The waitress finally arrived with our food. Her eyes darted between us and the agitated-looking Whitepaw parents as she set the plates onto our table.

"Perhaps," Kristi suggested diplomatically, "we could all sit down and enjoy breakfast while we discuss this calmly? Mr. and Mrs. Whitepaw, would you and your children care to join us?"

"We are not sitting down to have breakfast with the people who have corrupted our daughter!" Rex growled.

"Sir, we didn't force Nessy into anything. She chose to be in our pack. Your daughter is an adult who can make her own decisions," I said, receiving a supportive squeeze from Nessy's hand under the table.

"An adult who was supposed to become a monk by the end of this year!" Natalie countered. "Who has been planning for that path since she was fourteen. Who suddenly disappeared, abandoned her commitments, and turned up smelling like—"

"Like freedom!" Nessy interrupted, hackles rising. "Mom, Dad, I know this is a shock, but the temple was never my choice. Not really. It was what I thought I had to do because my friends convinced me that my dreams and songs were meaningless. They were wrong! I remember everything now!"

"Remember what?" Rex asked, letting go of his daughter slightly.

"Everything," Nessy repeated, glancing at me with a soft smile. "The life I lived before in a previous loop. The people I care about and… love."

"What are you talking about?!" Her father asked. "Wasn't the whole 'seeking a breakaway from the infinite loop' merely a philosophical ideology of the Krishna temple?"

"No. The temple monks were infested with Astral parasites," Kristi explained. "They were feeding on emotions, particularly love and attachment. They were taking Nessy's memories, her songs, her dreams."

"That's absurd," Natalie declared. "The Krishna temple was part of Ferguson for decades. They helped many people find peace… Hosted events, volunteered and aided so many people in need!"

"Uh-huh. By stealing their joy, sorrow and love," Candace interjected. "They won't be 'helping' anyone anymore, on the account that we shut down the Krishna temple and helped the town Admin remove its infected denizens."

Miles and Roxy got tired of standing around and migrated to our table, sitting next to their sister, eyeing our untouched food with undisguised interest. Nessy, Candace and I slid deeper into the booth to make room for them.

"Can I have a bite of your waffles?" Miles asked Nessy.

"Sure, kiddo," she smiled, sliding her plate toward him.

"These are really good," Roxy commented, already sampling Candace's hash browns.

"Roxy! Miles! Get away from that food!" Natalie ordered. "You don't know what they might have put in it!"

"Pancake batter and bacon chunks, mostly," Candace replied dryly. "Also, the hostess just brought this food, when would we have had the chance to poison it? I'd never poison my family, I love you guys!"

"Aww yuss, we got us a cute fox sister," one of the twins commented.

"Look," I tried again, "I get how alarming this must be for you. Your daughter disappears, the temple she usually stays at is empty, and suddenly she's with four people you've never met. But I promise you, we care about Nessy deeply."

"Oh, I can smell exactly how 'deeply' you care," Rex growled.

"Dad!" Nessy exclaimed with a mortified expression.

"I think it's romantic," Roxy announced, her mouth full of harvested hash browns and bacon. "Like a fairy tale. Nessy found her FOUR true loves and they all fought monsters together!"

"Don't encourage this, Roxy," Natalie scolded.

"But Mom, just listen to Nessy. She sounds and smells happier than ever," Miles pointed out, chocolate smeared around his muzzle. "Haven't you noticed? She's not smelling depresso or stresso anymore!"

"Yeah, mom," Roxy bobbed. "She's happy. Lay off with the whole boss-cat attitude n' smell her feelings. Haven't you been worried about her? The temple wasn't fixing her. It's been alleviating her melancholy, sure, but it always returned in the mornings. We've been very worried about our sis."

This observation gave both parents pause. They looked at their daughter more carefully.

"Yes. I am happy. I found my voice again," Nessy explained. "The Astral Phantom parasites inhabiting the Well of Severance were stealing my songs, my memories. I got them back. I got myself back. Also, I finally found the boy I've been dreaming about." Her hands wrapped themselves around me, tail wagging.

"How could four prads and a human clear out the entire Krishna temple?" Nessy's dad attempted to find a hole in our story.

"We didn't do it alone," I said. "Call Instructor Fern, TA Marlena or Principal Kerberos—they helped us arrest the monks. Without them, we wouldn't be able to bring down the barrier shields."

Rex's eyes narrowed skeptically. "The Administration of Ferguson High was involved in... what exactly? Storming a religious institution?"

"It wasn't storming," Kristi interjected. "It was more of a... sanctioned extraction."

"Of parasite ghosts!" Candace added. "Big, squishy, blobby, emotion-eating parasites that looked like squid-shrooms. They were piloting the monks like meat puppets!" She tried to illustrate the 'parasite puppeteering' by wiggling her slender, long, white fingers.

"Meat puppets?" Natalie blanched.

"Sounds baller!" Miles exclaimed. "Were there explosions? Did you guys use magic?"

