"It'd sound nice with the voice."

Madison smiled shyly.

"Love you," she said, mustering a bit of spice.

Heda picked Madison up and pressed their lips together.

"Better."

"Best."

An hour later, the pre-semester shifter and magic-user dinner was well underway. The members of Animal House, as Heda's social group was now called, were sitting all together, laughing and feasting and having a good time. But then Reichert stepped up to the podium, and the room went quiet.

"Thank you all for coming. No, you aren't getting course credit for this, but you can't leave because I had the doors locked." He smiled, waiting for the chuckles to die down.

“But seriously, I'm glad to see so many people chose to return this semester after the tragedies and horrors experienced this past Fall. I wondered if I should suggest that we all just act as if it never happened, but that would be unrealistic. It would also fail to be productive."

He stopped, looked around, and his eyes came to rest on Heda.

“As many of you know, Heda Adler and her companions showed great resolve and determination in their pursuit of an evil man. Of course, they, and specifically she, were doing so in direct defiance of just about every rule that had been laid out. I can only imagine how her mother must have felt trying to raise such a foolhardy, stubborn, and too- smart-for-her-own-good daughter. I imagine that between all the headaches and gnashing of teeth, she was a source of great pride for her family, as she has become for her entire community.

"Yet I would be remiss in my thanks if I did not focus some attention on a very unlikely hero. Miss Madison Sloan," he said, waiting until the spotlight floated over to a very surprised young woman, "I owe you more than my life, and that is a hard thing for a King . . . especially THIS King . . . to say. It is hard because of a certain degree of shame."

Madison looked confused, and she gripped Heda's hand under the table.

"Madison, I once thought, as others did and sometimes still do, that those who could not have survived in our wild world in centuries past were weak. I did not realize until recently how foolish that notion was. My totem animal was as physically powerful and dominant as any creature on earth. All that strength did not save it. It was not versatile enough to survive."

Reichert looked out over the crowd.

"We take great pride in our animal heritage, as well we should, but we are half human as well.

And our human brethren have survived when some of the greatest, most powerful beings to walk our earth, fly our skies, and swim in our oceans have drifted into history. Why? Because of their minds.

Because they used their brains to adapt to an environment that no other physical manifestation could endure. They could not fly on their own, so they built machines. They reached the moon, where not even the greatest of the bird-shifters could plant their feet."

He sighed, this admission obviously taking a great toll on him.

"Madison Sloan survived for twenty years with a sharp, finely tuned mind that more than made up for her lack of sight. When surrounded by the right people, she proved time and time again to have both the brain and the fortitude to do the right thing. It was she who uncovered the truth about the evil that she survived, and that truth led to my own rescue and, hopefully, redemption. Madison, you cannot see because of a genetic quirk at birth. I have no such excuse. I believe that I may need you, the blind, to lead the rest of us whenever we seem to have lost our way.”

Heda looked over and saw tears creeping out from those white eyes.

Madison had stopped wearing the sunglasses when around shifters, because she no longer felt she needed or wanted to hide. Heda was happy for her friend because, as Reichert had put it, this was redemption.

“Ready to go dancing?" Heda whispered.

Madison just smiled and said, “Ready for anything."