textfiles/sf/XFILES/talisman

From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:22 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 1/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:20:11 GMT
Message-ID: <4103598046.2104509@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 74

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (1 of 7 parts)

Prologue

New York State, 50 miles west of Albany
October 17, 1994
10:02 p.m.

	The strange light careened in front of the rain-streaked windshield, darting
back and forth, coming forward and then bolting away again teasingly just at
the edge of his vision.  Mulder cursed under his breath, squinting through
the heavy downpour, trying to keep one eye on the winding road, keeping the
car away from the railings marking the  Mohawk river valley beside him, and
the other eye tracking the peculiar light. 
	He was in deepest upstate New York, far away from the lights of the Big
Apple and in a hilly, somehow desolate region of the country.  The towns he
had passed through were ancient, some of them having gone bust in the years
when the Erie Canal was the major transportation artery, others full of
historical plaques and markers, Colonial houses looking skeletal in the
autumn rain.
	He had come here on the trail of what his sources at NICAP told him was a
week of unprecedented activity in an area hitherto devoid of sightings.  The
folks at NICAP thought it was weird that such intense energy be expended in
an area without the usual targets, such as a military base or a nuclear power
facility, but Mulder knew better.  He was carrying with him a classified
document bearing the location of a secret base just west of Albany codenamed
Arrowhead Peak.
	He kept on hand on the steering wheel and turned on the interior light,
fumbling with a map that marked the base's location.  Scully was still in
hospital in Washington, her memory gone.   She kept mumbling something about
a secret base and five men, and could only whimper uselessly when pressed. 
Her fine mind seemed to have disintegrated, and Mulder hurt more than he
believed was possible.  He had vowed to find the parties responsible for her
abduction and obvious brain injury. 
	It had taken two nightmarish weeks of furtive investigation and running
around in circles to get this far.  Mr X would not help him.  A fool's
errand, he said.  Let it go, he said.  But Mulder couldn't let it go.  And at
last, Mr X gave him the map.  It was the only lead he had.
	The maddening light that he had been following for the last five miles chose
at that instant to flare at the edge of the car's hood.  Mulder threw an
instinctive arm to shield his eyes from the sudden explosion of light,
brighter than any sun.  The car lurched forward and he had only time to brace
himself as the car left the rain-slicked pavement and plunged in the dark
valley below.	

Part 1 of 7 ends








From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:22 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 2/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:21:51 GMT
Message-ID: <4170706910.2104767@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 506

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (2 of 7 parts)

