Before, the night had seemed refreshingly brisk. Now, it was nothing less than foreboding. Clucketta found she wanted to be home, safe and warm, seated steadfastly before the carpet she was working on, pulling it together with her beak thread by thread and not worrying about the wind or the prophecy. And she dearly wanted her friend Kanga to be with her, so she asked.

"Of course I'll come!" said Kangaruffian. "Let me stop by my place first and get a book, though."

Clucketta's features affected amusement. "You and your books. You're inseparable, you know. I worry that they might start looking more like people to you than people do after a while."

Kanga frowned where another might have laughed, but she was amused nonetheless. "Clucketta, books aren't people. That's one priority I promise I'll never mix up."

"Good. Then I'll let you pick one up. Do you think you can be at my house in fifteen minutes?"

"If I race."

Clucketta nodded. "I wouldn't ask anyone else to race on my behalf, but I know how much you enjoy it."

"Take care." The purple kangaroo bounded away, leaving the night bearable for a few seconds in her wake. Then she was gone, and Clucketta was scared once more.

Clucketta missed the night lights. She hadn't known how much she had needed them to comfort her as she passed from place to place in the night. Even the short trip from the plaza to her house was unnerving. There were holes in the night earth; she knew that from her days as a chick. Before she had grown into a wiser and more sedate adult, she had been an uncontrollable youth, and it had taken all her elders' efforts to keep her from falling off a cliff or stumbling into a quarry. Even with their constant supervision, she had not managed to avoid injury altogether; and now that the night lights were gone, Clucketta felt like she had the worst of both worlds-the perils of a child but the worries of an adult.

She was proud, however, that she managed to keep her wits about her. The others knew she was easily scared-'don't be chicken' had become a common expression-but at least she had not let herself become poor company because of it. She had had visions of herself as a flustered, cowering wreck in the wake of the tornado, yet she did not live them out. In fact, Clucketta expected that the toys would all find new identities as a result of the tornado, and she was happy with what hers was turning out to be.

Her days of dashing helter-skelter through the streets had disappeared with Clucketta's childhood. Now she flew in short bursts, using her legs only to keep herself from bouncing on the road. She made slow progress that way, but it was rare that anything faster was required. She wasn't like Orbit or the diminutive couple, Handy and Ziggy, for whom moving from one location to another was practically as easy as turning around. So it took her twenty minutes to reach her house, a two-room cottage adorned both internally and externally with draperies, tapestries and ornamental framed clothscapes, a craft which she took pride in having invented. Kanga was waiting patiently by the walkway, tucked into a mossy cranny formed by the rock shelf which bordered the east edge of Clucketta's cottage. She was absorbed in a large maroon tome.

"Oh, go inside, Kanga. The door is unlocked, and the night winds aren't as pleasant as usual tonight."

Kanga looked up suddenly, and then smoothly flipped shut the book, stood, and passed through the cottage door, knowing that Clucketta was following her. And once the hen had peacefully withdrawn into her own cottage, Kanga, frowning pleasantly, shut the door behind her.

Inside, the art on the walls seemed more intense; it had more potential for power when removed from the shroud of a prophetic night. Sharp contrasts of cloth and embroidered paper stood against posts of brown hardwood, reaching up dutifully past a soft, white loft to support the roof-simple pledges to the dwelling's power to keep its resident assured of safety. Clucketta was that resident, and nearly all the ample cloth in her house had been her beakwork-the one exception being a small gift embroidery from Ziggy the cockroach. She felt so at home in the environment she had created for herself that she couldn't even truly say she loved the look or the feel of it-it was simply what she knew of as home. Her friends seemed to find it novel, however, and Clucketta was always gratified to see them gaze around at things already seen, wonder in their eyes at what a simple friend's life was made of.

"Is that one new?" mumbled Kanga, eyeing a work of wool yarn that had been on the east wall for years. "No," answered Clucketta, "what I did was to add the row of birch bark above it."

"Oh? It sets it off well."

"Obviously. You noticed it."

Kanga turned to Clucketta, a feigned shadow falling over her mood. "The loft," she whispered. At the slightest nod from the chicken, she was off with a huge bound. Kanga didn't need the staircase, as Clucketta knew well; she had three favorite lattices that stuck out only inches from the walls but served just as well. Hop, hop, hop, and the kangaroo was capably up in the world of wispy cotton that was the loft, breathing hard and loving it. Clucketta took the stairs slowly, one at a time, and was with her friend in two short minutes. They stared out over Clucketta's house through the railing from there, and it was like the world to them. That was how Clucketta had intended it to look.

