"So how long have you been out here?" Ray had been chatting casually with Cameron ever since the group of four had packed up camp and headed out through the woods in the morning. Cameron had just finished extracting all of the information from the group that Ray would allow him to know, which basically was where they were from and how long they had been out. Cameron didn't seem to pry too much, however, and the dragon was appreciative of his respect for privacy. The wolf-man scratched his chin in consideration of Ray's question.

"Actually, now that you ask I'm not too sure. It's hard to remember not being out here hunting the cat. Before now all I can remember is being out here with my son, then being back home, and then I'm out here again." The wolf shrugged in wonder, and Ray considered him for a moment.

"What were you doing back home?"

Cameron sighed. "My wife... there was an accident and I had to go back."

The dragon nodded solemnly. "I see... how is she?" Cameron didn't respond. Ray exchanged a worried look with the two windians before turning back to Cameron. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

"No," Cameron shook his head. "It's alright. Besides, I was thinking about something else too."

"What were you thinking about?" Janet joined in on the conversation now. It felt better, walking through the woods while talking to someone. Cameron gave her a light smile before shrugging his broad shoulders and replying.

"I was just thinking about how long I've been out here. I honestly can't remember, feels like forever." The wolf scratched the back of his furry neck with a clawed hand. "Ah well, no need to worry about that right now." He pointed his muzzle up to the sky and considered it for a moment. "We'll be getting you to that volcano of yours in just a little over a day with any luck, although I don't see why you want to go there. Not much in that forest anyway." He shrugged again. "Not that it matters, your journey not mine." The wolf flashed Ray a toothy grin. "Warning you though, it'd be better on this side of those mountains. No place to stay at over there that's outside the forest. Not many towns over there anymore. Used to be, but not now."

Ray nodded. "I've heard about that. There used to be a large town over there, but it was destroyed a long time ago."

Cameron shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

The group continued on through the woods for most of the day, finally stopping during the evening to set up camp again. Janet couldn't help but notice that the hunter had seemed preoccupied for most of the day. She finally approached him around the campfire after Ray and Lucy and headed off to their tents for the night. She didn't even have to say anything as she sat down next to the wolf-man.

"I've been thinking," Cameron started, sensing what the windian was about to ask. "I've been thinking about what Ray asked me earlier, about how long I've been out here." The wolf shook his head. "And you know... I really don't know."

"What do you mean?" Janet gazed at him curiously. The hunter shrugged and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"There's things I remember, I remember being out here with my son, and I remember going back home after my wife died..." he shrugged in bewilderment. "But I can't recall when I actually did that. When I think about what I've done, what I can honestly remember doing, all I think about is being out here at Rasner and looking for this cat." There was something in the wolf's voice that Janet could just sense. Something quiet, and small. Something that had been absent from his voice earlier, but yet she seemed to have felt it around him.

Something lonely... Janet thought to herself in wonder. Something about Cameron made the windian feel uneasy around him, yet she almost pitied him at the same time. It's like there's something else to him that even he doesn't know. She thought. Something that worries him because he just now realized it... "Can I ask you something?"

The hunter turned to Janet and shrugged. "Shoot."

"What happened after you lost your son?"

Cameron went silent for a moment and turned back to the fire, and Janet could tell that he was thinking. A solemn expression passed over his face and the hunter began to reveal to Janet the events that took place.

"We were out here camping, much like this, and I heard a noise out in the forest. I remembered hearing rumors from the town that there was a creature out in the woods, and I thought that maybe it had found us."

"What town? Rasner?"

Cameron paused again and thought, scratching his furry chin as he did. "You know... it was Rasner, but now that I think about it... it really wasn't..."

Janet gave him a confused look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I know it was Rasner, but it was the town different from the one that we left two days ago." The wolf furrowed his brow in wonder. "It was smaller... there weren't as many buildings when my son and I had stopped by for our supplies..."

"How long ago where you there with your son?"

