******** (POV Change)
Nezumi
"I am not eating this garbage Shion! Where's the seasoning!?"
"What seasoning are you referring to Nezumi, we only have salt." Shion grumbled irritably stirring the soup faster and harder than needed.
"Well, where's the salt!" Nezumi snapped back, tired and hungry.
"I added salt!"
"Yeah, like two pinches!"
"That's all we need!"
"I am not eating potatoes and water Shion!" Nezumi yelled grabbing the salt.
Shan dropped the ladle and spun around angrily facing him, "That's what soup is!"
"Well, I'm not eating it!"
"Why are we even arguing about this Nezumi! This has ridiculous given it back!" Shion cried, reaching for the salt.
"I'm simply teaching you how to cook! Watch and learn Prince," Nezumi half smirked, half scowled as he held the salt out of reach and took and handful.
"Don't you dare put that in my pot Nezumi!"
"Whoops, my hand slipped!"
"AGGGGGGHHH! You have some sort of deficiency!"
Nezumi awoke with a start.
It had been two years since he had left behind No 6 and Shion. He had finished what he set out to do. He had a duty to the people of the trees, to his ancestors, to the people he had hardly a recollection of.
He knew that it was reasonable to think it was just him and the old bat to have survived the first manhunt of No 6. A weak clueless child and a broken old woman. The last known survivors of the Tree people? No. He had come back to his past broken home many times. Has seen evidence of death and of life, and had learned long ago not to cringe at the sight of ruined lives and memories.
If that old woman taught him anything, it is that all you have in life is honor. There is no honor in weakness, he showed his honor to his clan by destroying the government of No 6, and now he continues to honor them by seeking out the survivors.
So he left, he entered deeper into the woods with nothing but a pack on his shoulders and his rats to guide him. And if he's searching has taught him anything, it is that where there are humans there is always destruction.
He has fulfilled what he set out to do. Had spent the remainder of his youth searching out a person just as wicked and deceitful as the ones he left behind.
He was ready to go home.
Shion
Shan laid on the grass, lost in thoughts of the past. The stars twinkled beautifully above him, a sight rare to see in the pollution of such a heavily populated and used area, but he did not see them. No matter how hard he tried to resist, his mind always drifted back to the same subject time and time again.
Nezumi.
How is he? Is he safe? Did he find somewhere to sleep tonight? Somewhere warm? What has he eaten? Has he found love? Enemies?
Shan laughed. Of course he found enemies. Sharp tongued Nezumi is bound to find enemies anywhere he goes. The real question was: are they strong? Stronger than him?
He sighed, laying his arm over his eyes. He didn't want to think about this anymore. This constant being, always ruling his mind, always dancing around his memories. He wanted to claw them out, he wanted to forget. What was it that he was missing, what couldn't he have given him?
...
He travelled back down the hill to his new home. The city is different now. There is still crime and kicked under the rug secrets, but where there are humans, there will always be in perfection. But the walls of No 6 have been removed, and people are free to walk to and say whatever they choose, and that's what's important. The air no longer stinks of buried rotting flesh. The dark secrets of the past have been brought to life, and the people left to rot in the dark, cold holes beneath the correctional facility have been given a proper burial.
It was as he had feared. There were signs of life among the pile of bodies. Up to three weeks of crawling and starving in that-he didn't want to think about it anymore.
His home was within his sight. It was small and broken down. But he loved it, it was convenient, right across from my mothers bakery so he can visit her whenever he chose, and... it reminded him of Nezumis home. He longed to return there every day. To be among hundreds of books with unlimited knowledge, to be in a place so wild, so alive with animals and friends and while it may have been cold physically, he always felt warm. But most of all he missed Nezumi. His unnaturally cold feet and addiction to salt, his gray eyes and-wait-
Who is that?
Outside my mothers bakery stood a man or woman. How odd this late at night. Another suitor perhaps? He wished they would leave her alone. She's constantly expressed her desire to continue her life the way it has always been.
He bounced around the idea in his head of shooing them away, but decided against it. They looked harmless enough, hardly taller or wider than himself.
It was dark, and he was tired and cold and missing someone. He was in no mood to talk to another one of his mother's suitors, she didn't like it when he got himself involved anyways.
He ignored them, shut the door, turned out the light, and cracked open the window to his window...just in case.
