Only in Moonlight

By: Nuriko Kamaiji

A/N: Aaah, who ever thought I'd do this! This mostly came from listening to the music from 'RENT' and well…just sort of my feelings. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind but… Essentially, it represents a fact of 'Wolf's Rain' that I always felt very adamant about – I could spend a long time rambling but the short end is: I don't feel Cheza and Kiba are ever meant to be together except at the end of the world when paradise is ready to awaken. This is in the context that the world will continue to cycle through paradise, rebirth and death simply because it is a natural cycle, not because of anything bad.

Disclaimer: 'Wolf's Rain' belongs to BONES, et al. The words from 'To Where You Are' belong to whoever wrote them- I certainly didn't. Thank you

"who can say for certain, maybe you're still here

I feel you all around me,

your memory so clear

deep in the stillness I can hear you speak,

you're still an inspiration

can it be that you are my forever love?

and you are watching over me from up above"

- 'To Where You Are' by Josh Groban

Pain. Hunger – hunger for life, hunger for joy, hunger for light, hunger for love. So tried of this emptiness. The shallow shafts of darkness were filled with vision dripped in moonlight, where no sense could gather. It was nice to wish it all away, to let your mind be drowned out to nothing, and to let the sensations take over your body even as it was destroyed from within. A deep sigh rose from within her cold, clammy chest – yes it was better this way. Though the moments lasted shorter each time, at least there were the moments of pleasure. It made everything else a bit more bearable. Now the pain seemed distant, as if it was someone else's arm pricked with the dripping needle. But it was all right. It was all right. It was the closet she had ever come to paradise and it was likely the closest she'd ever get.

Her parents were only a distant memory – they had died when she had only been a baby. An earthquake had shattered the foundations of her birth-city, including the home she had never remembered. She was the only left then. Taken away again and again, no home had ever filled the deep longing in her soul. There was no home that could hold her crying heart. But on the streets, only in their dank, dirty, secret pathways had she found anything that resembled home. There was freedom certainly, but there had been the strays most of all. It had been a giant mutt that had led her here. Even now, she did not know why she had followed the dog except that the animal had seemed to speak to her, asking her follow him.

And there Aysun had found the rest. Some small, some large, some in-between; all of them flea-bitten and dirty and mangy, but she had loved them in an instant. The dogs had seemed happy to have her, and at night they would lay huddled together, wrapped around her. She would bury her face in their fur despite the filth for it still felt so warm.

And then she had begun to search for ways to help them, to take care of them, to heal them from the hurts they had suffered. In the beginning she had known it would take more money than she had ever had to get the dogs the treatments they needed. And so her path had been assured, for there were few ways to make money in these streets without losing pieces of yourself. She had tried everything she could think of and many things she had never dreamed of before. It was barely enough but somehow she still kept going…

A cold nose nudged her thin side, making her hazy mind recall. It was for the dog – she had to save them…certainly. Sometimes it felt as though they would rather see her suffer less than she did, but the dogs never stopped loving their sacrificial flower. if it would mean she might smile more, but the

In recent months, she had found the largest supply of money yet. All she had to do was test Mad Max's products.

When she had first returned the dogs had whined miserably as she had told them her new plan. She didn't know why she did; she simply felt they could understand her. Despite the pack's misgivings, she had assured them it would be all right. And it was. She was making money faster than ever before, for a part of her craved what she lost so soon, and she lost little money in the process because she did not have to bargain for it. Though as the days had begun to slip by a part of her had noticed the amount of money slowly dwindling. But it was all right. It had to be. It just…

The only downside was that someone was watching her as she walked the streets. This unseen gaze melted against the exposed skin upon the nape of her neck, different than any gaze she had felt before. It did not want her, nor did it scorn her but it noticed her, as if curious, merely curious and anxious to watch. And the unseen presence continued watching her. For a few weeks she had thought it had gone, but then it had returned. Uneasy and unsettled, she had tried taking other roads but it never seemed to help. Her path always seemed to lead her to those waiting, watching eyes. Though it was not dangerous; somehow she knew it was not, it still scared her more than anything else.

One clear October morning, a thought had drifted into her head that perhaps the mysterious presence was gazing down from above. Nothing had met her eyes, but ever after she had been feebly searching the high windows. The presence seemed to have dimmed, as if afraid she would see it. And so the stalement continued.

>>>>

He continued to stare out his window even after she was long gone. There was no reason to…but it was not the streets far below that he saw. Her eyes…once a shade of almond brown had slowly died while he had been away, fading out to dried mud. There was an emptiness there, and he longed to seek her out, to take that gaze away and fill it with something brilliant, something growing, but each time he thought that something inside him seemed to hold him back. Like a whale ready to break beneath the waves, he was always waiting with held breath but the moment never came to drive under the sea.

Wait, it seemed to tell him. It is not time.

It seemed it was never the right time, but how much longer must he wait before he went to her side? He wished to be beside her always, and in some secret part of him that was perhaps deeper and wiser in the rhythms of the world than he could ever articulate, he felt that if he could be beside her, that lonely, lost, moonstruck girl, they could reach paradise.

But why did he need that? The world was not dying; yes, things were bad but they were far from over. There was still time. Time to continue waiting.

It is not time.

Without thinking, Brand nodded to the instincts inside his heart.

That girl was a part of him, and if the others could see him now they would laugh to see their serious, silent friend appearing to moon over some broken girl. But she was not broken to him; she was a flower waiting to bloom. And when she did he would be there with her. Until then, he could only watch her, never knowing, never understanding why he had such a need to be beside her. Deep inside him a voice whispered unheard by his conscious mind.

I've finally found you, my flower, but I cannot touch you. Paradise…is far away…from us.

>>>>

"fly me up to where you are

beyond the distant star

I wish upon tonight to see you smile

if only for awhile to know you're there

a breath away's not far

to where you are"