Explaining this is something of a story in and of itself.

Last fall I took part in something called NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month. The goal of the event: write 50000 words in 30 days. Needless to say the format doesn't allow for much planning. Just come up with an idea, then keep coming up with a way to advance events and keep things rolling.

One day I decided to try introducing a couple of new characters, who might seem a little... familiar to many around here, although as you'll see I did take a couple of liberties in my portrayal of them. A certain someone is definitely going to be surprised at his newly assigned nationality, for example.

Alas the larger story went in a different direction and these new characters didn't appear again, so this wound up sort of a dead-end chapter that will probably be cut if I ever actually publish the novel.

Happily, with the investment of quite a few nights and weekends, I managed to cross the finish line with a couple of days to spare. And soon after I decided to commission a picture to celebrate my success. That picture, is this picture: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6141068/

So, by way of expressing gratitude, I am publishing the chapter with only the very slightest of edits from the way I jotted it down last year.

Lacking the context of the overall story some of this might not make sense, but explaining it all will take far too long, so just to identify the other characters: Harry is the bear character who appears here http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6115437/ and Linda is the snow leopard in this picture http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5905232/