"Lots of magic n' SO many explosions," Candace bobbed. "Kristi flew through the temple on the Nemesis glider belonging to her grandfather n' exploded the library doors with her Decimator railgun! TA Marlena battled underwater prads using her seal skeels and water Elementals. Instructor Fern battered the temple's ward with a thousand air, mental, fire and earth Elementals! And Alec dove headfirst into a psychic well of doom and got his throat sliced open and was stabbed right through his heart—"

"WHAT?!" all four Whitepaws exclaimed.

"He got better," Candace added quickly. "Because of his Reconstitution skill. Very handy in a relationship with four virile prad femmes. Can't die from a heart attack, you see."

"Fox, will you please shut up?" Kristi growled, kicking Candace under the table. "You're going to give these poor dogs a heart attack if you keep going."

"Alas, I've never been able to be mum," Candace replied slyly, "it's one of my most endearing qualities."

"Right then," Rex said, massaging his temples, "I'm going to call Principal Kerberos right now and verify this... ridiculous story." He pulled out his phone.

"Great idea!" Candace beamed, harvesting a crepe from the cheetah's plate and stuffing it into her maw. "You do dat' while we nom."

"Oi, quit nabbing my crepes," Adelle growled.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Sharing is caring, kitty-cat." The fox girl laughed. "Guys move over some more, so Nessy's parents can have room to sit."

Kristi and Addie slid deeper into the booth, scooching closer to Candace with nearly identical, sour expressions.

Natalie sat down into the booth beside Kristi, looking dazed. "I don't understand any of this. Nessy, honey, just a week ago you were talking about your initiation ceremony. You've spent four years preparing for monastery life! You told me that it was your life's mission to be a Krishna guru to help people with all sorts of life problems!"

"Mom," Nessy said gently, "I'm still going to help people. Just in other ways. With my pack. We're going to help Ferguson through delving!"

"Delving's dangerous," her mother muttered.

Nessy sighed. "The temple was a dangerous dungeon too, just one hidden from sight. The monks were basically half-sentinels under its control. Every time I had a dream about Alec or wrote a song about him, they'd take it away. They called it 'cleansing' but it was actually the theft of my real passion and dreams! All of the songs I wrote were about Alec!"

"So, you wrote songs about this human before you even met him?" Rex asked, phone pressed to his ear.

"Yes! That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Nessy exclaimed. "I knew him in another life—literally! We got together, fought monsters, built a domain in an RV! We planted a magical tree named Bulwichu and… then the Magnetic Lynx killed me in the Superstore—"

Nessy's mother blinked at the husky girl.

"In another life!" Nessy added. "Before this one, obviously!"

"Hello? Principal Kerberos? This is Rex Whitepaw, Nessy's father," Nessy's dad spoke into the phone.

We all fell silent, watching him.

"Yes... yes, I'm calling about... Well, my daughter claims that she participated in some kind of... operation at the Krishna temple involving parasites and... What?... She was?... Under your authority?... The entire temple?... Really?"

Rex's expression cycled through disbelief, shock, confusion, and finally resigned acceptance as he listened.

"You're rewarding her with an all expenses paid trip to your homeland? I see... Yes... Of course... Tomorrow at 3:30 PM would be… Fine for a meeting. Yes, I'll bring Natalie... Thank you, sir."

He hung up, staring at his phone like it had personally betrayed him.

"Well?" Natalie prompted.

"Principal Kerberos... confirmed it," Rex said slowly. "There was apparently a 'parasite infestation' at the temple and a dungeon core that was cleared by a pack of student delvers, one of whom was Nessy, and two Instructors. The monks have all been arrested. The temple is now under the school's jurisdiction."

"Told ya!" Candace said triumphantly, chewing on a bacon stolen from my plate.

"And he wants to meet with us tomorrow to discuss Nessy's... situation," Rex continued. "He seemed to think her involvement was... commendable."

"Yay," Roxy piped up. "Our sister's a hero! I always believed in you, Ness!"

"Aww thanks," Nessy smiled at her sister.

"A hero who eloped with four strangers," Natalie muttered.

"We're not strangers," Candace protested. "We're essentially the same soul split across four prads bodies. Like a quantum subdivision of a singularity."

"Candace," I told her. "I don't think that Nessy's parents can understand your Astral Binding terminology."

"Bah!" Candace waved a white paw at me. "You don't know them like I do, Alec! They're clever cookies. It means they only have one daughter-in-law, not four. Very economical."

"What's economical? We still eat like four prads, ya knob," Addie commented.

"You eat like four prads by yourself, cat-babe," Candace huffed. "I'm obviously talking 'bout conceptual economy, not food savings. You know, like merging us all into a single body for ease of introductions and transport. Oh! Think of all the savings on train and glider tickets!"

Nessy's mother stared at us, her mind trudging through the molasses of Candace's loopy verbiage.

Nessy's father grabbed a nearby chair, pulled it to the front of the booth and sat down with a deep, weary sigh, square glasses glinting with reflections of diner's windows and lights.

"Rex," Natalie said. "What was that about a homeland trip?"