Chapter 1

	The  sun was gleaming weakly into the car through the wrecked windshield as
Mulder came to, raising his head to stare blearily out the window.  He
gingerly felt his forehead which had been resting on the steering wheel and
his hand came away sticky with slowly congealing blood.  He sat up as much as
he was able and saw that he had plunged a good five hundred feet hood first
into the river valley. He reached for his cell phone and checked it -- the
battery was dead.  He tried opening the door, but could not force it open as
mud from the wet riverbank was blocking it and had to settle for opening the
window.
	"Thank god for bottom of the line rentals," he muttered, his voice rusty
with disuse, thankful that the window still rolled down.
	There came a soft giggle and he quickly turned his head to see a young boy
of perhaps seven staring at him, standing at the edge of the morning mist. 
He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, dressed in a Power Rangers t-shirt and
jeans, his eyes huge and fathomless.  His skin was the colour of cinnamon
toast; Mulder knew instantly that he must be Native American.  This area had
once been the ancestral homeland of the Iroquois, a highly organized and
powerful grouping of tribes, and it was likely there were still the
descendents of these people in the area.
	The boy seemed quite amused by Mulder's predicament and grinned, showing a
dark place where his upper baby teeth had been.
	"Hey-yah, Mister," he said in a musical, sweet voice.  "You look like you
could use a little help."
	In spite of his headache, Mulder was charmed by the boy.  "Just a little,"
he said.  "Can you help me open the door?"
	He came a little closer and inspected the driver's side door, then walked
slowly around the vehicle and came back to the window, closer this time.  "I
think I should call for help," he said.
	Mulder sighed and sat back in his seat, resigned to waiting longer.  His
head throbbed.  "Okay, I'll wait."
	To his surprise, the boy threw back his head and cupped his hands over his
mouth.  The sound of a bird, sweet and unidentifiable, issued forth.  He
cocked his head to one side, listening; there came a short answering whistle
and out of the mist appeared a tall, lithe figure in seemingly no time at
all.
	She was smiling serenely as she approached, her thick black hair drawn up in
a ponytail, emphasizing the sharp angles of the cheekbones that jutted from
her oval face.  She wore a faded red and blue flannel shirt and black pants,
a large buckskin bag slung over one shoulder and banging against her curving
hip, her long legs ending in heavy hiking boots.  Silver flashed at her
throat, her wrists, her ears, and on her long fingers.  She was
golden-skinned, like warmed cinnamon, but mostly Mulder was struck by the
brilliance in her dark brown eyes, a kind of laughing intelligence that
viewed the world with  great humour and a thirst for knowledge.  The
interesting laugh lines around her doe-like eyes put her around Mulder's age.
	"Akwatonteh, this man is stuck," said the boy by way of explanation.
	"And so he is," she said neutrally.  Her tone was a low musical alto and her
eyes sought out Mulder's.  "What brings you to Mohawk country, Mr FBI?" she
asked conversationally, leaning into the door. 
	"Uh ... that's classified," he said lamely, abruptly overwhelmed by her
presence.  He wondered if FBI was stamped across his forehead instead of the
obvious wound.  "You don't want to see my ID?"
	She grinned and shook her head, winking at him.  He felt his head swim in
the depths of that smile, her teeth white and sharp.  He could smell her, a
decidedly stimulating concoction of herbs, fresh wildflowers, and water
flowing over mossy rocks. 
	"It's always classified, isn't it, Mr FBI?" she said as she surveyed his
car.  "Well-- this might take some doing.  Tehonig, run and get the shovel
out of the Pathfinder."  The boy turned and ran, scrambling up the embankment
with the nimble grace of some wild thing.  She came closer and touched his
forehead.  "Here -- you're hurt."   From the depths of her bag she produced a
cool alcohol wipe and a tube of some kind of ointment and set to work, her
touch swift and gentle.  The throbbing immediately decreased in the wake of
her ministrations.
	"So what happened?" she asked.  "Were you following the witch lights too
closely?"	
	He glanced sharply at her.  "What?"
	She looked long and searchingly at him.  "Of course you were," she said
quietly.  "It explains much."
	He shivered involuntarily.  This woman was eerily intuitive and her presence
was -- well, downright spooky.  He decided to be careful with her.  "Agent
Fox Mulder, FBI."  He stuck his hand through the open window.
	Her smile came swiftly again.  "Agent Mulder," she said as she shook his
hand in her lean, firm grip.  "Fox -- huh.  You've an auspicious name among
my people -- to the Hodenosaunee, the fox is the trickster."  She looked him
in the eye again, and Mulder found that all kinds of emotion, but especially
a growing lust, surged through him.  "I'm Degonawadonti Van Leeuwan, but you
can call me Daisy.  Degonawadonti is a bit of a mouthful for someone who
doesn't speak Mohawk."
	She turned her head at the boy's noisy approach.  He was singing as he slid
down the embankment, using the shovel like a vaulting pole.  "Sinneheh!" she
called.  "The deer hear you six miles away, Tehonig."
	He stopped his tumultuous descent and slid noiselessly the rest of the way. 
"Sorry, Akwatonteh."
	She took the shovel from him, ruffling his head.  "Go find the rest of my
herbs," she told him, taking the bag from her shoulder.  "This won't take but
three minutes, and  I still  need some roots of foxglove and yellowdock."
	He took the proffered bag.  "Okay, Akwatonteh."  He sprang away into the
mists behind the car.
	"Is he your son?" asked Mulder as she set to work, her strong arms
effortlessly lifting the river dirt away.
	She shook her head.  "My sister's boy, and my pupil."  She glanced sideways
at him, slyly.  "He's the son of the West Wind, and gifted."
	Mulder pondered this.  His knowledge of the Iroquois was vague, but he knew
that teasing was a cultural habit among Native Americans, and that some
employed a metaphorical turn of phrase, especially to test non-Natives.  He
watched as she made tremendous headway in clearing the dirt away from the car
door.  In no time, she was pulling the door open, grunting softly as it
resisted her tug.  He helped her by kicking from inside, and finally the door
grated open.  She lent him a strong shoulder to brace against as he got out,
finding his legs turned to rubber from being cramped for so long.
	She smiled at him as he stretched carefully.  She was nearly as tall as he,
the top of her head brushing his brow.  She reached behind him and pulled out
the map, his overnight bag and his briefcase.  She lifted an eyebrow when she
turned and caught a glimpse of his shoulder holster.
	Well, Agent Fox Mulder, my Pathfinder is atop the hill there.  I'm on my way
home.  Can I give you a lift?  If you want, you can use the phone or the
computer at my house."  Her offer was made over her shoulder as the boy
appeared out of the mists and she went to meet him.
	"Sure," said Mulder.  "I'd better call the rental company, check in with my
office."
	The boy looked at the car.  "Aren't you gonna call the police?" he asked. 
"They always do that on cop shows."
	His aunt laughed.  "He is the police, Tehonig."
	"Tehonig?" asked Mulder, twisting his tongue around the unfamiliar
syllables.
	"Tehoniguhratheh," said Daisy.  "It means Bright Mind."  She glanced up at
the embankment.  "This might be slow going.  Here, put your arm around me;
I'll be your crutch."
	"I think I'm okay --" he started.
	"Don't be so macho," she scolded.  "You've spent the better part of the
night cramped in one position, and you took quite a crack on the head.  Don't
push yourself.  Tehonig, take this stuff."  She handed the boy Mulder's
things.
	Tehonig took them, and as he clutched Mulder's possessions, he went suddenly
as still as stone.  A strange, sleepy look overcame his face.  "She missed
you," he said, and his voice was different, older and somehow sad.  "She was
in a room with no window.  There was only a chair to sit on, and a bed.  They
made her eat food she didn't like.  The only books she could read were the
ones they told her she could have, and they were all wrong.  They wouldn't
let her outside or tell her where she was.  They asked her questions about
you.  She tried to lie, but they wouldn't let her.  At night, sometimes she
would cry, and they would hurt her.  She called your name, but you couldn't
hear her."
	Mulder started anxiously, "What -- who --?!"
	Daisy silenced him with a sharp glance.  She touched the boy's shoulder and
whispered to him in a language that started low in the throat and was quiet,
like the wind in the forest.
	"I don't know her name," said Tehonig.  His eyes were still far away and
half-open.
	"Her name is Scully," Mulder whispered.  "Who did that to her" he demanded,
hearing a frantic tone creep into his voice, tried to quell it.
	"Dana didn't know them," said the boy.  "They wear black.  They're old. 
They smell like stale things and strange metallic smells, like diesel fuel
sitting around in a closed garage, like a rusty old car in a junkyard."  He
came abruptly awake and blinked, looking about him in confusion.  He looked
up at his aunt and started to cry.
	She hugged him.  "No, no -- it's okay, Tehonig.  It's a spirit speaking
again, not you.  We'll talk about it later."
	Mulder looked at Daisy.  "Spirit?" he asked in his best cop voice, the one
that demanded an answer.
	Her glance was bemused, challenging him to believe.  "Tehonig speaks to
spirits, and they to him.  He has been gifted with the voice of the West
Wind."  She hugged the boy again, then released him.  He wiped his eyes and
looked down at the ground.
	"You don't have to convince me," Mulder said, trying to get past her
defenses.  He found himself strangely off-balance with this woman, that he
wanted her to like him and that it was a battle between them, with him having
to use every weapon of charm at his disposal.  "At least, not this time."
	She  raised an eyebrow.  "Interesting.  A cop -- an FBI, at that -- with an
open mind.  Come on then, Tasitsho, let's go."
	"Tasitsho?" he asked.
	"Fox, in Mohawk."  She slung his arm around her shoulder in a way that
brooked no interference and they started up the embankment.  She used the
shovel to help gain her footing.  Tehonig took up the rear, holding Mulder's
things away from him as if he was scared of them and snuffling slightly.
	She had been right -- without her to help him, it would have been nearly
impossible going if he were to try climbing back to road level by himself. 
The bank was slippery with mud, and his leather-soled shoes kept slipping,
but her strong grip kept them upright and making progress.
	At the top he saw a bright red Nissan Pathfinder parked about fifty yards
away.  The road was narrow, with impossible curves -- no wonder he had had
the accident.  	She shrugged off his arm when he was slow to remove it, a
small, knowing smile on her face, striding away quickly on her long legs.  He
flushed with embarassment.  This woman was provocative and articulate, the
way he liked his women.  And to top it off, she was eminently exotic, her
dark beauty and her strangely intuitive glances sparking off feelings he
would rather not deal with.
	She unlocked the Pathfinder and got in.  The engine zoomed to life and
Tehonig climed into the backseat as Mulder reached the passenger door.  He
winced as he folded his stiff body into the seat.  Tehonig reached forward
and deposited his briefcase and map gently into his lap.
	"Do the spirits talk to you often, Tehonig?" he asked, genuinely curious.
	Tehonig looked at his aunt, who nodded the briefest of nods, her eyes not
leaving the road as she pulled away.  She shoved a cassette into the tape
player and clanging guitars loudly and abruptly filled the air.  She lowered
the volume as Tehonig said quietly.  "I guess so ... sometimes they speak to
other people like I'm not even here.  Sometimes they just talk to me, and
sometimes I can see them.  Just one at a time, though."
	"How long has this been happening?" Mulder asked.  He put one hand on the
dashboard as the Pathfinder careened around the curves in the road.
	"Ever since I can remember," replied Tehonig with a fatalistic shrug.  "I
don't go to school anymore because the spirits didn't want me to learn there.
 They kept making fun of the lessons and the teachers and the other kids, so
my akwatonteh took me out and teaches me at her house instead."
	Mulder glanced at Daisy.  In profile, her nose was prominent and sharp, her
mouth full and red against her cinnamon-coloured skin.   He looked away.  No
doubt about it, he thought resignedly.  He was falling dangerously in lust.
	"You teach him?" he asked.
	"Checking up on my qualifications as a home teacher, Mr FBI?" she teased. 
She sobered.  "I'm attempting to give Tehonig a more thorough education from
an early age than the one I managed to cobble together for myself.  Right now
we're studying the work of Stephen Hawking, Idries Shah, Tesla, Charles
Dickens, Lao-tse-tsung, and Black Elk.  Next month we hope to progress with
an overview of Newtonian algebra and an introduction to biochemistry."
	"And you're like, eight years old?" he asked.  The boy nodded proudly.
	"His name isn't Tehoniguhratheh for nothing," said Daisy.  She pulled then
into a shaded roadway that suddenly rose upward until it felt like they were
travelling on a 45-degree incline.  Mulder clutched the armrest of his seat.
	"The spirits help with the hard stuff," Tehonig volunteered.
	Daisy glanced at Mulder as the Pathfinder pulled into a gloriously messy
yard, full of unraked leaves, a confusion of late blooming fall flowers and
at least four yapping dogs.  The house was a small two-storey frame house,
weathered but happily sporting red enamelled trim around the windows and door
frames.  A ramshackle porch ran the length of the house, rocking chairs
standing side by side huge pots of frost-frozen plants.
	"I know what you're thinking," she said, her cool tone bemused.  "You're
thinking we're weird even for a bunch of Indians."  She put the Pathfinder in
park.  "Don't worry, you wouldn't be the first.  My parents think I'm totally
