"Seventh of February, 2202, Director's journal. After a week of searching, I managed to find her. Well, with the assistance of my associate, Agent Bashir, who was the one who first found her, and is currently recuperating in the infirmary for his troubles. Despite what happened to him, the injuries I sustained, I still wished to go out and find her for myself. I admitted to her why, as well, and I don't exactly recall what happened afterwards, though telling her I found her attractive was probably not the wisest of things to do. Telling her that she was my only friend was most likely even more daft than that."

In his self-inflicted darkness, the Director removed his paw from the recording device to which he was speaking, and reflected on what he had said so far. He was ignorant of the lack of light; there was not all that much in the room to see, anyway. A desk, a computer, and a few scattered papers were all he needed to keep himself up-to-date with his work. Seeing them did not make them any easier to use, he could, in fact, tell precisely where they were already. He knew the layout of his spartan grey desk like the fur on the back of his paw, which he was then putting back to the computer, ready to record again. He had decided on what to say.

"Had I have hesitated for longer, I may have lost her entirely. The primitives assisting her would probably have hidden her totally, and I'm not much of a tracker. I am, of course, fairly shocked to see her armed so quickly, and with a sword, at that. My perceptions of her being a coarse, brutish individual have been shot to hell; in the jungle, she moves with inimitable grace and speed. She used this to her advantage, and captured me after I attempted retreat, proceeding to beat me senseless, breaking my left leg and right arm in the process."

Again, he paused, and his tone of voice changed from the broad self-indulgence of his short-lived success, to a more subdued, mechanical interpreter of events.

"A small scuffle ensued, I was able to pull one of my revolvers and shoot her in the thigh - I suspect it was her left. Beaten, she retreated long enough for me to at least begin a second withdrawl, until I was set upon by three of her comrades: squirrels, I believe, more dextrous than the average recom, and though they were malnourished, the fact that I was wounded and outnumbered definately tipped the scales away from my favour."

The Director let out a long breath, which hung for a while in the tangible darkness of his office. To be wounded in battle, certainly. That he could understand, that he could accept with only mild annoyance at himself for allowing it to happen. But to be wounded by her, of all people, and simply by being thrown against a tree... Nevertheless, he found himself dwelling on the unpleasantry. They had both been designed by their creator to be complements to each other - Yin and Yang, Order and Chaos - they were able to bring balance to the other's shortcomings. If that were truly the case, the Director was willing to guess, then they should be equal in every respect. He hazarded a guess that they would always play to a stalemate, but for one thing...

They never did. She always, always beat him, and never just beat him, she always `whooped his ass', as she would put it. For some reason, no matter what they did, she was always able to see his hand, thwart his planning, and grind him into the dirt for his troubles. The most elaborate schemes, cooked up - and here was something that he would never admit to, not even subconciously - to impress her, and they were doomed to failure from their very conception for one simple reason: Her. She was Chaos. She was random. Totally unpredictable. His logical, ordered mind had no perception of her thought patterns; as usual, he was so fundamentally different from her that he was unable to best her. Not even to equal her.

"She tied me to a chair and tortured me. There was a time during that, that I began to suspect she just might live up to her threats, and kill me. The pain I could handle - torture resistance techniques were one of the first lessons I excelled in - but the fact that it was her, beating me again... The inability to fight back, torture for torture's sake, my life as hers to toy with however she saw fit. So damned humiliating, and I could have killed her for it, for not killing me for it. She didn't want me dead, the wench. She wanted me alive so she could enjoy herself. The mind games she plays, oh, yes, I know full well what she's trying to do to my head. The woman is too sick to be that random: she had planned that far ahead, at least."

Rubbing the pads on his palms together briskly, it was as though the action might wash the pasts' influence from his mind. Still he dwelt on it. Tortured. He was Director of the finest Intelligence Agency since the KGB - conceived by the KGB - and she had simply wanted to hurt him. Pain was not what she sought, nothing less than driving him insane would do. He lifted his paw, scratching a row of five daggered claws across his forehead.

"Miss Tannen?" He spoke instead to a particular point in the darkness than the place where his computer was this time, chin lifted out proudly though nobody else could see him.

A quiet click, and a bright line of light lanced into the shroud of black surrounding the Director, arcing slowly across drab grey carpeting that had gone threadbare in places, never having been bothered with for replacement. The opening did, though, carry a shadow, which fell from the doorway and into the centre of the unnatural brightness of the invading light. Tawny fur stuck out from behind the door, unwilling to go much further, lest the dark set upon the light and they be found alone in it. The lioness held one paw on the doorframe, electric blue eyes on the veiled form of the Director. "Yes, Sir?"

"Tea, please."

"Earl Grey, or that nice Green Tea that Commodore Kalsar sent?"

Here, he had a choice, and he took a while longer than necessary mulling it over. Having free will was nothing if you couldn't exercise it, and he fully intended to do so, even if it was on something so small as a cup of tea. "Do you have sugar in Green Tea?"

"I don't think so, Sir." If the lioness had been in any way confused by his query, she hid it easily, to the point where not even the Director could tell her deception. "Though I guess you could if you wanted to."

"Oh..." So, his choices had been rather more limited than he thought. "Just Earl Grey then, Miss Tannen."

"With sugar, Sir?"

"Yes, please." He shuffled the small pile of dossiers on his desk to sound active. "Plenty of sugar, thankyou."

She at least appeared to accept his false industry, turning smartly on one heel and closing the door as she left, tugging the intruding light out behind her. He would soon have tea, and he was glad for it, because had he decided to say no to the notion of a hot beverage, that would have been accepted just as quickly as he had said yes. The Director finally decided that he did indeed enjoy the company of Miss Tannen, if simply because she gave him all the choices he could possibly want - being paid for it was not one of the reasons that came to mind for that.

For a long while, the white-furred wolf stared at the spot where he imagined his computer screen to be before speaking, carefully enunciating each word more for comfort's sake of repitition than because he felt it necessary. He blinked only once, his starburst green eyes otherwise left to blaze out into the dark, their glorious malachite pigments barely denting the impenetrable veil.

"She let me go, of course, beaten and bloodied, at the spaceport. She was even decent enough to haul my near-dead carcass into my ship, leaving me to lick my wounds awhile and consider what had happened - one very important lesson is to never, ever admit to the possibility of loving a woman. Especially not her, if I entertain the possibility of a long and fulfilling life. I may seek her out again, try to decipher her, or I may not. Maybe after tea. Paelyn Blaquerocke, signing off."