"I saw you in the forest today. It’s a good thing you didn’t fall; it would have taken me forever to get to you. What was with the twirling around?"

      "I was dancing."

      "Turtles don’t dance."

      "I do."

      "Why?"

      "Because the sky was singing to me."

      He sighed, rubbed her nose and breathed her scent. She smiled and rubbed back. Time passed and she took to wandering further and further into the forest. One day she came across an oddly symetrical set of rocks gleaming in a ray of sunshine. The bottom rock had matched pebbles set within it, all in rows. The upper rock balanced on a hinge, its flat, inner surface glowing and flickering. Slowly she approached, reaching forward to touch the bottom rock. It was smooth and silky to her touch. She reached forward a little more, stretching to pick up one of the pebbles. It wobbled a bit to her touch, but wouldn’tcome loose. She came closer still and leaned against the pebbles trying to pry one out. They sank down into the larger rock as shapes flashed upon the upper rock’s surface. Startled, she moved back. The shapes just sat there, black on white, until the surface resumed blinking and flickering. Again she crept up to the rocks and repeated her actions. Again the shapes appeared, followed by random flickering. All afternoon she experimented. Reluctantly she turned away as the sun sank lower into the sky.

      He was standing in front of their home watching as she came to him in the twilight. "It’s late. The raptors have been circling for hours. What kept you so long?"

      She made little hops in front of him, as much as a turtle can hop. "I came across the oddest thing at Terrapin Point, hinged rocks that made patterns and flickered. Come with me and see it tomorrow."

      "Flickering rocks! Did you dance for them or do you just save that for when the sky sings to you?" he grumbled, nudging her into the burrow.

      "No, I didn’t dance. So far, I save that for the sky song….and you." she replied sweetly. "Will you come?"

      He nuzzled closer to her. "I will if you dance for me tonight," he whispered as he nibbled the soft folds of her neck.

      He walked once around the rocks, and then marched right up and started poking at the pebbles. The little patterns flew across the upper surface. She stood watching him, her mouth hanging open. "How did you do that?"

      "I’ve worked with this before. It’s a portal. At work, we use the portals to procure food. Didn’t you ever wonder how I got our food? You wonder about everything else," he said as he continued to poke and prod. An apple slowly formed on the upper surface, pushing out until it separated from the surface and fell at her feet.

      She sniffed at it and nibbled. "It’s real! You get our food from there? I knew you used some kind of tool to help you reach the fruit. Though I always thought, if we tried we could figure out how to climb up to it."

      "Great. Its not enough I’m mated to a dancing turtle, she wants to climb trees too. What next, fly?"

      She grinned, "I’d like that. Can you show me how to work the portal?"

      "I can show you but it won’t do any good. Each portal has its own guardian, the eyeyespee, that allows you access to the fruit and other things."

      "Introduce me to the eyeyespee please."

      "Well, actually I connected through the one I know. You will have to find out how to meet this one on your own."

      So she did, poking and prodding randomly until she one day found the stories."They are there! The man and the woman, they are in the portal! There are hundreds, thousands, millions of stories about them!"

      "What man and woman?"

      "The ones I’m always trying to talk to you about, the ones that fly among the stars!"

      He gave her a long look and quietly turned back to neaten the greenery growing along the path. She finished her work as quickly as she could and hurried back to the portal and the stories.

      "You know," she said one day, "We could have our own portal righthere."

      "We don’t need it. I bring home enough food already."

      "You know that’s not all you can use a portal for."

      She argued throughout the year until, one day, she announced that she had traded the food that she had procured for a portal. He snorted, saying that he was surprised it took her a whole year to do so. Then he warned her that she must be very careful. The portal could bring in a virus or raptors that could destroy all they had built in an instant. She absentmindedly agreed to respect all that he insisted upon as she poked around learning to interact with her eyeyespee. Each evening she would sit in front of the portal for hours until he would finally loose his patience and demand that she come to sleep.

      "You’re addicted to that damn thing," he complained.

      "Nothing has changed," she would counter. "Before the portal I spent the evenings reading and now I spend the evenings reading from the portal."