insane."
	"I didn't think that for an instant," he answered.  "I'm frankly quite
fascinated," he confessed, meeting her eyes again.  Her gaze was cool and
deep, and he felt like he was drowning.  He had to look away.  She was making
him forget himself, his purpose, his entire being.  He strangely thought of
Odysseus and Circe, put the thought out of his head.
	"Tehonig, go put the dogs in the pen," she ordered.  The boy jumped out of
the car and hit the ground running, the dogs falling over themselves in a
frenzy of joyous barking.  He raced around the back of the house, the dogs
leaping behind him.  Daisy smiled at Mulder.  "Come on in, Mr FBI.  Phone's
in the kitchen, and if you want to use the computer, that's in the study."
	He followed as she strode up to the porch and swung open the door.  It was
unlocked.  "I guess you don't have to worry about thieves around here," he
observed.
	Her smile over her shoulder dazzled him as she held open the door.  "I've
spirits of my own, Tasitsho."
	As he stepped inside, he felt a strange presence envelop him for the
briefest of embraces, then was gone before he could put a name to the
feeling.   The door opened into a large kitchen, hardwood floors gleaming,
rag rugs strewn about the floor.  A simple pine table dominated the room, its
surface laden with bunches of dried herbs and purple asters.  Burnished
copper pots hung on one wall, and hanging from the ceiling were twisted ropes
of corn, some of the cobs displaying purple, red and blue kernels.  Other
objects which could only be described as fetishes were draped on the walls,
from the ceiling, and from the handles of cupboards.  A white cat rose and
stretched, its mouth yawning as it came to rub its body first against Daisy's
legs and then against Mulder's.  The room smelled like vanilla and the
lingering traces of baked bread.
	She was banging a cupboard door open and filling a tea kettle as he turned
to look at her, admiring her swift grace with an appreciative eye.  Her hands
full, she pointed with her chin.  "Phone's there," she said, and he followed
the direction to a little window seat that looked out into the yard, the
phone placed atop six month's worth of _National Geographic_.   "I'm going to
make you some tea and something to eat -- you look like you need it."
	He swayed then, realizing he hadn't eaten in at least eighteen hours.  
"That would be great."  He crossed to the seat on rubber legs and sat down
quickly, his stomach rumbling.  He fumbled in his coat pocket for the rental
car keys and reached for the phone.  A book lying beside the phone was turned
upside down, a very old copy of Chaucer that looked much read.
	He wished he could call Scully, just to hear her voice, but knew that she
didn't remember him.  As he gave the information to the rental car company,
he watched Daisy as she heated up something in a saucepan.  He couldn't stop
looking at her and was starting to feel stupid about it, like he was some
kind of overeager schoolboy in the presence of his first girlfriend. 
	He stood and crossed to the table where she was clearing a place for him and
Tehonig to sit.  The boy banged into the room, his exuberance making Mulder
feel tired.  Tehonig smiled shyly at him and picked up the cat.
	"The car company says I can have another car after five o'clock if I go into
Albany," he said.  "So ... how far are we from Albany?"
	"We're about fifty miles away, to the northwest of there," she replied,
setting bowls in front of him and Tehonig, who perched on the edge of a chair
opposite Mulder.  "I'm taking Tehonig there later this evening, to see his
mother -- he always goes to see her on weekends.   I can give you a lift
then, if you want."
	"That would be great," he said, forcing more joviality into his voice than
he felt.  To have only so recently met this woman and then to never see her
again ... he felt a disappointment surge through him.
	She set a teapot down on the table.  "But if you like, you can take a shower
and rest up a little before you go on.  Tehonig and I have about two hours'
worth of lessons before he leaves."
	Tehonig groaned.  "I wanted to watch some videos before I go," he whined. 
"Yours are so much cooler than Ma's.  Aw come on, let's skip out this
afternoon ..."
	"Eat your lunch," she said severely, and his whining instantly stopped. 
Mulder sampled his soup and found it excellent -- it was some kind of corn
chowder, with beans, squash and tomatoes floating around in a thick broth. 
His belly felt warm as he practically gulped the food down.  Daisy poured him
tea and he thankfully swallowed that too, ignoring its unfamiliar herbal
taste.
	"So, Mr FBI, is the reason you're here still classified?"  she asked, taking
a seat to his left.  He tried not to stare at the place where her shirt
opened as she sat, revealing a dark valley and the rounded curve of
cinnamon-skin beyond.
	"Sort of," he managed.  "Have you heard of something called Arrowhead Peak?"
	Tehonig piped up, "I know where that is.  That's were the big ugly witch
lights come from!"
	"Excuse me?" said Mulder.
	Daisy smiled.  "He means that secret base up on the escarpment peak we call
the Big Nose," she said, popping some bread into her mouth.
	"You know about that?"
	She shrugged.  "It's common knowledge, at least around here.  Unmarked
trucks and cars go in there, day and night.  At night there's a lot of weird
activity -- some things sound like helicopters, and others with some kind of
humming noise, like a jet, only softer.   All I know is that they are
definitely dishonoring sacred ground -- my people held many ceremonies and
festivals there to please the Thunderers."  She examined him closely.  "You
can see part of the buildings from my bedroom window when the weather's
good."
	"I'd like to look at it, if you don't mind," he said, scraping the spoon in
the bottom of the bowl to get the last drop.
	"After your shower," she said sternly and smiled at him again.
	"Can I ask a personal question?" 
	"Let me guess ... you're wondering what a single woman of thirty-one is
doing out here by herself with four dogs, a cat, and a nephew to keep her
company?"  she said lightly.  "You also are trying to figure me out, why I'm
not living on a reservation, and what exactly is it that I do to enable me to
support my lifestyle?"
	"Something like that," he said.  "How'd you know?"
	"It's written in your eyes," said Tehonig.  He giggled.  "I thought FBI
agents had to be like spies."
	"I'm sure Agent Mulder is good at it when he wants to be," said Daisy,
chuckling.  In a teacher-like tone, she explained, "Right now he's too lately
been hurt and isn't thinking straight.  That's why we can see it in his body
language."  She raised her eyes to Mulder's.
	"I'll give you the shortened version of the Daisy saga, then.  My family
still lives at Grand River in Canada, but I was something of prodigy at a
young age, and was sent to a school in Vermont.  I lived with my mother's
uncle and his wife and went to Bennington at 16.  I switched to MIT at 19 and
got my degree in chemical engineering at 21.  I was recruited to a company --
I won't say which one -- in 1984 that was under contract with the US Airforce
to develop a radar-deflecting material for jet fighters.  I was specifically
working on the development of a mimetic polycarbon,  which became the basis
for the Stealth bomber.  The only problem was my supervisor thought he was
allowed to have sex with me as part of my contract with the company.  One
night he tried to force the issue, and during the struggle, I killed him."
	This was said in such a matter-of-fact tone that Mulder gaped at her. 
Tehonig slurped his soup in the sudden silence.
	"In order to avoid a big investigation and scandal, the company made it look
like an accident, and they paid me off five years' wages to make sure I never
went to the police or the press, and also that I wouldn't take the research I
had been working on to the public sector.  They also kept me on retainer to
do free-lance for them every so often, which I sometimes still do, for a
hefty price.
	"I was 23 when I was suddenly cut loose.  All my life had been devoted to
science, to study, and to work, and here I was, a suddenly wealthy child
without a job to go to.  I kinda went a little crazy," and here she suddenly
stared off in the distance, looking sad, "for about five years.  I bummed
around and took every kind of drug and slept with every unsuitable man-- and
woman -- I could find.  I left my money in the hands of a thoroughly capable
bank manager and made sure it grew over the years, but I woke up one morning
in some musician's crashpad with a heroin addiction and a telegram that my
grandmother had died.
	"That did it.  I went back home and sought the help of the elders' circle on
my reserve.  I was extremely lucky that the experience didn't leave me with
anything worse than some emotional scarring.  But I learned how to grow up,
and it was then that my real education began."
	She smiled at Mulder.  "So I guess I should tell you, Mr FBI, Tasitsho who
believes in things he can't see.  I'm a wadayoneras, what your people would
call a witch."
	He blinked to clear his head.  "You mean like a Wiccan?" he asked.
	"No, not like a Wiccan, though some of the practices are, strangely enough,
very similiar."  Her voice was soft, like a caress, like the finest buckskin
wrapped around his naked skin.  He leaned in further to her, like she was
some kind of magnet, an irresistible force.  She shook her head and looked at
Tehonig.  He stopped himself and straightened,  forcing himself to
concentrate on her words and not on her.
	"Your people called us shamen, or medicine people, but we are actually
beyond  that.  There is a long history among the Hodenosaunee, what we
Iroquois call ourselves, of men and women who practice the arts of
channelling different forms of energy and using that energy to transform
matter.  It takes great discipline, skill and many years of practice to
become adept at the art.   I came back to the ancestral homelands to learn
from the spirits that linger here still.  I have secluded myself here, away
from my family, my clan, my people and the rest of the world in order to
learn from them."  She looked at Tehonig.  "And when we discovered what was
happening to my nephew, it was only natural that he come here to learn from
me."
	She rose from the table, gathering up the dishes and looked suddenly
embarassed.  "Forgive me for burdening you with this.  It was not my
intention, but you ..."  She flushed then, a deep bronze that brought heady
colour to her face.  "Well, there is something about you that makes me feel
that you accept this, accept my truth."  She went to the sink, setting the
dishes there and paused for a moment, squaring her shoulders.  She turned
back to him and looked at him steadily.
	Mulder rose and came to stand a couple of feet in front of her.  "Thank you
for your story," he said, searching her eyes.  "You've given me more than I
can repay, with your hospitality and your honesty.  I hope we ... well, I
hope we can be ... I mean ..."
	She grinned at him, the vitality that attracted him so coming alive in her
face.  "Sure, we can be friends."
	Her ability to read him was unnerving.  It was like being under a
high-powered microscope, something he hadn't felt since his first days as
Scully's partner. 
	"And now, Mr FBI, you have to get cleaned up." She wrinkled her nose.  "I
hate to be the one to point it out, but ..."
	"I know, you don't have to tell me," he said ruefully.  "Point me in the way
of your shower, madame, and I'll put myself to rights."
	"This way.  Tehonig, what did you do with Agent Mulder's things?" she asked
over her shoulder as she strode into the next room.
	"They're on the porch, I'll get them."  He leapt out of his seat and was
gone outside, the door slamming.
	He glanced to his right as he followed her, seeing a room that was obviously
the study and Tehonig's classroom, dominated by book-lined ceiling-to-floor
shelves, a large table laden with art supplies, and a big Macintosh computer
sitting on a desk that overlooked a huge window.  The short hallway opened up
into a comfortable living room, its walls painted a deep, rich red and the
floor strewn with Oriental rugs.  The furniture was non-descript so not to
take away from  the beautiful original artwork hanging on the walls, the
colours and images breathtaking.
	Daisy saw the direction of his glance.  "Those are Tehonig's," she said. 
"Apparently one of his spirits is an artist."
	A stairway  hugged the far side of the room.  Mulder glanced at a formidable
record and CD collection that stood beside a stereo and tv console and tried
not to stare at the attractive image of Daisy climbing the stairs in front of
him.  She pointed him into a spare bedroom, a single bed shoved against the
wall beneath a window that commanded a breathtaking view of the river valley
miles below.
	"You can change in here," she said.  "There's spare towels in the bathroom
closet, which is right next door.  Tehonig and I will be downstairs if you
need anything."  Tehonig burst then into the room and set his overnight bag
on the floor.
	"Here you go, Agent Mulder," he said shyly.  Mulder smiled at him.  The boy
really was charming, despite his obvious intelligence and the strangeness
that seemed to possess him.
	"Okay, Tehonig, let's go.  I want to cover that final chapter in Professor
Hawking's book before we go back to your mom's," Daisy said as she closed the
door behind them.  Mulder could hear the boy's protests as they went back
downstairs.
	He removed his clothing, shivering a little in the cool air of the room, and
ducked quickly into the shower.  The hot water made him sleepier, and when he
came back out, he thought he would lay down for a little bit and think about
his next course of action.
	He wondered what Scully's reaction to Daisy would be and wished that she
could be here to meet her.  She'd probably think the poor woman was suffering
from some kind of delusion, and that Tehonig had a multiple personality
disorder ... She probably would be giving him those sidelong exasperated
glances when she sensed how attracted he was to Daisy ... He had never before
met such a wild and beautiful woman, she was smart, interesting and weird ...
He wondered what she thought of him, probably decided she didn't care for FBI
agents by the way she teased him ...
	

