Hawk was sleeping beside him, face half-buried in the pillow. Numair reached through the grass growing up through the mattress between them, and merely touched his arm. He sighed in his sleep, and Numair closed his eyes again, as a breeze whispered over his bare shoulders and stirred the grass. The dark clouds hung low and still overhead, but there were thin shafts of sunlight coming down among them now too.

The sound of the office doors moving as Numair opened them brought the reverie to an end.

The office was dimly and coldly lit; the sheer curtain pulled over the picture window behind the desk only muffled the morning light coming in. Numair went to the desk and stood there, hands on its surface, shoulders hiked up. Sraddi sat on the perch beside the desk, looking at him mutely.

< ...I am in very bad trouble, > he said.

Hawk, meanwhile, strolled across a road in the shade of the trees, whistling to himself. He continued on down the sidewalk, passing a red car going in the opposite direction. Someone in the car said "Stop the car, now," which caused the driver to throw on the brakes, but Hawk didn't turn to look for the source of the screeching sound.

The driver, a pointy-eared man in a red baseball cap, turned irritably towards the passenger seat. "What the hell, man?!" he demanded.

"Look in the mirror."