Clucketta's carpet was down on the floor below; she hadn't thought to bring it up with her. No matter. Kanga hadn't brought her book either, and the carpet could wait for a more barren hour, an hour after Kanga had gone. For now she was with her friend, and they were immersed in surroundings as similar to clouds as it was possible to find, and they were bound to talk. Kanga rolled over and stretched her arm toward the cedar roof.

"Do you think they'll rebuild the Rook, Clucketta?"

"When this is done. I'd say only then."

"This? You mean the buzz about the prophecy?"

"Yes."

"Well-the question, I guess, is how long will it take before they realize we're safe and nothing's going to happen? Hm. I'd say Presto might last three weeks."

"Or, contrawise, how long before it turns out to be true and does us all in," said Clucketta contentedly, fluffing her feathers.

Kanga leaned over a fleecy wall to peer at Clucketta. "Oh, you don't believe it. You're too calm," she declared. It was true.

"I guess not," Clucketta agreed. "Prophecies are old sayings, and sayings are apt to get twisted over time. What chance is there that a prophecy so old no one remembers its origin has any meaning relevant to us now? Well, some, perhaps. But only enough to ruffle our senses."

"Maybe what we need to do first is recharge the night lights. If we can find enough photochips at this time of year to get a skeletal system going, then maybe they'll be convinced the condition is impermanent, and get to work on the Rook. The sooner the better."

"Mm," agreed the chicken.

"And when it comes down to it, I'd rather be worried in the light than in the dark. That's one reason I like it here. You keep your place bright, all day long."

"I like it that way."

"No such thing as night for Clucketta. Now, I just can't convince Orbit to lug photochips, or anything else for that matter, through the swamp. So I just make my house up with what I find for myself. Plus, of course, a fine frayed rug a friend of mine made for me."

"I'm still surprised a little gift like that went so far, Kanga. You keep bringing it up."

Kanga shrugged, shifting the cotton's shape and transforming the little world the two friends occupied. "Do you think I'm stupid to live in the swamp?"

"No," Clucketta said. The answer was easy for her. Kanga was a brave person, not a foolish one, and she knew the difficulties her choice of residence generated for her. She also knew the rewards of living close to a lode of copper and a source of basalt rock, rewards which even Clucketta ultimately shared in and yet understood poorly. "In fact, I admire you for it," she said in all sincerity.

"Well," murmured Kanga, now turning her head away toward the wall, "I'm still trying to find a role for myself, you know. Big Al would be a more logical choice as miner, but if he prefers being mayor and mining is all that's left over..." Her voice trailed off dismissively.

"You worry too much," said Clucketta, fluttering briefly over a mound of cotton to be with her friend. "It's not right for someone to worry she's not doing her share when she does more than practically anyone else."

"Oh-I know that I do my share. But I don't have a role. Haven't we been over this before?"

"Of course. And I won't press it, then." Clucketta would have been so accomodating about any subject, naturally, but she also remembered Kanga's laments from past conversations. Everyone else had a clear job to do, and didn't have to be told. Kanga, by contrast, wasn't the sort who would be happy that way. Yet she didn't realize it, and Clucketta didn't know how to tell her.

"I have a role for now," said Kanga softly after a sizable pause. "I'll put off carving out the quarry and start looking for night-glo photochips. Maybe I'll see if I can talk Ziggy into scouting for me." She lay there, letting her eyes unfocus for a moment, and then the kangaroo rolled brusquely over and buried her cheek in cotton.

Clucketta settled by her head and nodded. Sensing after some peaceful minutes had passed that the conversation was over, she relaxed her muscles and did nothing more than emanate her undecorated presence for the rest of the evening, until Kanga fell asleep and Clucketta finally had her hour of calm. She flapped gradually down from the loft and found a place to sit with her carpet, and she put simple, slow stitches through it until the time came for her, too, to sleep.

At this point, I originally included a Bonus Scene called Kanga's Crazy Quilt to mirror level 3 in the game.  It was a memory of young Kangaruffian sewing, or learning to sew, and being comforted by a scene of something like sunshine through the windows of a storehouse or a windmill. But that scene is lost, sadly! So I'll send you on to Scene 4.

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