  

	
	 	




  





    

  

  






















From netnews.upenn.edu!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!psuvax1!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:23 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!psuvax1!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 3/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:29:02 GMT
Message-ID: <4237815774.2173228@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 539

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (3 of 7 parts)

Chapter 2

	Daisy gave up on the idea of making Tehonig finish his lessons and set him
up in the living room with the Star Wars trilogy on video.  "Pay attention to
the archetypal myths present in the subtext," she ordered before leaving the
room.
	Tehonig only sighed and lost himself in the galaxy far, far away.  Daisy
wandered back upstairs and glanced in at the spare bedroom.  Mulder was
sprawled across the bedspread, a tangle of long limbs and wet towels.  Daisy
smiled and gently closed the door.
	He was an enigma, this strange FBI agent, she mused, going into her bedroom
to stare at her image in the mirror.  He was also very good-looking, to the
point of distraction.   She decided she especially liked his sleepy-lidded
eyes and his low-pitched voice, the way his mouth looked like it needed to be
kissed.  She also liked the fact that he was taller than her.  That was
definitely a rarity in her experience.
	She shook herself firmly.  "You've been alone far too long, Degonawadonti,"
she told herself.  She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and shook it out,
making a face at her image.   "What a mess I am.  I can't believe I let him
see me like this.  In the old days I would have run away screaming," she
said, and laughed at her own vanity. 
	"Ah yes, Degonawadonti, what is a wadayoneras but vain in thinking she holds
the world in her palm?" came a subvocalized voice, speaking slowly in
English.  In the mirror, over her shoulder, she could see the faint outline
that marked the materializing presence of Degasaheh, the Teaching Spirit. 
She never saw more than a hand, or the silhouette of a body, but she knew the
warmth of this essence and the wisdom of its words to her.
	"What say you, Teacher?" she said softly, switching to Mohawk.  "What wisdom
do you have for me regarding this man who has strange insight into things he
cannot hold?" 
	There was something like a chuckle.  "He is tied too tightly to things
beyond his ken for you to hold onto, Degonawadonti.  He has been touched by
forces that even I do not understand."
	"He searches for something.  What is it?"
	"He searches for someone, and something more elusive than that.   He
searches for the truth."
	"There are all kinds of truth."
	"Correct, but this Mulder, this Tasitsho -- he seeks far beyond this world. 
He will travel into places we dare not imagine, and we cannot help him.  He
is a journeyer who is but passing through."  There was a slight pause, as
though Degasaheh was thinking.  "It would be wise to assist this man.  He
brings much that is good with him.  He needs your help on his journey."
	"Then he needs a talisman," said Daisy thoughtfully.   "Maybe a ceremony
would help him in recognizing such a thing."  She smiled.  "It would be a
good trade."
	She could feel rather than see Degasaheh shrug.  "If he will accept such, it
would bring him that which he could hold onto."
	"Then we will strive to make that so," she said, determined.  Degasaheh was
gone.
	She shivered in its passing and whispered the prayer of thanksgiving.  She
decided she would broach the topic with Mulder later.  Perhaps he would delay
his return to Albany, especially if he wanted to get a look at Arrowhead
Peak.
	Odd, she thought.  For the first time in at least three years, she was
thinking in English again, and was amazed at how subtly restructured she had
become.
	Looking critically at her reflection, she decided to take a shower too. 
When she got out, she paid far more attention to her appearance than she had
in the past three years.  In the back of her closet she found a red velvet
dress that was a relic of her wild days but still loved the cut and feel of,
especially against her naked skin.  This went on over a pair of black
leggings and black suede boots.  She chose a vial of amber perfume oil,
dabbed in several secret places.  Grinning at herself, she dug out a makeup
bag from the depths of the dresser counter and rooting around it, found an
old kohl eyeliner and her favourite red lipstick.  "May as well go all out,"
she told herself.
	On her way downstairs, she glanced in at Mulder.  He was still out of it. 
She smiled.  Catnip tea never failed to relax a person, she mused.   The
phone suddenly rang and she ran downstairs.
	Tehonig had picked up the cordless in the living room.  "Sago," he said.  He
paused.  In Mohawk he said, "Hello, Mother.  No, I am watching the moving
picture play called Star Wars.  Akwatonteh is upstairs.  No, I do not think
-- okay, I will speak English."  He paused again, and his little face fell. 
"If you want me to, Mommy.  It doesn't matter to me, but I did want to see
you ..."
	Daisy snatched the phone from her nephew.  "Denene, what's going on?" she
demanded of her younger sister.  Inwardly she sighed.  Denene was flighty and
unreliable, sometimes to the point of irresponsibility.
	Denene was breathless in the phone.  "Hi, Daze -- listen, can you keep
Tehonig one more night?  I'll come pick him up in the morning, I promise. 
It's just that Steven from work -- you remember him, don't you --?"
	Daisy sighed audibly this time.  "Well, Denene, to tell the truth, I was
expecting to come into the city tonight.  I'm dropping off a guest --"
	"Guest?  Who is it?"  Her voice was shrill with anticipation.  Daisy winced
and held the phone away from her ear.  "Hey, did you know that some FBI agent
went off the road about five miles from your place and they said he's missing
and presumed dead?  Did you see anything?  Apparently hikers found the car
around 11 o'clock."
	"No ... me and Tehonig were out at Fort Plain this morning," she lied. 
Tehonig looked up at his name, but kept silent, instantly understanding the
need for secrecy.  "We haven't seen anything." 
	"Well, I saw his picture on the news.  He's really cute."
	The really cute agent that Denene was reporting on was coming down the
stairs, looking still a little dazed with sleep.    The suit was gone,
replaced by a faded green sweatshirt and black jeans that hung quite nicely
on his lean frame.  He started to speak, but she motioned for him to be
silent.  
	"That's pretty wild, Deen.  Okay, well -- call me before you come out.  Me
and Tehonig will nuke some popcorn and watch a flick, I guess.  See you
tomorrow."  She rapidly hung up over her sister's protests.
	"What time is it?," asked Mulder.  "I really didn't mean to fall asleep
again --"
	"You needed it," she said.  "Your body probably did not get the kind of rest
it needed, and now you have."  She caught him looking at her with an
appreciative eye and blushed.  He can probably tell I'm not wearing anything
underneath, she thought, half dismally, half anticipatory.   She steeled
herself, determined not to expose her longings and thus avoid rejection. 
	"There has been a slight change of plans," she told him.  "My sister will
not be home, so Tehonig will be staying with me one more night.  We can still
drive you into Albany, if you want.  But there is one more thing --
apparently your accident and subsequent failure to check in with your office
has led to your being placed on a missing persons alert.   Did you not
mention your name when you checked in with the rental agency?"
	He looked puzzled, his eyes narrowing.  Daisy ignored just how attractive
that furrowed brow made him appear.  "I gave them the license plate number,
but it's not that difficult to trace me from that.   Let me borrow your phone
again, and I'll let them know I'm not dead..." he trailed off then, and all
sleepiness left his face.  "This report that you've heard about, what exactly
did it say?"
	"All I know is what my sister told me.  She said that apparently your car
was found and your name and picture released, and that you are missing and
presumed dead."  This news made his eyes narrow even more.  "Why would your
office jump to such a conclusion?"
	"My office would never issue such a statement," he said firmly.  "Some other
 agency is deliberately planting misinformation."
	"But why would they say you are dead?" she asked.
	He shrugged.  "There's any number of reasons why.  Too long of a story to go
into right now."
	She studied him and was about to say something when Tehonig bolted suddenly
upright, turning his head sharply like a hawk.
	"Degonawadonti," he intoned in that weird, sad voice that marked a spirit
presence.  "There are strange men coming.  They intend to do harm.  You must
not let them know about Tehoniguratheh, and most of all, you must not let
them find Tasitsho."  The boy looked at Mulder with his strangely sightless
eyes.  "They would like to kill you, but they dare not.  Instead they will
take you, and they will hurt you, and you will suffer."
	Daisy immediately went to the window.  One of those black, non-descript cars
that governmental agencies seem so fond of was driving cautiously up the
hill.  Mulder was behind her, pulling aside the curtain.  They could make out
the vague outlines of two men in the front seat.
	"Tehonig, take Tasitsho and go to the attic," she ordered.  "Don't make a
sound."
	Mulder started to protest.  "Do as I say," she commanded, putting all her
will behind her voice, and he involuntarily stepped towards the staircase.
	"Tasitsho," said the spirit voice.  "If you have a weapon, take it with
you."
	Mulder didn't hesitate at this; he took Tehonig's hand and drew the
somnabulent boy with him.  Daisy went into the kitchen and stepped out onto
the porch, steeling herself for confrontation, stepping to the edge so that
the height would give her an advantage.
	The car pulled to a stop behind her Pathfinder and two men got out.  One was
very big and wore sunglasses, putting one hand inside a front pocket as if to
check on his weapon.  The other man, who had been driving, had that kind of
bland white man's face that she would never commit to memory, the features so
very even as to be nondescript.  They both wore regulation black trenchcoats
over grey suits.  The driver paused to light a cigarette, looking at Daisy's
house with distaste.  She hoped they hadn't seen Mulder, standing in the
window of the attic, his gun drawn and gripped tightly in his hand.
	She crossed her arms over her chest and waited, calming herself and calling
inwardly upon the Thunderers, whose strength she would need.  They walked
quickly up to the porch and stood awkwardly beneath her.  The large one
mirrored her stance and the bland one stepped forward.
	"Are you Margaret Daisy Van Leeuwan?" he asked.  His voice was as bland as
his looks.
	"I must be," she allowed.  "Let's skip the formality, shall we?  You
obviously know who I am."
	"We know how distrustful you are of authority, Ms Van Leeuwan," he said, his
smooth voice almost jovial.  "But if you aid us in a little matter we are
investigating, we won't bring up the matter of the death of Charles Vincent
Bowden, dead eight years without charges ever being laid."
	She grinned sharply, thinking of wolves.  The large man stiffened, his hand
going back inside his coat.  "I'm shaking," she said.
	"Don't get cheeky," said the bland man.  "We know how that company covered
for you.  You must have been fucking somebody higher than old Bowden for them
to want to protect your ass the way they did."
	Her grin got toothier.  "You're very rude, Mr. Secret Government Agency Man.
 What are you looking for?  You haven't even told me why you're being so
insulting.  Let me guess -- you found my pirated copy of _Casablanca_ and
you're coming to arrest me?"
	"We're looking for someone," and he nodded at the large man, who brought out
a photo of Mulder.  She glanced quickly at it, noting it didn't do the man
justice.  "He's a renegade agent who has a habit of breaking into secure
government facilities.  His car went off the road about five miles back, and
we're looking for him.  Have you seen him?"
	"No," she said.  "And even if I had, why should I tell you?"  She smiled
serenely at them.  "Your facilities must not be very secure if a lone man can
break into one."
	The large man stirred then, and brought out his gun.  "Because we told you
to," he growled.
	"Now I'm really shaking," she purred.  She was enjoying herself, she
realized.  Her days of isolation and intense education in the ways of the
wayonderas had led her to a kind of preternatural confidence.   She felt the
power of the Thunderers descend around her, charging her skin and hair.
	The bland man stepped onto her porch, coming literally toe-to-toe with
Daisy.  She did not move, and could feel his cigarette breath on her face. 
She stared into his ordinary blue eyes and felt him waver, only slightly. 
"We're going to take a look inside your house," he said.
	"Where's your warrant?" she commanded.
	He nodded at the large man.  "That's my warrant.  Now get out of the way,
Pocohontas, or I'm going to get mad."
	She turned towards her door.  "Go ahead, if you can get in."
	He nodded at the large man, who followed him up on the porch.  He tried the
door, but it would not open.  "Come on, open it," he barked at Daisy.
	She shrugged, opening her arms, palm up.  "Sorry, don't have a key."
	The bland man rattled the door again, then nodded at the large man, who
began backing up to push it open with his shoulder.  At that instant, Daisy
visualized opening the latch to the dog kennel and spoke urgently in her head
to Sowahs, the pack leader.
	The large German Shepherd-Husky cross was around the side of the house and
at the throat of the large man before Daisy had finished speaking to him, the
two Retrievers helping Sowahs pull him down.  The large man was yelping in
the same frantic pitch as the dogs.  Iatseh, the lead female, cornered the
bland one and had him pressed up against the door frame.  Before he could
draw his weapon, Daisy slipped neatly between him and Iatseh and casually
withdrew the gun from the shoulder holster under his left arm.
	"I'm sorry, but my guard dogs just don't like letting people into the
house," she explained cheerfully.  She waved the gun under the bland one's
nose.  "Now, if you please, I have not seen this person, nor do I expect to. 
There's not much cover around here; you should be able to pick him up quite
quickly, if you're clever.   Which I doubt."
	The bland man's face became mottled with angry red blotches.  "You bitch,"
he hissed.  "You're gonna regret this!"
	"I'll be sure and tell my congressperson about the quality of our public
servants," she continued, fitting the gun to his ribs.  "Now, Mr Secret
Government Agency Man and hired lackey -- get the hell off my land!"  She
chuckled to herself.  "I've always wanted to say that."
	She marched him down and back into his car.  Sowahs and Iatseh followed the
large one closely, occasionally taking painful little nips at his backside
and growling most impressively.  She kept the gun trained on them as the
bland one threw the car in reverse and tore off down the hill.   She lowered
the weapon as the car disappeared down the hill.
	Tehonig burst out of the house then, Mulder following.  "Akwatonteh!" he
called.  "You were like Clint Eastwood or something.  That was way cool."
	She ruffled his thick black hair. "Not that cool, little one.  They will be
back, and with more people."  She looked up at Mulder.  "We are going to have
to leave here."
	He nodded.  "I gathered that."
	She looked past the house, to the hidden trail leading into the river valley
