now? I remember... Animaria. I remember being there, I remember..." He stopped. "Comforting you," he said at last.

She didn't move, her attention divided between his words and the hope that he would just keep holding her. They hadn't been so close for so long since... she couldn't remember. And what did that say about their land, she wondered, that its last remaining survivors couldn't even stay close enough for comfort?

"You were so sure that the kingdom had failed," he said slowly, not taking his eyes off of her. Then, with a rueful grimace he muttered, "Of course you were right."

There was nothing she could say to that.

"It doesn't seem quite... real," he added after a moment. "Not the way May seemed, before. That--that was real. It felt real. I knew where I was--I knew when I was..."

"It was as though May was here, instead of you being there," she said.

He looked at her in surprise. "Yes... I think it was."

She thought about that for a moment, but it didn't make anymore sense than anything else had. Giving her head a shake, she remembered her other charge. She should take advantage of Merrick's lucidity while she could.

"The wolf spirit," she said aloud. "He hasn't been well, either. That's the reason I came to find you." Not the truth, but maybe close enough? "I thought perhaps you could see him--he might be more comfortable with you."

Merrick only nodded, as though this were a perfectly reasonable thing to say now. "I'm in the service of the animal spirits, as always."

They didn't make it to the wolf's den. Moon followed them as they walked, and she was momentarily distracted by his presence when Merrick tensed. She didn't see what he saw, but when he snapped at her to get down she did exactly as he said.

It wasn't until he went for a dagger that wasn't there that she realized what was happening. It made her nervous in a way that his behavior earlier hadn't, because if he was remembering a fight then there was no telling how he might react. She called to him, but Moon was the only one who seemed to notice.

She tried again, breaking cover this time, and that got his attention. "Princess, get back," he said harshly. "Go back to the temple!"

"Merrick," she said, trying to stay calm. "Whatever you're seeing isn't real. There's no one here but us. I'm perfectly safe."

"No, Princess." The words were uttered through gritted teeth, and she reminded herself that he had no idea what he was saying. "I decide that, not you. Now go!"

"And where would you have me run?" she asked, daring a few steps toward him. "Is it more likely that an enemy awaits me here than at the temple, where everyone knows I am to be?"

"I know what I'm doing!" Merrick shouted angrily.

She stopped where she was. She wasn't scared of him. But she was scared for him, if he remembered this later. And it seemed that he might. Would this too pass if she simply let him be?

"Why, Princess?" He was staring at her suddenly, paying no attention to the land around them. "Why did you choose me? Out of a hundred men in the Royal Guard, surely my youth and inexperience made me among the least suitable."

He sounded truly, disturbingly present when he asked questions like that. She looked away, unwilling to bear his regard. "You know why," she said softly.

He flung his hand out, as though pointing to something long gone by. "I was just as drunk as he was that night! There were eight of us there and not one worth the uniform he was wearing!"

His hand fell, but she couldn't mistake the disgust in his voice as he declared, "I should have been dismissed, not promoted."

"No," she said quietly. She made herself look up. "You took me home. That's why I chose you."

"You shouldn't have been there in the first place," Merrick muttered.

"I didn't know that," she pointed out. "I think... maybe he didn't either. He was--he made a mistake, Merrick. That doesn't make him--" She swallowed. "It doesn't mean he was a bad person."

She had never admitted that to herself before. Not about him. Not about herself, either. She had made a mistake, too, and she had buried it so deeply that she never had to look at it anymore. There was a reason they hadn't had this conversation before.

Seeing it now, though, as she dredged it up and tried to put it into words... Maybe the decision to accept his somewhat questionable invitation wasn't the evil she had once thought it must be. Maybe it was, after all, just a mistake.

"And me?" Merrick's tone was low, unreadable, and she had no idea when he was now. "What do my mistakes make me, Princess?"

She could ask him the same question, about herself. Clearly her mistakes had made her someone he couldn't forgive. But forgiveness was a human invention, a concept that existed only because its opposite did--the idea of holding a grudge was foreign to the wild zords.

"You're not just a collection of past decisions," she told him, gently and perhaps more cautious than she might have been had she known why he was asking. "To the animal spirits, all that matters is what you are doing now, today."

"Today, Princess?" He sounded dispassionate, drained of all emotion. "And what exactly am I doing today?"