"I... I don't know..." The wolf stammered and shook his head. "I can't remember... all I remember is being out here alone, but, I remember my son... I just can't remember actually doing anything with him, but I can..." He let out a baffled growl and shook his head vigorously. "But that doesn't make any sense."

"No no," Janet placed a hand on Cameron's shoulder lightly. "I think I understand what you're saying, but just forget about that right now. Tell me, what happened after you heard the noise?"

Cameron sighed and scratched his chin again. "Well, I went out to investigate. I didn't think that whatever the creature was, I didn't think that it would come to the camp with the fire going. Most animals don't like being that close to fire..." Janet nodded in understanding and waited for the hunter to continue.

"I hadn't gone very far off from the camp when I heard my son scream..." The wolf shuddered as the memory of the sound echoed through his mind. "And I went back to check on him, but when I got back he..." Cameron's voice trailed off and Janet nodded once more that she understood the hunter's meaning. Cameron didn't seem to notice, he was staring into the fire, his eyes lost in thought. Janet could sense the aggression building up in the hunter as the scene of his dead son flashed through his thoughts. The wolf bared his teeth in a silent snarl, clenching his hand into a clawed fist and he began to speak again in a low growl.

"I saw the prints the creature had left behind and I rushed after the trail. When I finally caught up to the creature, I found it to be a large panther that had cornered itself in a cave. I remember we fought... and I remember I slit its throat..." Cameron reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather pouch, opening it to reveal a large hunting knife. "... with this. I remember I used this when I fought it."

Janet took the hunting knife and examined it carefully. The blade was made of silver. She gave the hunter a curious look as she handed the weapon back to him. Cameron put it back into the pouch and went on to explain.

"The knife was a present for my son. I had had it specially made for him. That's the knife I used when I slit the cat's throat in the cave."

"But if you slit its throat..." Janet shuddered lightly, "if you did that, wouldn't the cat be dead?"

Cameron scratched his chin again and nodded slightly. "It did die, I think. I heard it yowling when I came back to Rasner... I know it died."

"So what happened after that?"

"After that..." A thoughtful expression passed over the wolf's face. "After that I remember hearing that my wife had been attacked and I went home. People kept talking about a large cat that had killed her... and I remembered thinking to myself that it must have been the ghost of the beast that I had killed." Cameron raised his eyebrow curiously at his own comment. "Although how I knew that, I'm not sure... but I remembered hearing a rumor once that when a ghost is after you for vengeance, the only way you could kill it again was to get rid of it the same way you had killed it the first time." The wolf shrugged his broad shoulders and motioned to the gun on his back. "Supposedly if I used the same material on its ghost, I could kill the beast again, so I bought those silver bullets and went after it."

"What happened then?" Janet's voice was quiet as she listened to the wolf speak. There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind. Why does this all sound familiar to me?

"After that..." Cameron's tail beat against the ground lightly as he thought again. "After that... I remember I was out in the woods one day and I finally ran across the cat again. It looked just like the one I had killed, but instead it was pure white. I remember..." again he rubbed his chin, "I remember that I managed to spot it before it spotted me, and I shot at it, hitting it in the arm." He shook his head. "Although I don't know why... I had been aiming for its head, and something happened, and the shot hit in the arm. After that though, after that the cat knew I was there, and he attacked me, knocking the gun out of my hand." The wolf rubbed a claw through the rough furs of his neck as the memories now began to become more clear to him. "And it pinned me, I remember it had me on the ground, and I couldn't reach my gun, but there was something in my pocket..." Cameron reached a hand into his pocket and pulled out his hunting knife again, staring down at the silver weapon. "This was in my pocket. I pulled it out, the cat saw me move, and I remember it lowering its mouth to my neck and then I plunged this thing into its throat and after that..." The hunter blinked in amazement as suddenly his mind went blank of memories. "After that... I don't know... all I remember is I was in Rasner again..."