and beyond that, to the ancient escarpment called Big Nose.  "We could
conceivably kill two birds with one stone," she mused.  "We could go hide up
at my moonlodge, and that would give you an up close and personal look at
Arrowhead Peak."
	"Moonlodge?" he asked, studying her.  She smiled at him, feeling a sense of
adrenalin-inspired victory and close on the heels of that, lust.
	"It's sort of my private little meditation and ceremonial retreat," she
replied.  "In the old days, women would leave their village during their
menstrual cycle in order to conduct the women's rituals and take a break from
their families.  I use it for the same reason, but I also have a sweatlodge
and many of my visionquest tools are there."  She looked up at the sky,
gauging the time.  "We will have to hurry, though -- it's about an hour's
worth of hiking, and the sun's going to go down in about that length of time.
 Tehonig, pack up your overnight gear bag.  I'll grab some food.  Tasitsho,
you're going to have to bring your things with you, or they will give you
away."
	He stared hard at her.  "I don't think you have thought about the
consequences of aiding me," he began.  "These people are ruthless; you could
be setting you and Tehonig up for serious trouble."  He looked troubled.  "I
don't want to feel that I am the cause of any difficulty."
	She went to him and put a hand to his chest, feeling his heart beat through
the fabric of his sweatshirt, stilled her hand from exploring the hard
muscles she felt beneath.  "I have been instructed to help you," she said
softly.  "This command is not one that can be easily ignored.  And anyway,
there is the possibility that will make a good trade."  She pulled her hand
away and straightened.  "And I don't believe you can ignore our help, not
now."
	He shrugged.  "I guess not."
	"You must gather your things, and quickly," she urged, turning back to the
house.  "We don't have much time."  She strode into the house and felt Mulder
hesitate for the briefest of instants before he followed her. 
	She spent her time going through the cupboards and filled a bag with various
groceries, enough for two days.  She found a large plastic picnic jug to fill
from the spring behind the sweatlodge and then raced upstairs two at a time,
grabbing a change of dark clothing from her bedroom.  She pulled a black
polar fleece jacket from her closet on the way out.
	Downstairs Mulder and Tehonig were waiting, the boy wearing a back pack over
his weatherproof black jacket and black pants, his hiking boots tapping out a
rhythm of impatience.  Daisy saw that he was brimming over with an excited
and apprehensive tension, and sent a calming thought in his direction.  He
looked up at her and nodded, trying his best to relax.  She kicked off her
boots and laced on her hiking boots, zippering the jacket up when she
finished.
	Mulder was wearing a blue all-weather jacket and had slung his overnight bag
over his shoulder.  His expression was quietly watchful, but the waves of
tension emanating from him had a life of their own.   She grabbed up her
buckskin bag and the groceries from the kitchen counter, stuffing them in a
backpack and slung it onto her back.  "Let's go," she commanded.
	They followed her out to the back of the house.  At a hand signal from her,
Sowahs and the Retrievers retreated back to their kennel, but Iatseh joined
them.  Iatseh, mostly Husky but crossed with some wolf, was an uncanny
watchdog and would serve them well.   She led the way onto the path, pulling
a flashlight out of a flap on the backpack and carrying it loosely in one
hand.  Tehonig scrambled to the front and soon disappeared into the bush
ahead of them, Iatseh at his heels.
	Mulder paced her without a sound.  The path snaked ever upward into the
heavily wooded hills, and the already gloomy day was fast coming to an end. 
"This trail isn't very well marked," he noted.	"No, I decided long ago I
wouldn't leave any visible traces so that if ever I got into any kind of
trouble, the moonlodge could also be a kind of sanctuary.  I'm glad I had
that kind of foresight."
	"I'm glad you did, too."  He was silent for awhile, and then asked softly,
"Are you lonely here, Daisy?"
	It was the first time he had called her by name, and she liked the way he
said it.  It really did make her sound like a flower.  "Sometimes I am, but
mostly I'm not.  I am surrounded by many things, Tasitsho -- things that most
people cannot or refuse to see.  Our society has taught us to close our minds
and our eyes against things which we cannot touch with our hands, and so our
hearts remain closed to the myriad possibilities which, contrary to popular
belief, do exist."
	He chuckled softly.  "Tell me about it," he said.  "I've spent most of my
career investigating things which most people dismiss quickly and with
disgust, because their belief system is too narrow or not equipped to deal
with something outside the ordinary.  But there are a lot of things which are
dismissible and I'm starting to think that maybe there is nothing
paranormal."  He was silent again.  She measured the silence in heartbeats,
and then he said, "I'm wondering how someone like you, with your educational
background, reconciles your personal beliefs with what you know to be the
incontravertible truth of hard science."
	It was her turn to laugh.  "But it is science, Agent Mulder," she said. 
"Everything around us, everything in the universe, is based upon an atomic
structure -- pure energy transformed into matter.  All matter is
transformable back into energy.  What I have learned to do, based upon the
old lore and aided by western science's knowledge of physics, is to learn in
small ways how to manipulate enery.  The so-called paranormal is but a
different plane of existence where energy has been transformed into something
unexpected."
	They walked a little further in silence, and then she mused, "The universe
resonates with energies of all kinds.  Our minds sing these harmonies when we
dream, and it's a  matter of learning to sing these songs in a conscious
state."  She glanced up at him, his face shadowed in the darkening twilight. 
"Although grasping the nature of the transformation is rather hard ... but I
think you  understand what I mean."
	Mulder shrugged, peering at her in the settling gloom.  "I think so," he
said dubiously.  "I know you have some kind of ability, but I'm not sure what
it is.  I want to believe in an existence beyond what I can see, but I'm
beginning to distrust in my own ... instinct." 
	"It's hard to listen to yourself, especially when experience gets in the
way," she said, keeping her tone even.  This man was deliciously enigmatic,
she thought, and the sound of his voice in the deepening night was doing
strange things to her equilibrium.  She was feeling light-headed, a warmth
spreading through her stomach as she contemplated him, like she had taken a
powerful drug and was fighting a kind of stupor in which she wanted to fall
into his arms and drag him into the underbrush, pulling his clothes off of
him in a frenzy.   She calmed herself.  She could feel that he thought of
himself as something of a loser where women were concerned and to do that
would frighten him to his very core.
	"You ought to talk to Scully," he said.  "Maybe you could get her to concede
in accepting the supernatural as an alternate reality."
	She deflated at the mention of his partner.  She could detect an eerie
association that surrounded him, like this person was actually present.   It
was obvious that she meant a great deal to him, but not as a lover or a
friend, but something beyond that -- like their energies were linked. 
Interesting, she thought.  I want to get him into a trance state and hear
what his totem animals say about this.   
	"I'll do my best," she said.  She roused herself.  "But I'm getting hungry
again, and we're still about fifteen minutes away -- ten, if we step on it."
	"Lead on, Sacajawea," he said, teasing her.  She shot him a mock glare over
her shoulder and turned on the flashlight, breaking into a slight jogging
step that ate up the terrain.  He followed closely behind, so close that she
could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck, decided she liked that.
	They reached the moonlodge as promised ten minutes later.  Tehonig had
already lit the woodstove and the oil lamp that sat on the small table
inside.  She loved her little lodge, having built it with her bare hands in a
mushroom-induced three-day trance-state.  It was watertight and could be
warmed with the little woodstove that had been installed.  They went inside,
Mulder ducking a fraction to fit through the doorway.
	She had built sleeping platforms along the western wall in the style of her
people, imitating the longhouse structure, and a table and a wash basin stood
opposite.  One shelf held an extensive library of books of all kinds,
paperbacks vying for space with hardcovers and even some old leather-bound
volumes lending the room that particularly dusty smell of libraries.  False
face and cornhusk masks were hung on all walls to invoke the guardian spirits
of the forest.  The one small window looked out over the brush to the
neighbouring hillside.  Lights dotted the very top -- this was the base
called Arrowhead Peak.
	Mulder immediately went to the window and, rummaging around in his bag, came
out with a pair of binoculars which he trained on the distant lights.  Daisy
set her bags on one of the platforms and set about making a pot of spaghetti,
sending Tehonig out to fill the water jug.   Some minutes later, with the
water boiling on the wood stove, Daisy slipped beside Mulder and asked, "See
anything interesting?"
	He lowered the binoculars.  "No, unfortunately.  It looks ordinary enough."
	She smiled at him.  "You should wait a while.  Usually the light show begins
around 11 p.m."
	"What do these lights look like when you see them?"
	"It varies, but the most common one is a triangular-shaped luminous object
that seems to hover silently and has pretty amazing maneuvering
capabilities."  She thought for a moment.  "Actually -- the refraction
percentage puts me in mind of some of the same properties present in the
radar-deflective polycarbon we ended up developing for the Stealth bomber. 
It has the same kind of non-reflective surfactant."
	Mulder stared down at her for a long moment, his eyes faraway.  He seemed to
be about to say something and then shook his head, as though trying to grasp
a distant memory.  "What you have told me sounds strangely familiar ... I
feel like I've seen something along the lines of what you've described ...
but I can't seem to ..." he trailed off and frowned, his bewilderment a
palpable thing.   "It's like I've seen something like this up close but it's
all a fog ..."
	She gently touched his arm.  "Put it away for awhile.  When you least expect
it, the memory will resurface.   Come on, we'll eat some pasta and drink some
wine -- I think I've stashed a couple bottles of a lovely little Beaujolais
somewhere --"  She led him away from the window.  He came away reluctantly.
	She made dinner rapidly.  When she was sure Mulder wasn't watching her, she
poured a bottle of wine into a decanter and, without any real awareness of
doing it, added about four ounces of a psilocybin-based extract, one she had
learned to concoct for quick and effortless plunging into the trance-state. 
She placed the decanter and wine glasses on the table. 
	Throughout dinner, he seemed detached and faraway.  Daisy did not press him,
but kept up a light, quick patter, bouncing conversation off Tehonig and
ignoring Mulder's obvious preoccupation.  Iatseh sat at Tehonig's feet,
watching them all with her intent doggy stare.  Mulder ate absently and kept
refilling his wine glass, gulping it down like it was water, but he didn't
seem to exhibit any signs of incipient intoxication.   Daisy drank about two
glasses, knowing she didn't need as much to experience the trance-state, but
even an accomplished wadayoneras needed the vision medicine to begin the
journey.
	About an hour later, Mulder was staring at her with a wild, wide-eyed stare,
his pupils dilated to the point of being black pools against the forest-green
irises.  Sweat was trickling down his brow, and he looked weak and shaken.  
Tehonig looked at his aunt.  "Akwetonteh," he said disapprovingly.  "You
tricked him into taking the mushrooms."
	"FBI agents don't willingly swallow psychedelics, Tehonig," she said.  She
looked at Mulder, who was gaping and trying to speak, his eyes suddenly wild
with fear.  She went to him and spoke soothingly against his ear, cradling
his head against her shoulder. 
	"Listen to me, Tasitsho," she whispered.  "We are going to take a little
journey, you and I."  She helped him to his feet.  "Tehonig, we will be in
the sweatlodge.  I trust you and Iatseh to keep watch."
	Tehonig nodded and handed her a lantern.   Balancing it on one wrist and her
arm wrapped around Mulder's waist, she grabbed up their coats and went out
the door, going up the short path deeper into the forest, struggling under
his weight.  The sweatlodge was cold and dark, draped with canvas and furs, a
small hill in the night.  She made him stand alone, swaying, while she went
inside, lighting the fire for the steam.  He looked at her and burst into
maniacal laughter.
	"You really are a witch," he said, and like a cat was suddenly beside her,
wrapping his arms around her and burying his face in her hair.  She danced
lightly away from him, giggling in the building hurricane of the drug. 
	"I had already told you that," she said to him, and taking his hand, led him
inside the sweatlodge.  She began peeling off her clothes, and he eagerly
followed, tearing at his clothing, his eyes locked on hers.
	She shook her head at him.  "That is not what we are here for," she said
calmly.  She put the little stone circle at the centre of the lodge between
them and made sure the water bucket was still full.   She sat back, the lodge
growing warmer and a light draft wafting on her skin.  She looked at Mulder,
admiring the strong breadth of his shoulders and arms, the slightly-furred
chest, then steeled herself to her task at hand.
	She began chanting with her eyes closed, the ancient words clearing her
mind.  When she opened them, Mulder was not there.  In his place were four
animals, a fox, an eagle, a  horse, and perhaps the most surprising of all, a
mountain lion, its strange yellow eyes gazing into hers.   It seemed to be
nursing its front right paw.  She composed herself.
	"Greetings, brothers," she said.  "Do you speak for this man, for the one I
call Tasitsho?"
	The fox stirred, sweeping its red tail tightly around its body.  "I do,
sister," it said.  It looked up at her, its savagely intelligent eyes locking
with hers.  "We dwell in the man.  I am his first totem, the totem of his
name.  These are the totems of his spirit.  And this one," with a sweep of
its small paw, indicated the mountain lion, "this animal is the spirit of his
friend, who must live within him now that her mind has fled.  We ask that you
assist us to return her, for she has wandered far and is injured."
	The mountain lion gave a low, dangerous growl as Daisy came closer, saw a
strange steel object embedded deep in the padding of its paw.  It looked like
nothing she had ever seen before, not a nail or a scalpel, but something
mechanical, like a piece of machinery. 
	The eagle stirred then, and the horse stamped and whinnied, shaking its
glossy brown mane.  "We want to see the strange place," screeched the bird. 
"We want to know.  We want to journey.   Come, sister -- fly with us!"
	She could not ignore the command, and felt her arms turning to wings as her
spirit flew free of her body, spiralling through the smoke hole in the
sweatlodge, into the dark sky where clouds roiled overhead.	