She tried to smile. No matter when he was, there was only one answer to that question. "You're protecting me, of course."

His inscrutable gaze remained fixed on her face. "I'm wanting you," he corrected.

She stared back at him, wondering if she was supposed to hear that feeling in his voice or see it in his expression. It was nowhere that she could sense, and that came as something of a shock. He had never been afraid to speak his mind. If he managed to hold his tongue in polite company, it was only because he gave it free reign when they were alone.

Or she had thought he did so. She had always known there were things he didn't say, topics he wouldn't discuss with her, but she hadn't realized they were so relevant. Only today had she begun to understand that he might have as many unanswered questions as she did. Only now was she beginning to think that their greatest loss might have been what they never were, instead of what they had been.

"That isn't wrong," she said softly. She almost held her breath when she heard the words in her own voice.

Something in his expression changed, and suddenly she recognized him again. For all the familiarity on his face, though, she wasn't prepared for the question. "Isn't it?" he asked quietly. His hesitation was palpable before he finished, "Shayla?"

She shook her head, caught without words and only sure of one thing. She wanted him here now. With her. If it was his guilt that was taking him away, this relentless self-doubt, then she was going to do whatever it took to free him from it.

"No!" His violent exclamation startled her, and when his hands went to his head she hurried to his side. He spun away from her, pulling free when she reached for him and flinging an arm out behind him to keep her back. "Keep talking to me!"

She stared at him, confused by the request as much as by the manner in which he'd made it. He was staring around wildly, eyes focusing on things she couldn't perceive, but his words were unmistakably directed at her. "Say things you never would have said then! Be separate from this madness, Shayla... please!"

She swallowed hard, unnerved and very much afraid for him. "Don't leave me, Merrick. I can't lose you, too. I thought I could, if that was what it took for you to be free, but I was wrong. These last two years have shown me just how wrong I was."

She took a breath, not thinking, not wondering what he would hear or what he might make of it if he did. She responded instinctively to his plea, saying the things she had held back in the hope that one day she would know how to say them better. She told him what she had been afraid to say, in case it disappeared like fairy lights in the sun.

"I love you," she murmured. But it didn't seem to go anywhere, the words falling quiet and unnoticed between them, shadows of sentiment that couldn't compete with everything else he was hearing.

She didn't even think about it, beyond the realization that he might not have heard. She just repeated loudly, "I love you. I've loved you for a very long time, and I've always thought that someday I would know what that meant, but now I think that maybe I can't--not without you to show me."

His eyes had closed, his face a mask of pained concentration. "Don't tell me what I want to hear," he growled. "You are not my fantasy, Princess."

She caught her breath, everything around her retreating rapidly as the entire world narrowed to those few words. Something clutched at her chest. She only barely kept herself from turning away--he needed her now, no matter her feelings, and she couldn't leave him here alone.

"Princess." His voice was suddenly calm and very low. His posture was stiff, and if the pain was gone from him then so was every other hint of expression. "Do you know me?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She hadn't known how hard it would be to speak to him after something like that. "I--" She didn't want to stammer, hated the way her voice trembled. "I thought I did."

He took a step toward her and she moved back. No thought, no reason, just a futile denial that he could still reach her. He stopped where he was as soon as she moved.

"I know you," he said, tone quiet and strangely distant. "We met once... in the forest, I think. Do you remember?"

She stared at him, horrified by the implication. "Zen-Aku?"

He lowered his head in a single, solemn nod.

"No," she breathed. "Merrick. Don't do this."

An odd smile twisted his face, and maybe it seemed strange to him too because he lifted his hand to touch his mouth. He tilted his head, his eyes far away. "Merrick," he repeated carefully.

After a moment, he continued, "Yes. Merrick is--"

His face crumpled. There was agony evident in the cry that escaped him, abruptly cut off. This time it was he who stumbled back when she hurried to his side, but she followed as he had not. She caught him, steadying him when he tripped in his haste, slammed into a tree trunk and slid half-dazed to the ground.

Kneeling beside him, she willed his eyes to open, but instead they closed the rest of the way and she was left alone. Alone in the unexpected quiet, with voices she hadn't paid any attention to before. Only now were they coming to the forefront of her awareness, for lack of external competition, and she couldn't say how long she'd been ignoring them.