"Ah," Rex chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. "Principal Kerberos said that they're going on a field trip to Omithornia."

"Where is that?" Natalie asked with a look of suspicion.

"It's a parallel Earth full of cryptids, crystal kittens, whack magitek, tentacle monsters and miscellaneous reality-bending horrors," Candace explained.

"WHAT?!" both Whitepaw parents exclaimed again.

"Candace," I groaned, "please stop helping."

"Never," she replied merrily, harvesting another piece of bacon from my plate.

"Ohh! I wanna go too!" Roxy bounced in her seat.

"Absolutely not!" Natalie barked. "No one is going to any... tentacle dimensions!"

"Aww, but Mom!" Roxy whined.

"Mrs. Whitepaw," I tried again, "It's not a tentacle dimension, it's just another Earth, one where Principal Kerberos was born. We all intend to protect and keep your daughter safe during this trip. Instructor Fern will be supervising us."

The prad girls around me nodded.

"It sounds to me," Rex said. "Like my daughter is involved in some kind of supernatural danger that's well beyond what any teenager should be dealing with!"

"I'm not a teenager," Nessy protested.

"You're eighteen!"

"Chronologically, yes," she conceded. "But my soul is... technically much older."

"And divided," Candace added, making a chopping motion. "Half of you went to me."

"Will you stop with the 'divided soul' nonsense?" Natalie snapped.

"It's not nonsense, Mom," Nessy insisted. "Why do you think Candace smells so much like me? Come on, you must have noticed our eerie similarities earlier, right?"

Natalie's eyes narrowed as she actually took a moment to study Candace more carefully. The silver fox sat there, grinning expectantly, her tail swishing back and forth. Despite the completely different species, there was something in the shape of her eyes, the mannerisms, even the way she tilted her head that echoed Nessy's movements, as if they were sisters.

"It… could be coincidence," Natalie finally said, but her voice lacked conviction. "Behavioral mimicry, perhaps, from spending time together. And you smell like each other because you… you know."

"Pfff, sure, mom. Why don't you smell us properly," Candace challenged, extending her arm toward Natalie and grabbing Nessy's arm to extend it across the table. "Really smell us. All of us. Beneath the surface scents of the physical. Smell our Astral imprint. I know that you can. Nessy got her Scrutiosmia from you. Dad, why don't you look at us in the Astral?"

Natalie exchanged a concerned 'what is this fox on' glance with her husband. Tapping a white gem on her leather collar, the prad woman leaned in, sniffing Nessy's and then Candace's hand.

"Oi, raptor and cheetah baes," Candace ordered Kristi and Addie. "Provide your hands to Mrs. Whitepaw for a review!"

The raptor and cheetah extended their paws to be sniffed.

Nessy's father tapped his glasses and they ignited with silver hexagrams.

It took a moment for both of Nessy's parents to fully engage their skills and artifacts and to examine each offered hand. In a few minutes of sniffing and staring, their faces grew long and then even longer.

This... this isn't possible," Natalie muttered. "They're… the same."

"Same frequency," Rex nodded, staring at the cheetah, fox, husky and raptor. "Different species… but the same Astral imprint. Well not… exactly the same, since there's a wide variety of damage at the edges, and different skill threads, but the core… the cores… are…"

"The heart of each soul smells exactly the same," Natalie nodded, rubbing her temples. "Which isn't possible because it breaks Matilov's Theory of Animancy Principle Six—no soul is the same and…"

"No two souls can merge safely without devouring the weaker one," Candace added. "See? We're a paradox. An error in the cosmic equation!"

"Not just that," Rex said, his voice hollow as he stared at all four of my prad girlfriends through his glowing glasses. "All of you are connected. Bound together by some kind formation that's folding into itself endlessly... Abyss eternal, I've never seen anything like this."

"That's our Dagaz," Candace grinned. "The self reinforcing [[[Love]]] Equation. Ain't it pretty, daddy?"

"Self reinforcing magic without a Syntropic source isn't possible," Rex bit his lip, tapping a claw on the table. "Only a Dragonheart Engine can reinforce… Hrmmm. I do see a little dragonheart artifact on you, but it's not powering this bond."

"Hrm," Natalie said, frowning. "I'm not smelling an endpoint of whatever this is."

"It's a rune, yes, but... alive. Self-sustaining. They're all feeding into each other through some kind of... infinite loop. A… liminal rune connected to…" Rex muttered, then his glasses suddenly stopped at me. "What in the Abyss?!"

His mouth fell open. "You…"

"Yes?" I looked back at the confused husky.

"You're a tree," he said.

"I'm aware," I said.

"Not a person," he added. "A tree masquerading as a person. Liminality wearing a single linear human-shaped point like a skinsuit."

Reality around me seemed to wobble for a moment like a glitch, like everything around me was fake, made from flimsy cardboard, two-dimensional decorations, holographic projections.

I suddenly felt like I could see past everything, past the restaurant walls, past the current Ferguson to the end of everything where the ever-present emerald comet tail sliced across the black sky forevermore, twisting into itself.

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