	 
	

  

	
	 	




  





    

  

  
























From netnews.upenn.edu!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!psuvax1!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:23 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!psuvax1!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 4/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:30:07 GMT
Message-ID: <4036489182.2173446@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 253

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (4 of 7 parts)


Chapter 3

	He was nothing and he was everything.  He was sky and rock and wind and
water.  He was flesh and bone and feather and fur.  He was a blade of grass,
a twig, a stone, beetle scuttling over dung.  He was a fleeting name on the
wind, an idea, a curse.  He threw back his head and laughed, and then the
changing came upon him again and he wept with a fear greater than anything he
had ever known, a screaming human baby in the light of the universe.  He felt
a thousand things at once and could not name anything.  He fell headlong into
a gaping abyss at his feet and emerged into the light.  He was whole again.
	He stared down at himself, naked in the blinding universal light.  He
clenched his fists, bent his knees -- everything worked.  He threw up an arm
to shade his eyes, and a brilliant red outline materialized beside him.  He
was enveloped by the light, bathed in it, warmed by it, and he knew the name
of this light.  Her name was Daisy. 
	As he remembered her name, she became a river otter, sleek and brown, her
dark eyes shining with glowing intelligence.  He looked down at himself again
and he had become a fox.  He could feel his four paws on the ground, his
plume-like tail, his pert ears and the whiskers that quivered with his joy at
being alive. 
	"Tasitsho," she smiled.  "You are here, and I have found you."  She swirled
around him, a mass of sleek limbs and smooth fur.  He felt faint with desire,
wishing himself a boy otter, but he stayed a fox.  She laughed at him like
she could read his mind.
	"How can this be?" Mulder asked, afraid of his own voice.  "I am a man!"
	She turned an otter somersault, like she was in the water.  "You are a fox,
Fox," she laughed again.  "I am an otter.  In the spirit world, we take on
the form of the creatures that protect and enfold us."  She twirled again and
he felt an inexplicable urge to run and jump.  "Come, my friend -- we will
dance, and then we have a task to fulfill, a trade to negotiate."
	"Great," he muttered.  "Of all the animals in the world, I have to be a fox.
 How come I can't be a gila monster or something -- why do I have to be a fox
of all things?"
	"You are what you are.  It depends on you."
	"This is not cool," he groaned.  "It's bad enough that it's my name --"  he
stopped as she twirled about him, brushing her tail in his face.  "Stop it! 
I can't see."
	''You see everything now." She drew her tail away from his eyes.
	He looked at her, uncomprehending.  There was a whimpered growl behind him
and a huge tawny cat, its golden eyes locked on his, limped to a short
distance before him and stopped,  its great paw tucked against its body.  The
cat looked strangely familiar, like someone he knew.  There was a cast to its
coat that reminded him of Scully's hair --
	"Scully?" he whispered, scarcely believing it.  Daisy laughed and whirled
like a spinning top.
	"She is here, she is everywhere," she chanted.  "She lives in you, and you
in her.  You are the key, Tasitsho, you are her friend.  You must return this
spirit animal to her before she can be whole again.  And you are charged with
this duty.  Until she is whole, there is no journey for you, no higher
knowledge, no truth.  The spirits have spoken."
	"What am I supposed to do?" he demanded, suddenly angry.  This was getting
way too weird, he thought, it's got to be the drugs.  "This is stupid!" he
growled, wishing his body back.  He shut his eyes, counted to ten and opened
them.  He was still a fox.
	Daisy's laughter was high and with a note of manic glee.  "You are in the
hands of the spirits now, Tasitsho.  Why would you leave?  You can't run from
this.  This is as real as it gets!"  Her whiskers quivered with merriment and
her eyes shone.  He sighed.  She was the most attractive otter he had ever
seen, and then he started to  grin, his mouth stretched weirdly over his foxy
teeth.  Not that he had ever seen an attractive otter before, he thought.
	"I don't -- I don't know what to do," he began and took a tenative step
forward.  It was strange being on four legs.  It didn't feel like crawling at
all, it felt like walking but on more legs than usual. 
	"Why not ask her what she wants you to do?" suggested Daisy, gesturing with
her sleek otter paw at the cougar.   She did another somersault and swirled
her glossy body around him. 
	"Would you stop doing that?" he growled.  Her continual motion was beginning
to irk him.
	She laughed, a strange haunting sound coming out of her otter mouth.  "Don't
be so uptight, fox Fox," she said.  "It feels good to be in an otter body. 
Usually I'm either a hawk or a rabbit.  This is fun.  Let yourself go, enjoy
yourself."
	He ignored her and tried to get close to the cougar, but it growled
ferociously at him, its eyes gleaming savagely.  "Dana?" he asked softly. 
There was no recognition in the creature and it snarled again, its back
arching and baring its considerable fangs at him.  He backed away, his limbs
suddenly not obeying him in the way he was used to.  He could not balance
properly, could not grasp with his fingers, for he had none -- only the swift
clawed digits of what were now paws.
	"This isn't working," he said.  The cougar advanced on him and he reacted
instinctively, bounding away to cower behind Daisy.
	"The cougar does not remember Dana," she told him, swirling her tail behind
her like an exclamation point.  "That is why the two must be reunited, or the
spirit world remains out of balance."  She went to stand before the cougar
and looked up at it, singing in the forest-like, low-pitched language of her
ancestors.  Warily, the cougar stopped snarling and sat down, still nursing
the front right paw.
	"There, you see where she is injured?" Daisy said, pointing at the cougar's
paw.  A strange metal object was embedded deep in the padding of the paw, a
sharp tip protruding out of infected and oozing flesh.  He knew it
immediately -- a kind of implant often taken from the bodies of UFO
abductees.
	"That's impossible," he whispered.  "There was no trace of any of this kind
of device when we scanned Scully, nothing like that--" he stopped, looking
closely at the object.   The cougar was panting harshly, a rasping sound deep
in its throat.  He came as close as he dared and saw that the object pulsed
with an eerie blue glow.   He met the eyes of the cougar and held them, and 
then a thousand other voices were in his head, some cat-like, some human --
and one ... one that didn't sound or feel like anything of his world.   The
noise was deafening  and he tried to cover his sensitive ears with his paws,
but he couldn't quite reach them.
	And then the one voice he thought never to hear again, lucid, sharp, and
full of her intelligence and presence -- Dana's voice.  "You have to be fast,
Mulder," she instructed him.  "You have to pull it out.  I can't be whole
again until this is gone.  It separates who I am from what I am.  The bridge
must be crossed, the door opened.  Mulder, you are the key.  That thing --
that is your talisman."
	"Scully?  What are you doing here?" 
	"Don't be so stupid." She sounded annoyed, and scared, a multitude of
feelings that flowed from her into him.  "Quickly now -- there isn't much
time." 
	Daisy was singing again, a high-pitched keening this time as opposed to the
lower chanting she had done earlier.  He felt a strange wave of vertigo
overcome him, like he was being suspended in a place where direction had no
meaning.   An urgency unlike any he had ever known tugged at him, making him
paranoid and fearful.  He was rooted to the spot, unable to think or know
what to do.
	A ghostly hand seemed to push him then.  "Come on, Mulder -- you're wasting
my time!" Scully's voice was as hysterical as he had ever heard it and it was
this note of near dread that decided him.  Pushing his fear away from him he
approached the cougar and crouched close to its paw, unable to prevent
himself from sniffing the object.  He could smell something almost familiar,
a mechanical note that he couldn't quite grasp, and the smell of infected
flesh.  He tried digging at it with his claws and realized this would be
futile.  Holding his breath, he licked the flesh around the object and began
to tug at it gently with his long fox-teeth.  The cougar began to purr, a
loud rhythmic rasp that filled his ears and made the animal part of him quake
with terror.  He managed to bite on one end of the object and then pulled
free.
	The world shifted again and he felt himself falling down the endless abyss. 
He gasped for breath and the object tumbled out of his mouth.  "Hey!" he
shouted.  "I just --"
	He could feel Daisy tumbling in ecstasy beside him, her spirit form blinding
him as he beheld her presence.  "Don't worry, Tasitsho," she whispered.
	He felt himself become a solid form with a physical jarring that felt like
falling out of bed.  He could feel whiskers and ears, and could only see tiny
pink feet.  "Now what --" he began.
	"Shhh," hissed Daisy, her voice somewhere behind him.  "You're a mouse.  Now
come here -- don't make a sound.  We're in Arrowhead Peak."
	"What?!"
	"You said you wanted to take a look."
	Mulder followed her voice and found himself blinking underneath what
appeared to be a large crate, looking out into a well-lit area.  A large
triangular-shaped object was in the middle of this area, surrounded by banks
upon banks of computers and control panels.  He stared at the thing,
dumbfounded.  It seemed to hover above the floor -- he could see its shadow
beneath -- yet it seemed to absorb all light into its surface, making it a
dark, lethal looking weapon.  A technician ambled out and passed underneath
it, seemingly unconcerned by the massive thing above him.
	Beside him, Daisy let out a low whistle.  He glanced at her and saw her eyes
shining brightly in a tiny mouse face.  She made her whiskers quiver
speculatively.  "That's definitely a non-reflective polycarbon surface," she
said.  "Beautiful design -- I wonder if that's one of those so-called
hypersonic planes.  It looks about fifty years ahead of what we were
tinkering with for the Stealth bomber." 
	He didn't answer, suddenly awash in a wave of memory that nearly caused him
to pass out.  He shook all over, his mouse body shuddering.  He was standing
on the runway at Ellens AFB, the black ship hovering noiselessly above his
head.  And then the lights, the jeeps coming after him.  He hyperventilated
as he remembered the desperate dash for freedom, and then the unkind hands
that took him, the injection that caused nothing but blackness in its wake
...
	He swayed and crouched down, whimpering under the remembered pain.  Daisy
nosed him roughly with her snout.  "Quiet!" she ordered.  "Someone's --"
	There were footsteps suddenly booming all around them.  Daisy nosed him into
the farthest recesses of the crates' underside, but the comforting darkness
was lifted away.  "Shit," came a surprised and disgusted voice.  "Hey
Wilkins, there's mice under this goddamned box!  You better get traps set out
before Sarge sees 'em."
	Daisy fled and Mulder forced himself to follow her, squeezing in with her
behind a tangle of cables.  "We really are mice," he managed.
	"No kidding," she replied.  She sniffed around and then turned back to him. 
"We'll have to chance a transformation -- it's the only way out."
	He groaned.  "Now what are we gonna turn into?  Bats?  No, wait -- why not
cockroaches?  Then we can scuttle away underneath all this cable."
	She glared at him as she started to chant again.  This time the
transformation was nearly instantaneous, without the same disorientation and
out-of-body strangeness.  He felt his body become a tightly muscled thing of
feather and bone, his arms stretching into wings, his mouth curved into a
sharp cutting beak.
	Daisy was peeking out behind the cable, now a beautiful red-tailed hawk, her
breast a brilliant white.  Her gaze was brilliant and far-seeing, and she
swept a wing towards the far end of the room. 
	"I think they're about to open the door," she hissed, her voice strangely
modulated beneath the beak.  "As soon as they do, make a run -- I mean, fly
as fast you can towards it!"
	There was a loud grating sound and a door at end of the hanger bay began to
open.  Mulder was torn between wanting to inspect the strange object further
and flying away as fast he could, the animal instinct to flee nearly stronger
than his human curiousity.  A low rumble spread throughout the hanger, but it
was a weirdly low vibration, at the subsonic level that he felt deep in his
bones.  
	Daisy was poised to fly away, he could see it in the tension of her wings. 
"Wait," he called to her, his voice as alien as hers had been.  "I want to
look at it more --"
	"Not like that," she screeched at him.  "Besides, there isn't any time."
	"What do you mean?"
	"We've only a short time in the spirit world," she explained.  "We're nearly
at the limit for this journey.  Come, we must leave now!"  Without waiting
for his response, she spread her wings and was a marvel of speed and beauty
as she flew out of the hanger and into the dark night beyond.
	Mulder cast one more longing look at the ship.  He took an instinctive leap
forward and was stunned when he realized he was really flying, doing
something  in his own body that people had only dreamed of.   It was
exhilarating, an experience he wanted to savour, to remember it fully.   The
scenery blurred beneath him, the stunned faces of the technicians receding
behind.   He forgot even his disappointment at not being able to examine the
ship more closely and gave himself over to the joy of his wings propelling
him through the autumnal air.
	And then he was running, four paws on the ground, the smells in his nostrils
a textbook map of the forest floor.  He saw Daisy ahead of him, turned now
into a bright-haired vixen, her tail a plume in the dim night.  He could
smell her, musky and enticing, and the innate animal pursued her,  trying to
catch her and take her in the night, but she eluded him, her laughter coming
back at him on the wind.   He took a running leap and tackled her, sprawling
headlong into the forest floor, and she was laughing as she wrestled with
him, turning and dancing away from him, then coming close to lick at his
face, his whiskers.  He was beside himself with desire.  Each time he came
closer, she would scamper away, only to brush up against him with her lithe,
furry body.
	He felt the strange vertigo again and with an almost physical jolt found
himself sprawled on the floor of the sweatlodge, the steam rising around him,
his body slick with sweat.  Daisy laughed again and was suddenly straddled
atop him, pressing her hot body against him.  He reached up with one arm and
brought her mouth down on his, and heard a distant rumble of thunder,
something that sounded like the old mountains laughing at him.   He wondered
briefly at this sound, but the feel of Daisy moving against him drove all
coherent thought from his mind as his body took over and he was lost in her.


