NEXUS DREAMS

Thank you to all who have read and reviewed! ^_^ (*hugs to The Deville's Dog*)

Not too shabby, Lupa thought as the young lion, uttering a staccato yelp at her sudden appearance, promptly fell over his own feet and ended up in an ungainly sprawl somewhere around her ankles. Maybe the squirt-gun was a bad move. Maybe he doesn't like practical jokes.

Maybe I should give him a hand up.

She reached down with an apologetic grin.

"Sorry about that," she said. "Didn't mean to scare you."

He gave her a vicious glare and slapped her hand away.

"Don't touch me! Honestly! I can do this on my own. I don't require the aid of armed vigilantes…"

He made it almost to his feet and nearly managed an escape, but fell over one of Lupa's shoe-straps and ended up flat on his back again.

Lupa couldn't help herself. She giggled.

"Don't be so chirpy, young lady," came the reprimand from the ground. "Especially while wearing a skirt like that. If I wasn't a gentleman -"

Lupa gathered her skirt hastily around her legs and growled at him.

Vladimir levered himself up, displaying what Lupa was going to eventually recognise as a characteristic lack of grace (an oddity amongst cats), and stood a few paces away, still glaring.

His eyes are different colours.

Lupa almost flinched before the territorial fury of the yellow eye, but warmed to the mix of anger and terror that the blue eye showed her. He couldn't be much older than her, not really (although age in shifters is difficult to define) and he probably weighed less than her when he was soaking wet. Young lady indeed! thought Lupa, and heartened, she made a second attempt.

"You must be Vladimir," she said, smoothing down her skirt and holding out a hand to him. "I'm Lupa d'Acosta. Your - your father said I could stay here for a while…"

Vladimir snorted through his whiskers and said: "My father - ever the bleeding heart. Picks up waifs and strays wherever he goes. We have to restrain him from visiting the animal sanctuary, or we'd be overrun."

He relented and shook her hand. His pads were soft, unlike Lupa's tough palms, and spoke to her of a man who spent most of his time indoors on carpets and never did any heavy lifting.

Lupa wagged her tail in encouragement at him, then tried to stop it, recalling what Arkady had taught her when they first met. Us cats don't see wagging as friendly, Lupa. To us it means you're nervous, possibly even angry. Most of us know to read you canines but it doesn't do to make a bad impression…

Vladimir didn't seem to notice and merely stared in an interrogative manner at the replica gun in her hand.

"It's not real," said Lupa, somewhat shamefaced, and squeezed the trigger. A dribble of water sprinkled Vladimir's toes, and his thick brown claws extended to grip the concrete better. "I found it upstairs. My attempt at an ice-breaker. Sorry."

Vladimir smiled, a proper and genuine smile. The sun, which had for the last few minutes been troubled by scudding clouds, shone out clear and brilliant again over the garden. "I remember it now," he said, taking the plastic thing from her and turning it over in his paws. "This was Vervain's, when he was six. Scared the young Cameron children silly with it, he did."

"Vervain's your brother, right?"

"There's nothing right about Vervain," said Vladimir, darkly. "But yes, he is my brother. You're lucky he's not here, or that skirt would be a real problem."

Lupa wisely decided not to press the issue and turned instead to the basking arch of the worldgate in the field beyond. The gate lay still and dormant under the sunshine, looking for all the world like a simple carved edifice, no special powers at all.

"You want to see it working?"

Vladimir looked almost eager, suddenly.

"I'm being trained," he added, "to use the gates. My father wants me to be the new Keeper when he retires."

Lupa thought for a moment. "I've been through one before," she said. "I don't come from the Nexus. I come from -"

Oh, now there's a difficult one.

" - another dimension."

Lame. So lame, Lupa.

Vladimir shrugged. "Which one?" he asked. "I've been to loads. My father insisted we get used to travelling between worlds. He took me to a dragon dimension when I was three and I nearly got eaten by a big gold-back."

Lupa frowned in sympathy. "Guess you must be pretty scared of dragons now, huh?" she said.

"Not really," said Vladimir. "They're only at number 1,347 on my list. No, what I really learnt to be scared of that day was my father…"

Lupa glanced up for the first time at the awning that stretched out over the patio. It was thick, looked oddly shiny, and was textured like big flat metallic scales…

She shivered.

"Everything all right out here, kitlings?"

Mr Mikhail had come out into the garden on velvet feet. He was dressed now in a black shirt with silver symbols embroidered around the collar, and he held a tea-tray in one hand.

"I see you've met my son and you're not actively trying to kill each other yet," said Lionheart Mikhail smoothly, setting the tray down on the picnic table. "That's good. Most people have at least tried to throttle him by now." And he cuffed his middle son affectionately across the ears.

"Da-ad," growled Vladimir, swiping with a paw, "you stopped doing that when I was twelve. Why are you doing it now?"

"I'm doing what it is the right of every father to do," said Lionheart with great good humour, "humiliate my offspring in front of girls. "

Lupa giggled again, and instantly hated herself for displaying such blatantly girly tendencies twice in one day. But she loved banter, and her old home had never been great as far as witty repartee went. Vladimir rolled his eyes skywards and slumped down onto the bench to drink his iced tea without another word.

"I have business today," Lionheart went on, "and it's going to take me off-world for a while. Now are you sure you'll be able to look after things here?"

He winked at Lupa. "Don't worry about him," he said, "he only tends to break one thing a day and usually it's cookware."

"It'll be fine, Dad. Really."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do now."

Mr Mikhail stretched luxuriously and opened the rickety gate to the field where the worldgate stood in all it's glory. Lupa couldn't help but look, although she'd seen gates activate before, and this time she felt Vladimir's canny gaze on her back, watching her watch his father as the gate responded to his command.

Lionheart Mikhail placed one big paw on the stone surround, and purred. Light welled up in the archway like water from a natural spring, pooling to fill the gateway with brilliant white glare. The sun shone still brighter in the Nexus sky, and Lupa was overwhelmed by a feeling of pure joy that she'd never experienced before while a gate was opening - her abiding memories of gate-travel were dark and cold.

"Do you feel it? The gates love him," came Vladimir's voice from behind her. "He's the finest Keeper the Nexus has ever had. The gates will do anything for him."

Mr Mikhail gave the two a little wave and a grin, then stepped into the light and was gone. The gate closed slowly, trickles of brilliance oozing down the sides and melting away into the grass.

And then it was just a dull stone arch again.

Lupa let out a long breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. A claw tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned.

Vladimir flickered an eyebrow at her and grinned. If his face was all his mother's, the grin was purely Lionheart. It was infectious. Lupa found herself grinning back.

"Wanna make some cookies?" he asked.