The governess looked somberly at her reflection in the window of the limousine, her face was cast across the muddy snowbanks  like a spirit -- she wondered if death was like a road, if you were forced to sit and watch helpless as your life glided away, cold and monochrome like the winter outside.  She closed her eyes and turned away from the window, resting a hand on a leather-bound folder. "Mistress, are we going home now?"  The driver, a puggish bulldog, glanced at the frail looking rabbit in the cab. She looked up, blearily studying the chauffer's eyes reflected in his driving  mirror and wondering if her own looked like blackened pits.  How long had it been since she slept in a proper bed or ate a real meal?  "Yes.  Take me home."  She drew her hand away from the neatly bound bundle of crumpled papers and pressed it against her temple.  "I'll leave the rest of the work to you."  Jon's fingers slammed across the strings of his bass, causing the instrument to squeal a note of frustration at the pool of writhing forms he could barely make out in the glare of the spotlights.  The wolf's clothes were soaked with his sweat and he was fighting the urge to pant.  He was a performer and had to look professional even if the stadium might be cascading down around him. Swin seemed to be doing just the opposite, the cheetah howled at the top of his lungs and  twined his voice around Jon's note, feeding upon it like a greedy serpent.  He screamed his contempt of the world at the crowd and they basked in it, they soaked it up like a sponge and pleaded for more in a multitude of voices.  The crowd wailed his name, they tore at the guards ringing the front of the stage to try and touch him, they trampled each other to be able to simply see him. The drums pounded furiously at Jon's back to the point that it felt as though the music was  slapping at him in one great crashing wave.  Legget wove his magic like a true professional and didn't even break a sweat despite the swirling fury of the concert.  The lion was a master of rythim and it seemed as though his steady thunderings were the only thing truly holding reign to the chaos. But it wasn't perfect.  Jon could tell when someone missed a que, he heard the otter, Brand, hit a high note slightly off on his guitar, he could tell when Swin was attempting to improvise on the song by changing his tempo or trying to herd the fragments of the melody down his own path.  Jon knew it all too well -- after all, he was the one who wrote the music.  Swin added words to his songs but the true melody was his and he had learned how to hold Swin to it night after  night.  His bass growled an insistent note at the cheetah, refusing his push and biting back while Legget's drums paitently collared Swin and slowed his frenzied pace. It was the same every night, and when it was all over Swin would be oblivious to any manipulations on his part.  When he sang he was a different person and the best way to manage him was to hold him to the rythim and conceal the battle from the audiance. The crowds went wild.