"I don't see why not," a man's voice was saying. It was a voice that had become much more familiar over the past few weeks. "Birds evolved from lizards."

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Taylor respond. "They did not!" The Eagle Ranger didn't bring many people to the Animarium these days: no one who hadn't been a Ranger, and only one who hadn't been chosen by the animal spirits.

She tried to make Merrick more comfortable without completely compromising her own safety should he not be himself when he awakened, and found it was impossible. She would compromise her safety, then. She owed him this now. Moon had crept forward to settle beside her, nosing the still form she held with unmistakable concern.

"How do you know things like that?" Taylor's voice was complaining.

She had no idea what they were talking about, but it didn't really matter. She knew Taylor would come. Reaching up to touch her necklace, she said, "Taylor. I need help. I'm outside the wolf's den with Merrick."

She didn't need to hear Taylor's response to know that she was already on her way. She sat with Merrick, letting his head rest on her lap until Taylor burst out of the woods nearby. She wasn't surprised to see the leader of the Silver Guardians right behind her.

She was surprised to feel Merrick move, though. She held up her hand, as much to reassure Moon as to halt their advance, and she made no effort to move away from Merrick as he opened his eyes. He stared at her for a long moment before blinking at his immediate surroundings. His gaze took in the three of them hovering over him, and Moon, nosing his other hand curiously, and Merrick sighed.

"This isn't good," he muttered. His voice was rough and his fingers clenched and flexed briefly, but he didn't even try to sit up. "Is it."

She attempted a smile. "No," she agreed quietly, her fingers stroking his hair in an unthinking effort to soothe. "It would seem not."

"What's going on?" Taylor demanded. She hung back, but only barely, clearly torn between impatience and respect. "Are you all right, Merrick? Princess?"

Eric didn't say anything, reserved and uncomfortable--or so she had assumed until a beeping sound indicated the source of his distraction. He was staring at his morpher, left wrist raised, and when the beeping began he lifted his head and stared around intently. Taylor threw him an irritated look over her shoulder, then did a double take when she saw his morpher.

"Is that a temporal disturbance?" she asked. She grabbed his arm when he would have let it fall and frowned at the device on his wrist. "On the Animarium?"

"Princess," Eric said. He didn't answer Taylor's question. "Do you mind if I have a look around?"

"No, of course not." She watched worriedly as Merrick sat up and subtly checked for a dagger that wasn't there. At least he checked the right place this time. His gaze met hers when he didn't find it, and she shook her head.

"Wait, Eric--" Taylor stopped him before he could get more than a few steps away. "That's the direction of the wolf's den. Princess... what were you and Merrick doing there?"

Taylor had always been quick to integrate the new ways and the old. She was grateful for it now as she told her, "The wolf spirit has been affected by something recently. I thought Merrick might be able to help, but it seems that... he isn't well, either."

"That can't be a coincidence," Taylor said firmly. "If the wolf spirit has anything to do with the temporal disturbance, Eric's going to need your help."

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have hesitated to offer it. As it was, she frowned at Merrick when he pushed himself to his feet and held out his hand to her. "Shall we go--?"

He didn't say her name, but he left off the "princess." She took his hand, letting him help her up, but she couldn't keep her doubt to herself. "Are you sure you're feeling well enough to accompany us?"

The exasperated look Merrick gave her was nothing less than she'd expected. To her surprise, though, his hand lingered on hers as he said, "Yes, Shayla." He held her gaze evenly. "I'm perfectly well now."

She smiled in spite of herself. "All right then," she murmured, catching Taylor's startled grin out of the corner of her eye. The Eagle Ranger would have questions for her later. She might not have answers, but she did have her name from Merrick now, and that was something.

Her smile faded as she remembered his stinging correction: You're not my fantasy, Princess. His anger seemed far away now, but the words were cold and harsh in her memory. She looked away, avoiding his suddenly worried gaze.

Taylor didn't miss the change in mood. She didn't ask, either. She just led Eric in the direction of the den, pausing only to check his morpher and confirm that they were still headed toward the "disturbance." The Eagle Ranger didn't look back, even when Merrick muttered, "Princess? Is something wrong?"

She stopped, looking at him with a dread that must have been clear on her face, because he said hastily, "Shayla, then. I'm sorry, Prin--" He paused, shaking his head. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Shayla."

"You don't need to apologize," she murmured. "Habits so old are not easily broken."