From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:23 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 5/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:31:30 GMT
Message-ID: <4103598046.2173506@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 160

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (5 of 7 parts)

Chapter 4

	Her head was throbbing as she came slowly awake, aware of a heavy limb
thrown over her stomach.  She gingerly moved it aside and sat up, looking
down at the sleeping Mulder.  He was sprawled on his back, limbs splayed
outward.  In sleep, he looked younger and not nearly as sad as he did in his
waking hours.  There was a row of scratches around his shoulders and a bite
mark on his collarbone, looking a deep red against the bone-white pallor of
his skin.
	Daisy felt bruised and battered herself, but it was a good thing, this
feeling of boneless torpor.   She shivered and looked for her clothes.  The
fire had probably gone out two hours before, and it was freezing in the late
October dawn.  The sun must be up; she could see light streaming in through
cracks in the sweatlodge's mud-and-bark wall.
	She was pulling the rumpled red velvet dress over her head when Mulder
stirred, opening his eyes slowly to focus on her.  "Morning," he said
sleepily.  "Come back here--I'm freezing."
	She smiled at him, suddenly shy with him where she had not been so before. 
"I'm cold too," she said.
	"Then come here," he ordered, opening his arms for her.  She went to him and
huddled with him, tucking her head under his chin.  
	"I ache everywhere," he said.  He was still for a moment; she could feel him
remember the events of the evening past.  "I guess flying really does take a
lot out of you."
	"I guess so," she agreed.  He turned his head so that his forest green eyes,
sleepy lidded in the dim light, looked deep into hers.
	"Did it really happen?" he asked softly.
	"It was as real as this," she told him, and brushed a finger across his
lips.  This strange FBI agent, she thought, was definitely a fine
distraction.  
	"How did you learn to do that, to shapeshift?"he asked, snuggling his face
deep into her wild hair.
	She shrugged.  "It takes practice, and vision, and patience, and more
practice," she said measuredly.  "It also takes a great deal of help from the
spirits."
	"They talk to you, like they do to Tehonig?"
	She mused.  "Not in the same way, but it does happen.  There is one spirit,
Degasaheh -- it is a teaching spirit, and often it --" she sat bolt upright,
shrugging off Mulder's embrace.  The place where Tehonig had been, where he
lived in her spirit and in her heart, was suddenly empty.  She realized with
a start that she had not felt his presence for some time, but had ignored it.
	"What is it?" asked Mulder, concern in his voice.  She had gone a chalky
white colour, like all vitality had suddenly drained out of her.
	"Something's wrong," she whispered.  "Tehonig --" she threw on the rest of
her clothes.  Mulder was struggling with his as she practically leapt out of
the sweatlodge, fear suddenly choking her throat closed.
	She crashed through the brush, hearing only her heart beating wildly and
feeling stark terror grip its fingers around her.   She flew to the steps of
the moonlodge and pushed open the door, yelling, "Tehonig!?"
	The room was empty.  Mulder crashed in behind her.  He ran to his pack that
he had left on a sleeping platform and was now lying on the floor, the
contents stewn carelessly about.  The table had been turned over and it
looked as if a struggle had taken place.   Daisy could only stand in the
centre of the room, feeling as though she had been flash-frozen.   She stared
down at the corpse of Iatseh, her proud coat of fur stiff and cold, blood
pooling beneath her body.  She had been shot at least four times.  Daisy's
mind cast about frantically for Tehonig, could feel not even the lingering
traces of his presence.
	Mulder looked solemn as he came to stand before her, a comforting hand on
her shoulder.  "They've taken my gun," he said.  "Do you have any kind of
weapon?"
	She started to giggle madly, and clapped a hand over her mouth.  Taking a
deep breath, she whispered a prayer to the Thunderers to restore her
calmness.  "A wadayoneras has no need of conventional weapons," she told him.
	He glanced sharply at her, and she did not miss the cynical cast to his
eyes.  "We should look for him back at your house," he said.
	She nodded.  She remembered Iatseh,  could even now picture her running to
her across the yard, but she knew this was only the memory of her dog's
presence.  She pushed it away.  She would have to grieve for her pet later. 
Mulder took her hand and grasped it firmly, and a strange warming electricity
flowed up her arm, giving her strength.  They went outside and Daisy led the
way back to her house, forgetting her fear and even her aching muscles in the
fast trek down the hillside.
	Her house was standing quiet in the morning mist.  She called for Sowahs,
who came limping towards her, favouring his right hind leg.  A quick
examination of him revealed a bullet wound in his hindquarter and inwardly
she raged at the cowards who would shoot her dogs rather than deal with her. 
Mulder raced up the stair to the house, the door standing open.   She knew
that while she had been in the spirit world, those presences which guarded
her home had no power.  She followed Mulder blindly, signalling for Sowahs to
follow her.  She could feel no presence of the Retrievers, knew they too had
been killed.
	She stood quietly inside the kitchen.  Her home was wrecked.  Drawers had
been pulled open and the contents spilled to the floor, her fetishes and the
rows of braided corn torn off the walls and ceiling.   She leaned against the
counter, feeling only numbness.  She could tell her entire house was a
shambles and at this moment did not care.  Mulder came back into the room,
his expression narrow and angry.
	"He's not here," she said, voicing the obvious.  He caught her eyes and held
them, warmly intimate.  
	"I'm so sorry, Daisy," he said.  "I led them to you.  If they find about
Tehonig's powers, they'll never let him go."
	She looked at him, seeing deep into his heart.  He was sincerely sorry, and
the self-doubt and chastisement that he felt cut into her.  "Who are they?"
she asked softly.
	He started to speak, then shook his head.  "I really don't know."
	She touched him on the shoulder.  "Then you must promise me you will find
him," she said.  
	He nodded.  "I'll do it," he promised.  "I will find him, Daisy.  You can
trust me."   He put his hand in his pocket, like he was searching for
something.  He came up with an object in his hand and stared at it, like a
man seeing a ghost.  He looked up at her, and then opened his palm.
	Laying in the centre of his hand was the strange object that he had, in the
spirit world, pulled from the paw of the mountain lion that represented his
partner.   It gleamed a dull grey in the morning light from the window,
looking weirdly malevolent.  "What is this?" he whispered.
	She went to him and closed his hand around it.  "It is your talisman," she
said, holding her own hand over his.  "It is your protection and your
guarantee in the journey you are undertaking.  It is your amulet against
disaster.  You have earned the right to carry it with you, and now its power
is yours.  The ceremony is completed."
	He stared at his closed fist.  "I -- I don't understand."
	She hugged him.  "You will."  She could feel his uncertainty and smiled at
him, then took his face and pulled his mouth to hers, kissing him fiercely,
knowing this was for the last time.  She released him then.  "Come on, we
should be getting you back to Albany."
	"Wait -- just like that -- what are you going to do?" he stuttered as she
grabbed up her car keys from the floor and stepped back onto the porch.  He
grasped her arm.  
	"Wait, Daisy, I want to help," he said.
	She smiled at him and he took a step back from her, and she knew her smile
was a terrible thing, but ignored its effect on him.  "It's beyond your
abilities, Tasitsho," she said firmly.  "Everything will be fine.  The spirit
world always finds its own balance."
	He shook his head at her.  "I can't understand you when you start talking
like that."
	"It's okay, Mr FBI, some things aren't meant to have the bright light of
logic or science shone upon them."  She walked to the truck, whistling for
Sowahs, who came limply faithfully behind her and jumped into the back.  She
started the Pathfinder and waited patiently for him.  Mulder came slowly and
got into the passenger seat, his brows narrowed and his blue-shadowed jaw
clamped so tightly that a muscle jumped in his cheek.
	"You don't mind if I send your stuff back to you," she asked.
	He glared at her.  "No, of course not."
	She put the truck in gear and went down the hillside.  Her mind was empty,
but she knew what she had to do.


From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!news.moneng.mei.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:24 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!news.moneng.mei.com!howland.reston.ans.net!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 6/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:32:09 GMT
Message-ID: <4170706910.2173557@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 100

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (6 of 7 parts)

Chapter 5

	Mulder seethed quietly as the Pathfinder wound its way through the hills,
wanting to stop her but knowing he would not be able to.  Part of her
considerable attraction lay in the strength of her will, he saw that now, and
to cross her was to lay himself open for a severe injury of the spirit.
	He snuck a look at her.  She was staring straight ahead, her hands gripping
the wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white.  Her face had gone a
strange pale shade, like she had been drained of blood, and her eyes burned
like some black charnal pit.  She was frightening, and beautiful.  He tore
his glance away from her.  She was beginning to scare him.
	About fifteen minutes from her house, she suddenly pulled over, putting the
Pathfinder in park, and turned to him.  
	"I need you to take Sowahs to the vet," she said.  "It's Dr. Maartens on Elm
Street.  He'll look after him, no questions asked.  You can leave the
Pathfinder in his parking lot and the keys with him.  I'll pick them and
Sowahs up when I'm finished here."  She unbuckled her seatbelt and swung open
the door.  He gaped at her.
	"Where are you going?!" he demanded, fumbling with his own seatbelt.  She
held the door open and smiled again at him, and he saw the destruction in
that smile.
	"I've unfinished business with them," she said, and she pointed upwards.  He
squinted through the windshield and saw that they were at the base of
Arrowhead Peak.  "They have taken Tehonig, and they must learn that they
cannot operate with impunity."
	"Wait --" he said, and managed to get out of his seat.  She started walking
into the forested hillside, and he caught her arm.   She looked at him like
he was a peculiarly interesting bug and smiled that terrible smile, and then
he felt the weird vertigo again and was stunned to find himself in the
driver's seat of the Pathfinder, Sowahs whimpering softly behind him.   Daisy
was no where to be seen.
	He sat for a few minutes, unable to move.  The ghost of that terrible smile
haunted him, it was all he could see.  Her wild hair tumbling about her
shoulders, her rumpled red dress.  He shook his head to clear it, then put
the Pathfinder in drive.
	Some ten miles away, there was a low rumbling sound and he instinctively
pulled over, looking in the rearview mirror.  Arrowhead Peak was obscured by
a brilliant orange fireball, thick black smoke pouring into the atmosphere. 
He got out of the truck and watched as the mountain itself seemed to catch
afire, and he knew that Daisy had caused it, had caused Arrowhead Peak to
disappear into a blazing inferno, and its secrets with it.  
	He drove into Albany by reflex, his mind blank, images of the shapeshifting
journey and the memory of Dana's voice dancing before him as he gripped the
wheel.  He could feel the talisman burning a psychic fire in his pocket and
decided he wouldn't even bother to have it analyzed.  As Daisy said, some
things were not meant to have the light of logic shone upon them, and he felt
that this was one of them.  He knew the truth would frighten him so badly as
to paralyze him, and he could not afford any fear.
	He completed the tasks Daisy had set out for him and took a plane back to
Washington, phoning in the fact that the announcement of his death had been
premature.  He went home to his silent apartment and spent the remainder of
the weekend in a kind of fog of memory, mourning the loss of his brief
association with the enigmatic sorceress Daisy.  When the UPS courier came
with his briefcase and overnight bag, he practically tore them apart, looking
for something, a message, a note, anything.  There was nothing there except
his possessions and his empty gun holster.
	Monday morning, he entered his office in a glum frame of mind.  He swung
open the door and was shocked into utter stillness by the fact that Scully
was calmly seated at her desk, pouring over a file as though no time at all
had passed.  She looked at him and grinned, the warmth in her eyes thawing
the frost in his soul.
	Her green-blue eyes had shadows beneath them and her face was puffy, like
she had lain asleep for a long time, but otherwise the sleek intelligence and
humour that shone from her face remained unchanged.  He willed himself to go
forward and put his briefcase on the desk.  
	"Hello, Mulder," she said, pure pleasure evident in her voice.  "You look
like you've seen a ghost."  
	"No, just a witch," he answered and came to her, putting his hand on hers. 
"You're okay?  How do you feel?"
	"A little tired and kind of fuzzy," she replied.  "I can't remember a thing
since Duane Barry, though."  She looked into his eyes and he saw the
imperceptible pain there.  "I keep remembering a dream about a mountain lion,
though.  It's weird -- I never even really thought about them before."
	"It is pretty weird," he agreed.  He smiled at her, grateful for her
presence and her strength.  "What are you doing here?"
	"Working," she said firmly.  "Now, take a look at this file --"


From netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!news.moneng.mei.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks Mon Dec  5 21:02:24 1994
Path: netnews.upenn.edu!msunews!uwm.edu!news.moneng.mei.com!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!torn!uunet.ca!uunet.ca!news.sygma.net!magic!Monture_&_Wicks
From: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca (Monture & Wicks)
Reply-To: Monture_&_Wicks@magic.ca
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Distribution: world
Subject: The Talisman 7/7
Date: 05 Dec 1994 01:33:11 GMT
Message-ID: <4237815774.2173607@magic.ca>
Organization: Magic Online Services Toronto Inc.
Lines: 182

This is my first posting in this forum ... I hope everyone likes my story.  It
contains shamanism, shape-shifting, pseudo-science, and a lot of speculation.
 I  started writing it after Scully disappeared, and this represents the way
I would have like to  have seen the plot develop, but alas ... and because I
like Mulder, he is the central focus of this story.

Also please note that the Mohawk words used are phonetic representations,
rendered as much as possible in an English format.  I have included a
phonetic key at the end of the story.   There are also aspects of this story
that are not (and I repeat not) in keeping with traditional Native American
practices, so don't for one minute think that it represents any of those
sacred ceremonies and rites.  I have ultimately created my own intepretation
of what may or may not happen, but among my people, there are still those who
practice the craft of the "wadayoneras".  I hope I have treated the idea of
their art with the respect and reverence that it deserves. 

This story is based on the characters and situations created by Chris Carter,
Ten Thirteen Productions and the Fox Broadcasting Company.  No infringement
of copyright is intended.


			The Talisman ... An X-Files Tale (7 of 7 parts)

Epilogue

New York State, 50 miles west of Albany
September 18, 1996
2:15 p.m.

	He had been quiet the entire drive, and Scully hadn't remarked upon it, but
kept glancing at him from time to time, a thoughtful expression on her face. 
She felt something was wrong judging from the preoccupied look in his eyes. 
He had even made her drive.  He was faraway today, close-mouthed and stiff,
cradling the file on the missing boy in his hands like it was some precious
object.  Every time she had questioned him about this case he remained
secretive, saying only that he was working on it as a favour to a friend.
	He came to life as they approached a driveway.  "Turn here," he ordered. 
She glared at him.  They were the first words he had spoken in about half an
hour.
	"Yes, sir," she sneered.  Mulder ignored her in that closed way that he knew
drove her crazy.   The driveway kept rising until it seemed they were on a
45-degree incline.  It levelled out gradually and the car came to a stop in a
yard that was still glorious in the late September sun, a ramshackle
two-storey house sitting in the middle of the yard like a happy old woman.  
	Three yapping dogs came bounding up to the car, barking furiously, but when
Mulder got out, they stopped as if by magic.  The biggest one, a grizzled
black and brown male, sniffed cautiously at him and then backed away, wagging
his tail and grinning a definite doggy grin.  Scully got out of the car and
the dogs ignored her completely, running away to disappear around the side of
the house.
	A man had opened the door of the house and was striding down over the porch,
his dark face suspicious as he stared at him.  He was a big man, standing
taller than Mulder, his shoulders wide and his legs long.  He wore a denim
shirt over jeans and had long black braids that nearly touched his waist.
	"I'm looking for Daisy Van Leeuwan," Mulder said, flipping his ID at the
man.  "I'm Agent Fox Mulder, this is my partner Agent Scully.  Is Daisy at
home?"
	Scully glanced sharply at Mulder.  There was an encyclopedia of feeling
behind those casual words, something that she had never heard from Mulder
before, not since Phoebe Green.  She was instantly interested.  Mulder was
always so closed about his personal life.  She wondered what this woman meant
to him.
	"Maybe, maybe not," said the man, standing firmly between them and the
porch, his arms crossed forebodingly over his chest.  
	The door swung open again and a little girl of perhaps two came outside,
carrying a dilapidated Barney dinosaur by the tail.  She had light brown hair
and inquisitive eyes that gazed at them with open curiousity.  She was
wearing purple track pants and a sweatshirt that had a little green man in a
flying saucer printed on it with the legend "Space Friends" emblazoned across
the chest. 
	Scully couldn't stop staring at her.  There was something maddenly familiar
about her, even though she had never seen this child before.  And then she
remembered -- the boy in the file that Mulder carried.  She had the same
shaped face, and her expression was very similiar, but those eyes -- she
could see that the little girl had green eyes, alien in her darkly native
face.
	"Whose dat, Daddy?" she asked of the man, her little voice high pitched and
sweet.  The door swung open behind her and Scully looked up to see a tall,
dark haired woman step outside, her dark eyes viewing them with intelligence
and mocking humour.  She wore a lot of silver and her skin was the colour of
cinnamon.  
	She came off the porch and pushed aside the man, standing before Mulder. 
"Tasitsho," she said, and the weird word sending a sickening wave of deja vu
crashing through Scully's brain.   As though in a fog, she heard Mulder say,
"Hi, Daisy.  How are you?"
	"I'm fine, Mr FBI.  You know that."  She bent to pick up the child who had
come to stand beside her.  "This is Dawendineh, my morning child.   Say hi to
Mr Mulder and his partner, sweetheart."
	"Hi," the child trilled shyly.
	"And this is my husband, Gasgaodah Johnson," she continued, indicating the
man who was still glowering at them -- or more precisely, was glowering at
Mulder. 
	Scully looked at her partner.  He was staring at the child in a daze, his
entire being focused on her.  Daisy went to him, touching him lightly on the
shoulder.  "No," was all she said.  "She's a child of the West Wind,
Tasitsho."  She smiled at him, and there was volumes in that smile.  "And
gifted, she is."	
	He relaxed, expelling his breath sharply.  Scully glanced between them,
unsure of the silent communication she was witnessed.  "Just as well," he
said, nearly whispering.  "She's into Barney."
	Dawendineh pouted.  "Barney good," she said.  She looked at Daisy.  "Down, 
Mummy Mum."
	Scully looked at Daisy, and then at the little girl, and back at Mulder, and
then the light went off in her head.
	Mulder produced his file.  "I think I've located Tehonig," he said quietly,
and handed it to Daisy.  "He's been placed with a foster home in Quantico, of
all places, and is attending a school for gifted children.   They've named
him Timothy MacEachern, and they're a little concerned with him -- " and at
her frightened look, he said, "No, he's fine, he's healthy and smart.  But
apparently he hears voices, talks to what he calls spirits, and
strangely-dressed people who vanish have been seen with him."
	Daisy looked like she was dreaming as she flipped through the file.  "Does
he remember Denene, or me?" she asked softly, as though she were afraid of
the answer.
	Scully responded, remembering the strange little boy they had interviewed
last month.  "He says he can only remember someone named Degasaheh."  She
tripped a little over the pronounciation.  "He doesn't know who his parents
are."
	Daisy looked at Scully then, who took an instinctive step backward.  Images
that were not hers crowded into her mind, and she felt the pain this woman
felt.   Hot tears sprang to her eyes and she fought off the feeling, shaking
her head to clear it.  She was being inundated with emotions that were not
hers.  She stared at the woman, who looked back at her, clear-eyed and
silent.  They looked at each other, and the vision of an otter suddenly
danced before Scully's eyes and was gone as swiftly as it had come.   She
felt like she was underwater, in a dream.  
	Daisy handed the file back to Mulder.  "Thank you, Tasitsho.  You have found
him for me, and we have made a fair trade, a good trade."  She smiled then,
and it was a beautiful smile, clear and strong, like a mountain stream. 
"Have you still your talisman?"
	Scully looked at Mulder.  He nodded slowly.  "I do.  It ... it helps me,
Daisy.  I guess we have made a good trade."
	She touched his hand, and it was, for a moment, like they were the only
people there.  And then the little girl was singing, "Tasitsho,  Ta-sit-sho,
Ta-sit-sho-ee ..."  Daisy stepped away from him and gathered the girl to him.
 "I'd ask you in for tea, but it's probably not a good idea."  She looked at
Mulder steadily, and slowly he nodded.   They looked at one another again,
that wordless communication passing between them, and then he smiled at
Daisy, and turned away from her.
	"Come on, Scully," he said.  "Let's go."
	She stared at him.  "That's it?"
	He nodded.  "Yep, we're all done here."
	She followed him back to the car, puzzled by the emotions that had swirled
around her.  The man had gone back into the house, and Daisy was standing
with the child in her arms, whispering into her ear.   Mulder got into the
driver's side this time and didn't even glance out the rear view mirror as
they drove back down the driveway.   Scully did up her seatbelt and sat
quietly for about three miles, and then said softly, "She lied to you,
Mulder."
	He glanced at her, his eyes warning her away from him, away from the topic. 
"I know," he said.  "But I can't do anything about it."
	And he was silent the rest of the way to the airport.

						THE END

Pronounciation Guide

Please note -- because Mohawk (one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois
Confederacy) is primarily an oral language (that is, it never had its own
written language), these are as close to the actual pronounciation as I can
phonetically make it.  Some purists would argue that my translations are off;
hey, it's been two generations since anyone in my family last spoke Mohawk,
so sue me.

Tehoniguratheh -- Tay-hon-ig-url-at-heh  "Bright Mind"
Akwatonteh -- Ahk-wa-ton-tay "My mother's sister (aunt)"
Degonawadonti -- Day-gone-ah-wah-don-tee "Place Where the Waters Meet"
sinneheh -- sin-knee-heh "Close your mouth (be quiet)"
Tasitsho -- Tah-sits-ho "Fox"
wadayoneras -- wah-da-yon-erl-as "(Feminine form of) Witch"
Sowahs -- So-wahs "Dog"
Iatseh -- Yaht-say "Sky Woman"
Degasaheh -- Day-ga-sah-hey (An Oneida War chief's name that I don't have a
translation for)
Gasgaodah -- Gus-ga-oh-dah "Two Guns"
Dawendineh -- Daw-wen-dee-neh -- "First Light of Morning (Dawn)"

It's been fun,
Terri Monture

"As long as it's not Spooky Fox"