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Diane was eighteen, taking classes at Carolina State, when she found the place. That was its name in her mind, the place... it was a corner of the campus, designated as a walking trail, and then she slipped off the trail onto a short unmarked path, and she came to it. Green, surrounded by trees, a tiny bubbling artesian spring poured over a glistening quartz stone with sunshine colors sparkling wetly, small wildflowers blooming ten months of the year. It was a place that drew her and she drew it in return, filling entire sketchbooks with aspects of its trees, stones, water, and sky.
She didn't have any problems with surface social interactions with her classmates, but forming deep bonds with them seemed beyond her abilities to fit into the human milieu. Two of her acquaintances, one a young man who seemed to find her reticence an irresistible attractant, the other a woman her own age who admired her work in the art class they both attended, regularly made efforts to get to know her better. She knew they were, yet, she felt reluctant to share any of the truth of her life; she lived with a bunch of Garou, and it was better to keep humans outside that circle.
One day, the woman asked her to have lunch together in the school cafeteria. Diane agreed, feeling a bit lonely and not having time to go home for her lunch. She and the other art student discussed their teacher and class, and art techniques, and Diane showed her on a whim, her sketchbook of the place. The girl exclaimed how good her landscape and illustration technique were - and added that the place was beautiful, and where was it? Diane hesitated to tell her, but she did vaguely, saying it was along the walking path in the south corner of the campus.
Life follows distinct patterns so it was more of that than coincidence, that the next day, Diane was heading for the place when she heard the young man call her name. She ducked without thinking off the trail toward the place, and he followed. She stopped and turned around, confronting him in the woods, staring at him silently until he broke the quiet by asking her where she was going. She told him it was a place she went to be alone, hoping he'd take the hint, but he wilfully ignored it. So she stalked back to the path, with the man following, apologizing for interrupting as he realized he'd made a serious mistake.
But somehow, after those incidents, the place lost its special power. Diane found herself going there less often, though each time when she was there, after an hour or so she felt much better about it, she dreaded the thought of going there now. It was a fear... she pinned it down to the conviction, beyond reason, that one of the two of them would suddenly appear while she was there and that their arrival would destroy the place.
She eventually stopped going, and drew it from memory instead, and as she did so, it changed in her mind. In the end she could go there in visualization alone, conjuring the place so vividly in her mind's eye that she felt transported. It was like being in the umbra, but, different because it was hers alone; even another Garou could not go there. Protected, safe, alone, her perfect place.