      Each night he would say the same thing but he never did say stop.

      In the beginning she was content to read the stories. Soon she began to write a story of her own. Then she set about figuring out how to get her story into the portal too. Finally she was ready to try. She pressed a sequence into the pebbles. The portal began to shimmer. Gently placing her foreleg up to the portal, she touched the shimmer. It dissolved! She found herself looking down into a valley with a silver pond nestling within the embrace of encircling cliffs. Above her, whirling and circling, climbing and diving, were raptors of every size and description. In the back of her brain she heard hermate’s voice warning her, but his voice was overwhelmed by her enchantment with the scene before her.

      Higher and higher they flew. Highest of all, in the heavens, a black winged bird was performing the most graceful and intricate of aerial dances. Entranced with the beauty of the dance, she stepped through the portal and started to fall. In a panic she flapped her forearms around. As she did, her fall slowed. She glanced at her arms and saw feathers. Just as she was started to panic again a beautiful bird flew to her side and urged her to continue to flap her wings. The bird seemed surrounded by serenity and sweetness, with feathers the color of a hundred wild flowers. The wondrous creature flew around her, propping her up when she started to fall, "Keep flapping your wings, don’t be afraid, welcome to the pond, welcome to the dance."

      "I got in! I went through the portal to a place called a pond! The ones who write the stories are in there! And they dance! They all dance!"

      "You went into the portal! By the shell, didn’t I explain to you how dangerous this could be? As if the viruses weren’t danger enough, now you have to play among the raptors!"

      "It’s okay, really. I’ll be careful and besides, I’m safe.We’re all kind of changed in there."

      "What do you mean….changed?"

      She shifted back and forth, not quite sure how to explain. "Well, we’re all raptors, sort of."

      "WHAT!?"

      "When I enter the portal, I transform into a raptor too, but not fully. Each of us seems to keep some essence of what we are outside the pond: an echo, a scent, a song. The shadow of what I am stays with me. I am still small and round. I am still slow. But when the sky sings to me, I can rise up and dance! In there we all hear the music. In there we all dance in the sky and the dance is magical, beloved. The stories flow from the dancing! We dive and twirl, weave and climb. As we weave in and out, out and in, we spin our stories into the wind and they drift down to the pond below, where they are gathered together to be saved and cherished."

      "Your essence is… preserved? And the others?"

      "There are so many I can’t begin to describe them all. I’ve seen golden eagles of the high places, one with the scent of snow, the other of sagebrush and one that worries an idea like a badger caught in a trap, struggling until it breaks free. There is a bald eagle that has spun so many tales I may never hear them all and a sea eagle that tells of a strange place at the edge of the western sea. There are ospreys with the shadows of cats. There is a falcon with the scent of fire and another that smells of good things baking. Two hawks have feathers that look as if they are wearing uniforms and there is an owl that spills blue flower petals each time she flies. There is a perrigrin falcon that flies like a horse at full gallop and a fish hawk that chitters like a monkey. Each weaves stories and the stories are as varied as the weavers. Some are so sad I can barely keep aloft, others funny and some….well, some we will read together just before we goto bed," she purred, rubbing against him. He was neither pleased nor placated, but he was allowing himself to be pleasantly sidetracked.

      At first, as she entered the portal she would fly off to one side watching the other raptors. They called to her and would fly quick circles around her then dart off again giving her the time to get used to them. She became bolder and flew closer and closer to two she thought seemed especially friendly. They welcomed her and the three began to meet at the beginning of each day for a quick dance before joining the rest of their pondmates. Months passed in this happy fashion.

      One evening, as she sat quietly reading the stories, she heard the link sound. As she listened her mind went numb with shock! One of the raptors she was closest to had found her way to the link. She stared at the link mentally willing the other to go away before he came back to her side. Yet she was intrigued. How had she found her? Why had she called? Would she be angry if the link was severed? She stared at the link and listened until it was too late to tell her to go. He came to her.

      "Who is it?"

      "It is she, the one I fly with."

