The new leaves danced, verdant and tender in the afternoon light, stirred by a gentle breeze. The winter had passed at last and with its disappearance, spring's green touch had started to affect the lands surrounding the little town of McNeil. The barren chill of winter had nearly been disastrous for the people of the region, but now the sun's warmth had begun to coax forth the first signs that life would indeed go on.
From out the open doorway of the sturdy tree house, in the midst of the Cedar Woods, a young boy stared with sanguine eyes at the blooming world. His pale young face was detached, somehow, from the scene that lay before him, from the green and sprouting tendrils in the branches and the bird calls that drifted lazily through the air. His eyes, a brooding and dusky red, seemed to pass over the emerald that blanketed the forest's floor, seemed to turn inward to thoughts that isolated him from the warm and pleasant joys of spring.
The boy continued to stare unseeing at the splendor before him, allowing his mind to trace the dark paths of his thoughts, following those paths to where they dared to take him, and finding, much to his displeasure, that they returned again and again to the place where they had caught for the past several days. They strayed, for all his wishes otherwise, to the images that haunted him nightly, and to the figure of the woman whom he'd come to dread.
They were strange dreams, the ones that he'd been having of late, dreams in which a strange, captivating woman told him things he didn't wish to hear and a strong, blue-haired youth slew him for beliefs he didn't wish to possess. These night visions made little sense, and were odd and disjointed, but left him breathless with some unnamed terror, wakened him in the early hours before dawn, covered with sweat and unable to sleep again. He despised them for that, for robbing him of his sleep and his peace of mind, and he despised the woman for telling him things that were better left unspoken. They made him ill at ease, these strange and frightening truths she whispered to his unconscious mind, and for that he feared her, and he hated her.
The silence of his reverie was broken by a tug on his shirt sleeve, though, and a childish, questioning voice. "Teepo?"
The boy named Teepo slowly turned crimson eyes to regard this person who had so stumbled into the path of his personal musings. He found himself staring down at a small child with wide eyes, an infectious smile, and erratic azure hair. "Teepo?" the boy asked again, punctuating his question with another pull on the sleeve. "D'you think Rei'll get back soon?"
The older boy sighed. "Maybe." He ran a hand through long and silken locks, turning his gaze again to the growing things just outside the doorway and effectively signaling that he was ready for the other boy to go. It didn't surprise him, however, when another persistent tug sought his attention.
"D'you think he'll have food?" The trusting blue eyes of the child found his, and a small smile touched Teepo's lips in spite of himself.
"Maybe, Ryu. Maybe." Resigning himself to the conversation, the older boy turned away from the doorway to look completely at the little blue-haired orphan before him.
"Apples?" The hope that gleamed in Ryu's eyes at a thing so very simple caused a chuckle to spill unbidden from Teepo's lips.
"What?" The child blinked his expressive blue eyes, honestly confused. "What?"
"Nothing..." Teepo amended, cautious of the other boy's overly sensitive feelings. "Maybe he will, is all."
Ryu fairly beamed at the prospect. His eyes, now warmer still with the expectation of the promised fruit, searched the face of his brother for the same guileless joy that he felt-- and was surprised to find none. "Teepo?"
"Hmm...?" The other boy was becoming distracted again, thoughts wandering gratefully from the subject of food, of which he'd had little in the past few days.
"Teepo..." Again came the insistent pulling on the arm of his shirt. "Aren't you hungry? Aren't you excited? We're gonna have apples!"
The older boy ran a hand distractedly through violet strands of hair. "I said we might have apples, I never said..."
Ryu beamed. "Oh, but we are! I know we are! It's spring now, and Rei said there'll be lots of stuff growing, and that all the animals'll come back, especially with the Nue gone."
Teepo sighed. "Maybe you're right." He tried to sound as though he meant it.
A small frown wiped the delight from the other boy's childish face. "Teepo? What's wrong?" The small brow was creased in concern now, and he regarded his brother with obvious worry.
"What's wrong...?" the violet-haired boy responded, echoing the question. He hesitated a moment, then replied to the trusting child. "Nothing, nothing really... I've just been... Well, I'm tired."
Unusually questioning, Ryu pressed, "Are you sure?" His wide eyes were uncertain, but willing to accept if only the answer was repeated.
Teepo smiled, a small gesture he hoped was reassuring. "Completely." He was pleased to see the worry on Ryu's young face replaced with the contented expression that had been there only moments before.
Sanguine eyes warmed slightly as the older boy regarded the child, and his smile broadened into something more genuine as the innocence in Ryu's wide, open eyes chased away the last of the dream images. "C'mon, Ryu..." he offered. "Let's go wait for Rei. I bet he's got those apples you wanted."
The little boy's grin lit up his face with a kind of inner light, and he hurriedly grabbed Teepo by the arm. "Okay! Let's go!"
The dusky-eyed boy chuckled again as Ryu led him through the doorway and to the green and living woods beyond, exuberant in the simple task of finding a suitable spot from which to greet their brother. As for Teepo, the dream-shadows had faded, taking with them images of the forbidding woman and the awful truths she carried. Truths which, soon enough, he would be forced to bear alone.