"I don't--" He glanced over his shoulder, but Taylor and Eric were a good distance ahead of them by now. "I don't think of you as 'Shayla'," he said, his voice quiet despite their relative isolation. "Even in my head, I think of you as 'Princess'."

She wasn't surprised. She was still disappointed. She stared at the ground, unable to face the answer to the question at the front of her mind: why?

She felt his fingers touch her chin a moment later, and she lifted her head. "I have to," he said quietly. "I say what I think... Shayla." He studied her, and then the hint of a rueful smile graced his expression. "You of all people know that, I think."

She tried to smile back, but she couldn't sustain it.

The brief touch of amusement faded from his face, replaced by a haunted look that she didn't like at all. "I have to be careful what I think," he said. "Because I can't keep myself from saying it. Do you understand?"

He was searching her gaze, maybe looking for some sign of forgiveness. "If I'd thought of you that way..."

"As Shayla?" she asked, when he trailed off. "That's who I am, Merrick."

The smile was back, small and self-mocking though it was. "As a woman."

She stared at him for a long moment. I have to be careful what I think... There were things he didn't discuss with her. Was it possible that he didn't even allow himself to consider the things he didn't voice?

She looked away. "That's who I am," she repeated softly. "I am a woman."

His reply was curt, and this time he didn't hesitate to use her name. "I'm very much aware of that, Shayla."

When she glanced at him in surprise, his tone gentled. "I said I tried not to think about it," he reminded her. "I didn't say I didn't notice."

"Princess?" Taylor's voice was calling them from somewhere up ahead.

Merrick cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted back. "We're coming!"

"Shayla," he added, when she would have started after Taylor. He waited until she looked at him to ask, "Did I say, or... or do something this time? Something that upset you?"

She swallowed. How much had he forgotten? "You said I wasn't your fantasy," she blurted out, then immediately wished she hadn't.

He frowned. She turned away, and again his voice stopped her. "Shayla," he repeated. This time she didn't move. "You are," he said, more quietly.

She hesitated, but a howl from the direction Taylor had gone kept her from answering. Merrick was at her side in a second, and they hurried through the trees toward the wolf's den. Moon was a silent and almost forgotten shadow behind them.

Taylor was reprimanding Eric when they arrived--a not unfamiliar sight, if the truth were told. They both seemed fine, though, so she turned her attention to the wolf. It had been his howl they heard, and if Taylor's comments were any indication, he was in no mood to allow company.

On the other hand, he was more responsive than he'd been when she left. She wondered if that had to do with Eric poking his paw. "That's as close as I can pinpoint the source of the temporal distortion," he said defensively, when Taylor brought it up for the third time.

She looked at Merrick, and he nodded. Edging into the den, he didn't bother to speak, and she wondered if that had been her mistake earlier. The wolf was without a pack now, a loner who seemed content to follow the warrior he had chosen, and perhaps communication was no longer as important to him as it was to some of the other wild zords.

He allowed Merrick's approach without complaint, and although he shifted his weight away when Merrick touched him, his eyes stayed open. Slitted. Watching. Lifting his paw when Merrick's hand slid over it, and even curling his toes under when Merrick tapped them, indicating he wanted to see the bottom of his paw.

She stared in amazement as Merrick looked at the pads of the foot, then gestured for the rest of them to come see. The wolf didn't do more than sigh, a deep exhalation that could have been relief or annoyance. Merrick had just gotten more cooperation from the animal spirit in seconds than she'd gotten in days.

"That's it, all right," Eric was saying, his voice quieter now than it had been before. "Didn't think we'd be seeing any of these up here."

"The wolf leaves the Animarium pretty often," Taylor answered, keeping her voice just as low. "All the Rangers' animal spirits do--right, Princess?"

She nodded, wondering what they were seeing. "Yes... the wolf spirit often--" She hesitated only briefly. "Travels with Merrick. What are you looking at?" she added, wondering if she should crowd in with them.

Eric saved her the trouble. "Your wolf zord's got three fragments of trizerium crystal lodged in the bottom of his paw. We're going to need Jen's help with this."

"Trizerium," Merrick repeated, stepping back to let the wolf lower his paw to the ground again. "The time crystals that you've been hunting?"