      "Sever the link now! How could you! You promised you would protect the burrow! You have invited the raptors here! You have given them the link access! Have you even thought of the danger you bring to the soft-shelled one? He is defenseless and you have invited in the enemy! Tomorrow you must shut down the portal and change the link access! Promise me! Tomorrow!"

      "I don’t understand. I never gave the link access."

      "Then how?"

      "I don’t know. I do know I have not been careful and that I have never told them that anything more than the pond would be unwelcome. But please, do not shut down the portal. We speak to our own people spread out everywhere. We speak to your people far across the seas. I don’t want to lose them. It has brought our clan close again. I can change the portal sequence and withdraw from the pond."

      "Tell them nothing! Just go! You do not know what they will do. Just get out! Promise me!"

      He was more terrified for his cherished ones, than angry at her, but he was that too. She promised knowing that today she had betrayed his trust with her carelessness and that tomorrow she would betray the pond in retribution. They clung to each other throughout the night, each accepting the other’s comfort in silence, knowing that words would shatter the gift. As he fell deeper into sleep, he began to moan and thrash about. She kept vigil at his side, stroking him during the worst of it until he quieted again. In the morning she asked him what he had been dreaming.

      "Nothing."

      "You fought and kicked and called out all night long."

      He looked at her with haunted eyes, "I dreamt the burrow was invaded. Icouldn’t protect our family and I couldn’t call for help."

      She enfolded him in her arms; "I’ll will change the accesses today. I love you."

      He released himself, giving her a small smile, "I know. I love you, too."

      "I know."

      Before the morning had ended she had changed everything and withdrawn to her burrow. He had frightened her with his fears. But, as the days passed, her fear faded as she remembered the kindness and the laughter of the pond. She wondered if anyone had noticed she no longer flew there. Each day she would check to see what stories had drifted down to be shared outside the pond. As she read, she would ache a little, unable to sing in praise of the weavers. They wouldn’t know how she treasured their new words. He watched her. She did her tasks willingly and was sweet and warm with him and compliant to his wishes. That last got on his nerves. She had always had a sweetness to her and warmth and would usually go along with his wishes, but always on her own terms. He wasn’t used to this passivity. And she no longer danced. To his surprise he found he missed it.

      She never said a word to him about going back. She never said she missed the pond. She didn’t have to. One evening she was listlessly doing what she called surfing when she came upon something that shocked her.

      "Come here! Look at this! It took me 30 seconds to find this. It’s been there all the time. It was not an invasion, she just accepted the invitation posted here!"

      "What are you talking about? Great shell! Your name! Our old link access! Our burrow location! It’s been here all along?"

      "Yes. It was probably here even before we had a portal."

      He stared quietly at the portal for a moment. "It is possible we may have overreacted."

      She just said, "Um," as he walked away.

      Neither said anything for a week or two.

      "Would you mind if I went back?"

      "Would you be more careful?"

      "Yes," she said quietly but thinking to herself that she had no reset button, what was known, was known and how does one hid oneself from one’s friends anyway. In the end she knew that, known or otherwise, they would accept her parameters….if, that is, they were of a mind to accept her at all. She had left them without a word.

      It took her another week to feel brave enough to ask. They accepted. She entered the pond again, not quite sure of what to expect. They welcomed her, dancing and laughing and then darting off as they had done before, letting her get used to them all over again. Her two morning companions waited for her, feeling as shy as she. The one said she hadn’t known, she wouldn’t have if she had known. Turtle Woman told her she knew, it had sounded like an invitation, she couldn’t have known. The other watched with caring eyes. Then the joy overcame them all and up they flew, caught by the same winds that sifted the stories.

      She left the portal and came to him with a smile. Slowly she pushed herself up on her hind legs and turned around and around in the sunshine. He watched and found her beautiful. He smiled and turned back to the burrow to resume pushing rocks about, strengthening the sides. She dropped down to the ground and watched him. She found him beautiful.

      This is Turtle Woman’s pond song, which she joyously and gratefully dedicates to her pondies, who welcomed her back with open arms… but most especially to him, whose arms have always welcomed her.
 

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