Overnight, the sky did not lighten with the dawn, but became a sickening green- a blizzard of unprecedented Fargo level strength assaulted the entire campus of Alaraf.  Bird even escorted the crows the library eaves as he warmed himself on the hidden heating grate.

       Duke Leto2 was temporarily panicked he could not find Ruh, [even though he loudly pretended not to care for him] until the tracker determined Ruh was in Mango’s new office [Duke’s most recent prior office] and he decided, that was a very rational decision of Ruh to make; Dr. Whispurrs adapted vest silenced the radio -via -pacemaker enough for Duke to sleep like a human being, and Ruh was stuck being a cat…and still drooled adjusting to the new implant, absolutely distressing his wardrobe.

       In Mango’s office, the power flickered uncertainly as Ruh awoke to find Mango loafed next to him, just close enough to be stabilizing, and under the other half of Ruh’s blue scarf like it was a shared blanket at a slumber party.

       “We missed Fajr,” stated Ruh

        “No we didn’t, I prayed it and you have dispensation for stress induced illness- don’t make me use my doctorate.”

         “It’s okay Garrett, I’m technically a Psychologist.”

           “What is your specialty?” asked Garrett J. Butler, aka the Mango Madrassa cat.

            “Disassociation symptoms in POW & post assignment intelligence professionals,” replied Ruh, He stared unblinking at Mango first, then pointedly proceeded to licking his Revlon black paw to clean his little furry face.

          “Back to basics;  what did you do before all that,” asked Mango, the tree limbs scratching against the outside windows enough make fur stand on end,

            “I was just a chaplain, people asked me to pray for them and I was good at it, you?” stated Ruh.

              “A cleric who got into a fight with his Sufi teacher and thought I could teach it better than him.” Mango stated, without irony.

            “Common mistake; at least you didn’t start a Luciferian Loki-cult about it, Mango… we live and learn. Were you able to teach it better?” Ruh was curious,

            “I just got controlled by different sponsors.” stated Mango, with clear regret.

             “Knowing is half the battle,  but at least they can’t force you to do anything as a cat in the middle of a blizzard whilst our shared SIS Supervisor & Murshid is getting tortured live on broadcast.” growled Ruh.

         “What is there to do about it?” Asked Mango

           “Where is your second favorite book in this office…?” Inquired Ruh.

           “Mangoes of Milan?” Suggested Mango.

            “No, Garrett, the religious one.” Ruh expounded.

             “On the Fiqh of being Meticulous & Tidy, By Al Ghazali” chirped Mango, excitedly.

         “That isn’t a real book,” Ruh exclaimed, clearly debating biting him.

          “It can be if you give me fifteen minutes and Ai.” Replied Mango, doing his best to reply completely deadpan.

      Ruh, despite feeling totally unwell, unsteadily climbed the bookshelves to find a cat-sized blue paperback only the size of a very large index card and had less than one hundred thick pages. The text was lemon yellow and there was a very charming pastel green and blue mandala smartly on the cover reading,

     “-The Glorious Treasure,” stated Mango reverently, not even too upset about the new fang marks placed at the top of it. “I didn’t think you liked my product placements in my lectures, much less bought any of them.”

      “I did, and my own copy is even more worn than yours is,”

        “It’s my fifth copy,” admitted Mango, sheepishly.

          “It’s more useful than a hundred-dollar tasbih,” admonished Ruh.

           “Hey, most of us don’t have human fingers when we pray anymore, ” replied Mango in that combination of jovial con serious only he could manage. Ruh simply glared in response, flipping through the pages of the small book with an unfortunately androgynous claw until he reached the bookmarked portion.

        Ruh smoothed open the binding and pointed at the big white page that stated, in English & Arabic:

         AL WIRD AL LATIF

                          الورد اللطيف  

     Ruh padded at the texts almost reverently, “Do you ever go through this line by line with your students or do you just only recite it like you are running a long distance race of verbal memorized prayers?”

     “I thought you were working on not being Marchosias anymore and being nicer to me.”

       “I am right next to you, in your mango office I gave you, sharing my scarf with you in the middle of a blizzard about to ask you to read a super ridiculously long Sufi prayer with me in real time in the best Dawah attempt I have in me beyond your fourth and fifth walls.” said Ruh with a sigh.

         “Oh fudge, we do have an audience of whoever is reading this right now,” exclaimed Mango.

      “Hi, human being. I’m Garrett, and my current codename is Mango.  I am a creamsicle Manx cat with an alarming number of credentials I never asked for,  and Ruh is a dyed-black, half-feral calico with a bad eye and a metal fang that hums whenever the world is on fire. This is the part where we don’t tell you who we really are, because that would be silly, unsafe, and ruin the story.”

    Ruh soft-paw smacked Mango.
“Some decorum, please.”
      Mango smacked him back. “Decorum is for people who aren’t stuck in a blizzard with the radio screaming to the point where I block it out better than campus security & aurology combined because they keep yelling back like it does anything.  It doesn’t.   …Allegory only, of course. You’re the anxious one with the humming fang, and I’m the orange one who teaches with memes.”

    Ruh replied thoughtfully, “I have my badge through the usual alphabet soup, and my nondisclosures include not using your full, real. name, Garrett. J. Butler.” replied Ruh, tapping him with his paw at each word for added emphasis.

      It was the first normal non-worshipful voluntary contact Garrett felt in weeks, and it felt…normal.  Maybe even nice.   Even though Ruh was half feral when sick and almost bitey. The storm raged outside, and Garrett shuffled his fluffy butt closer to Ruh and the text after lighting a hidden Mango-scented tealight.

     “Which one of us is Bastian?  Both of us?  Does this story ever end?”  Asked Mango, tucking the scarf under his haunches securely as he took out a tiny little pitch pipe in preparation for singing the entire Al Wird Al Latif in his Mango Cat voice.

      “Hold on there, pardner.  I think it’s best if we reflect on it verse by verse.  Because it will be incredibly difficult for me to type and will show my deep and abiding commitment to teaching Tasawwuf correctly.”

      “…Which I share,” Stated Mango assertively. 

        “With that being said, will you read the Arabic parts as I read the English?  I find working through the Wird line by line is comforting.  It reminds us that no matter what, Faith shields us from despair.” Asked Ruh very nicely.

          “Of course. Right, Allah is in charge, not two lonely Sufi religious leader kitties trained extensively in law enforcement communicating via cat stories and mango flavored YouTube videos.”

     They then began to read the Wird together line by line by the light of the mango candle, both trying their best to trust Allah for a better ending over the present chaos of storms and circumstances.