"Fuel cells, actually." Eric was eyeing the wolf warily. "Not supposed to be invented for another hundred years. It's their presence in this time that causes the temporal effects."

"I wonder if the wolf knew we were looking for them," Taylor mused. "Maybe he was drawn to them without knowing what they were."

"Or maybe I got close to them and he was trying to protect me." Merrick's hand rested against the wolf's paw, his tone was full of regret.

She hesitated. She wasn't sure she knew enough about this to guess, but she had studied the crystals when Jen's team enlisted the Wild Force Rangers to help with time hole containment a month ago. "Could those pieces of crystal... could they be what's making the wolf spirit sick?"

"It's likely." Eric's reply was short and to the point. "We don't know the effects of prolonged exposure to something outside the timeline."

"But Time Force would," Taylor put in. "They'll want to know about this as soon as possible. Especially if those crystal pieces are going to start opening time holes on the Animarium."

"That could be dangerous." Eric sounded as though the possibility was just occurring to him now. "Princess, you might want to consider leaving the Animarium. At least for now."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, I'm staying here, with the animal spirits. I know enough to stay away from time holes, and there's nothing that could come through here that would hurt me."

"Nothing?" Merrick repeated quietly. His gaze was steady on hers when she glanced at him in surprise. "Are you sure of that--Shayla?"

She opened her mouth, then hesitated. The Animarium had been isolated for three thousand years. According to Jen, it would continue that way for at least another millenium. Even before its separation from the earth it had been sacred ground, and she had trouble imagining anything on this land that could threaten her.

Merrick probably didn't, she thought with a sigh.

"Nothing that the wild zords couldn't protect me from," she said at last. "I am not afraid to stay here. And I won't leave the wolf, in any case."

Eric didn't look happy about that, but all he said was, "Will you allow someone who can monitor the crystal shards to be stationed here until we can contact Jen?"

She hesitated. Luckily, Taylor intervened before she could answer. "The princess can do it herself," she said quickly. "She can borrow my detector so we won't have to requisition another one, and I'll show her how to use it. It won't take long."

Eric was frowning. "I'd prefer to have trained personnel monitoring the situation. These shards could interact with the timeline in any number of ways--"

"Fine," Taylor interrupted. "I'll stay and keep an eye on them myself."

This seemed like the perfect solution in many ways, but apparently none of those ways appealed to Eric. "You have plans tonight," he informed Taylor. Which seemed an odd thing to remind her of, since after all, she must be aware of her own schedule.

Taylor just smiled, making it clear that yes, she knew that perfectly well. And that those plans probably involved Eric. "Princess Shayla has plenty of background on temporal effects," she informed him. "There's nothing I can do here that she can't. But if it's so important to have someone with a badge watching the detector screen..."

"Fine," Eric said curtly. "Give her your detector. I'll call Wes and tell him to send a message to Time Force."

Taylor made a face at him as he turned away. Eric didn't seem to notice. Taylor reviewed detector function and anomalies with her while he talked to his headset, and though Eric finished first he didn't come over to offer advice. Merrick stayed where he was, and when she glanced over at him she caught him patting the wolf's paw absently.

He didn't move, even when Taylor made it clear that trying to remove the shards from the wolf's paw themselves could be disastrous. She didn't explicitly say that they should stay away from the wolf. Eric did, but Taylor just shook her head and told them, "The detector's got a pretty good range. It should be able to pick up a time hole anywhere on the Animarium."

"I'm going to stay with the wolf," she told the Eagle Ranger.

Taylor nodded. "I know," she said simply.

Before they left, Eric warned them that Jen might contact them before they heard from him again. Or she might not. Either way, they should be careful around those crystal shards and go nowhere without the detector. "You could walk through a time hole before you even knew it was there," he told them.

Taylor just rolled her eyes, indicating that she thought they knew this already. "Be careful," the Eagle Ranger said, pulling him away. "Call me if anything happens."

"I will," she promised, smiling a little when Eric grumbled over the rough treatment. Taylor was lucky to have someone unafraid to protest. So was her partner.

They both wished Merrick well before they left, though Eric's muttered farewell was cursory as usual. Merrick barely acknowledged it. The two of them didn't know each other that well, even now.

She, on the other hand... well, sometimes she thought she knew him too well. Other times, she thought he was more of a mystery now than he had been the first day they met. The road they'd traveled together had been long--unnaturally so--but perhaps not particularly honest.