Janet felt a shiver run up her spine as she studied the hunter. She knew now where she had heard the story he had just told her. It's the same thing those bards told us... the story of the Ivory Panther... Janet's thoughts were broken by the hunter's quiet mumbling.

"I was back here again... and I was hunting the cat again... and I remember now I've found it out in the woods, and I shot at it, and it attacked and then..." The hunter shook his head in wonder. "And then I was back at Rasner again?" Cameron didn't seem to notice the windian next to him as he stared into the fire, lost in bewildered thought about his scattered and looping memories. Janet slowly stood up and made her way over to the tent that she was sharing with Lucy, doing her best not to disturb the hunter as she did so. Slipping inside the tent she sat down on her sleeping bag, pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. She sat there for a moment quietly before a noise from inside the tent startled her.

"Janet?" Lucy yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Are you alright? You look like you've just seen a ghost or something." Lucy eyed her friend. Janet shuddered lightly.

"I think I may have..."

"What?" Lucy sat up and gave her friend a worried look. "What do you mean?"

"Cameron..." Janet motioned to the wolf outside the tent. "Lucy, I don't know... there's something about him... I think he's a ghost... or a demon..." Janet rubbed her arms nervously. "Or both."

"What makes you think that?"

"I was talking to him, I don't know." Janet shook her head. "He was telling me about what had happened to him, and you know what? It sounded just like the story of the panther that those bards told us." Janet shivered. "And it's weird, because while he was telling it to me it's like it all started to loop or something, and he talked about how he had remembered doing some things before, like he's come out here hunting before, and he's fought the cat before, and then it all just loops..." Janet shook her head. "It doesn't end, it just loops."

Lucy stared at her friend quietly for a moment. "Sometimes," she started up in an empty voice. "Sometimes when someone's died, but their soul is still troubled, like in a case where two people were out for vengeance on each other, but they just kill each other at the same time, sometimes when that happens neither soul wants to rest until it's had its revenge, and the two souls are caught in an infinite loop, forced to replay their last few moments together until one finally gets the revenge it was looking for."

Janet considered Lucy's words for a moment. "Do you think that's what happened to Cameron? That he and the panther were both out for revenge, but neither of them really got it? So now they're stuck until one completes its goal..."

Lucy shrugged lightly. "I don't know... the panther was already dead when it supposedly killed the hunter, or when the hunter killed it, so I don't know why its soul would come back. Unless..." the raven-haired windian's voice trailed off in thought. Janet studied her friend's expression for a moment.

"Unless what?"

"Unless..." Lucy shook her head. "The demon that we're out here for... remember, it's been creating other demons, things based off of tales and myths. Maybe it created a demon like the cat, like the Ivory Panther, and when it did that the hunter's soul reappeared, looking for its revenge. But, since the demon's not the real cat, the soul will never really get its revenge whenever it finally kills the creature, so instead it's forced to repeat the final fight with the animal over and over again."

"Maybe..." Janet rubbed her arms again. "So that would mean that Cameron really isn't a demon, just the cat is? Cameron's just a restless spirit that's been caught in this mess now..." the windian shook her head. "No wonder he sounded so sad... is there anyway to break the loop?"

Lucy shrugged her shoulders lightly and gave Janet a thoughtful look. "I suppose that since he's forced to replay the last fight he ever had with the cat, the fight that kills both him and the animal, that fight would have to change in order to make the loop stop. One would have to win... either him or the cat, so that there would be some sort of definite ending to the whole thing... I think that would be enough to free him..."

Janet nodded solemnly, her thoughts now on the hunter outside by the fire. That's so sad though... she thought to herself. A restless soul forced to replay that part of his life over and over again like that... all because of some demon that created a monster like the Ivory Panther... Janet sighed quietly to herself and shook her head. "I just wish there was something we could do for him..."

Lucy shrugged lightly. "Who knows? Maybe somehow there's something that we can do."