It had been there all her life, sitting in the corner of her vision or pacing the walls of whatever room she was in. It looked like a lynx, although how she knew that she couldn 't have said. Konan had never seen a real lynx in her life. No one but her could see this one and it had a habit of laying down in public walkways for people to stroll right through its incorporeal body. Konan usually had the impression that the lynx was exasperated with her for some reason, though she wasn 't sure why. It liked to dash enthusiastically through doorways when it saw she was leaving a room, taking off in one direction only to circle back and glare disapprovingly at her when she turned the other way.

Konan was twenty-five when she decided that enough was enough. She had a good job and a good amount of money in the bank. Her boss agreed almost thoughtlessly when she put in for vacation time and Konan felt no guilt over how vague she was when discussing how long she would be gone for.