It was a failing she meant to set right.

"Merrick," she said quietly. "Will you stay here?"

"For whatever protection I can offer against something I don't understand," he murmured, still staring at the wolf's paw. "Of course."

"I'm safe enough here without you," she said, taking a step toward him. "That's not why I asked."

He lifted his head at last, and the look he gave her was tired and lost. "What do you want from me, Princess?"

She swallowed, unable to answer.

"Shayla." He seemed to realized his mistake immediately. "What do you want from me," he repeated, closing his eyes. "Shayla."

She wanted him to be safe, for him to stay here where no one could hurt him when visions of the past overtook him. She wanted him to be somewhere familiar while the past and the future warred in his mind. But he wasn't asking what she'd meant--he was asking what she wanted.

"I want you... not to hate me," she whispered.

For some reason, that made him smile, although he didn't open his eyes. "I've never hated you."

"But you can't forgive me," she said sadly.

He opened his eyes. "You told me to leave. You made me think you were gone, asleep and unaware, for another thousand years. You sent me away, left me to myself, stranded both of us alone in this foreign world... and for what?

"For what, Shayla?" He lifted his hand from the wolf, fist clenching as he stared her down. "Is this what you want? A lifetime of loneliness in this--this shell? This place is filled with ghosts! Poor companionship for the daughter of the king, for a temple guardian... for the woman who didn't even know what privacy was until I taught you!"

She lowered her gaze, letting out her breath in a sigh. She had known that anger lurked behind his betrayed expression, and she was almost relieved to hear him give it voice. "Poor companionship for anyone," she said softly. "Especially for you, who have no connection to the animal spirits beyond those that chose you."

"Why don't I get to make that choice?" Merrick demanded. "Why is it all right for you to choose a life here and not me? Why is all right for you to choose for me?"

She opened her mouth, but she had no answer but the truth. "I didn't know what I was choosing," she murmured. "I don't want you to make the same mistake."

"I know what I'm choosing," Merrick said fiercely. "I choose you, Princess. Shayla. If it made you happy, I'd be gone before you could ask--but it doesn't! It makes you miserable, and it makes me miserable, and there's no reason for it!"

He was staring at her, and she found she couldn't look away. Even when he relaxed, settling in the place he stood, his voice dropping as he muttered, "That's what I can't forgive."

She wanted to reach out, to touch him somehow, and she couldn't. They were bound to each other in a way she didn't fully understand, and it wasn't enough. She didn't know how to make the connection between them tangible.

Taylor's detector beeped politely in the sudden silence. She knew the sound; she had heard it several times before. Always in the presence of time holes. She looked down at the screen, confident in her ability to interpret its locator display--

Except that it was blank. The beeping stopped the moment she looked at the device, and she frowned. It wasn't registering any anomalous temporal activity. Or at least, it wasn't registering anything now. She was sure it had detected something just a moment ago.

"What is it?" Merrick wanted to know. He had left the wolf's side at last, hovering nearby as she tapped the detector experimentally.

"I don't know," she admitted. Although Taylor seemed to feel that hitting equipment produced results, it didn't seem to be working for her. The detector continued to insist not only that there was nothing amiss, but also that there hadn't been a problem since it was activated.

She should call Taylor, she supposed. The Eagle Ranger had only just left; surely she couldn't be too involved in whatever plans she had for the evening. Or maybe she should simply believe the equipment Taylor had loaned her--it said there was nothing wrong, after all. The alert could have been a minor aberration, one of the glitches Taylor seemed to take great pleasure in enumerating, usually in Eric's presence.

She heard someone calling her name, and she looked up in surprise. Her first thought was that Taylor had forgotten something, and this would be the perfect opportunity to ask her about the detector. Her second thought was that the voice was much too young to be Taylor's.

"Princess Shayla! Princess Shayla, where are you!" A girl's voice, one that was as familiar now as it had been three thousand years ago. Coming from somewhere just outside the den. "Princess Shayla!"

She turned toward the sound instinctively and caught Merrick's startled gaze. She looked for and found confirmation in his expression. He was listening too--and it was a voice he hadn't expected her to hear.

"May," she said. She was almost afraid to identify the voice aloud, for fear of disappointment or ridicule. But Merrick only nodded.

May was calling her name.