AHA! I'm back. For an explanation of my absence, see below. If you couldn't care less, skip to the next paragraph concerning this story. :P So. Recently, (and by that, I mean for a whole year) I have lost my spark for writing. First I lost my love of Warriors, the staple of my fanfictioning, and so had nothing to write about. I was still intrigued by writing about humans, though, so I devised a premise for a non-fanfiction story. I liked the idea, but then I got stuck. What would the plot be? I mulled over it…then mulled over it more…and more…and soon a year passed with practically no advances in plot. I didn't want to just start writing, though, for fear of ruining a good idea by not structuring it enough. So I didn't write at all. I really want to write again, though, so I came up with a premise for a fanfiction of my greatest love, Wolf's Rain. I have a basic idea for a plot, so don't worry that this will be a crazily unstructured thing, but this is a way for me to write something without worrying about destroying some awesome premise. (Not that this premise isn't awesome. :P ) So it seems that I am returning to the fanfiction world!
This story is set in the earth cycle following the one the anime focuses on. You'll notice that familiar old characters like Blue and Darcia will not be present here as they weren't reincarnated in the anime, and that the plot won't be like Wolf's Rain. For those of you that somehow missed the summary, this story follows Skyler, a wolf who doesn't have the ability to disguise herself to the humans by shifting into one, and the regular old pack as they search for the key to Paradise with nothing but the aid of a faint memory of Kiba's. Now, there will be a few discrepancies between this fanfiction and the anime. I am aware that, in the anime, the wolves don't literally shift to a new form, they just cast a spell over the humans to make them think that they look like humans. For this fanfiction to work, though, the wolves actually do shift. Alright…now you may read! Go!
The damn cold was getting to me. I shuddered freely, shaking out my coat for effect. Maybe I shouldn't call so much attention to myself, but who really peers out of the hazy warmth of a coffee shop to scan the sidewalk for wolves? Exactly. Point to myself.
I considered daring to press my nose up against the pane of glass to suck in some of the warmth that was coloring the window yellow. But that would get me caught immediately. And I doubted that I could escape from the grabby "paws" of the troops. Whose troops were they now, anyway? I couldn't bother to keep up with the changing politics of the time.
As it was, I settled for curling up beside the dingy brick foundation of the place, right beneath one window. The bricks weren't cold, but they weren't exactly warm, either. It was good enough. I could almost trick myself into thinking that I was inside and curled in a booth instead of on the concrete. I would have imagined that, actually, if I wasn't one to be bent on realism instead of that fabled imagination.
But I'm not a cynic through and through. Someone like that has no hope; no flame. I have plenty of that. Hope especially; I wish for things all the time. I'm quite selfish, really. I have a tendency to come at things with the, "why me? I didn't do anything to deserve this," perspective. It's quite endearing.
Damn, now I was shivering. And swearing more than usual. Not that I could speak that way to humans; I'm all wound up in my mind, nowhere else. There's no way for me to express myself, unless you count scratching at the door and whining. Or talking to another wolf, and I haven't seen another wolf in at least a year. This sort of confinement leads me to drabble frequently, as is obvious if you're following this freight train of thought.
If only I could slip inside and share the warmth with the humans. Maybe a back entrance? A hidden corner? But no, now I was becoming desperate. I crushed the thoughts fiercely, reflecting uncomfortably on all of the times that desperate, hopeful measures had lead to some tough situations. No, the only way I would get in was if I could do what the other wolves did and brandish humanity like my own private star. If I could shed my fur and step into skin I could do anything; but for now I was the last member of a dead breed. And I'm not just speaking of being a wolf. Plenty of wolves roam underneath these gray skies, but they're not like me.
I would snort if it wouldn't attract attention from passerby. "Not like me?" That was a pitiful line, yet another example of how my subconscious betrayed me regularly. You will not lapse into cries of angst, I commanded inwardly. I should be carrying my rank with pride: I was the last real wolf alive. "Real" was a loose term, sure; the wolves that could shed their fur were real enough. But none of them were as wolves had been in the beginning, without human forms to turn to for an easy way out. None of them were stuck forever in a body with paws. I had to carry the legacy of the wolves alone. And it's not an easy burden. Frankly, I'd like to be able to don skin and blend in without the fear of being gunned down. But no, it seems that fate likes the path less traveled for myself.
I scrambled to my paws as the door to the coffee shop slammed open, letting light pool briefly on the cracked concrete. It was a mistake, and I knew it as soon as my violent, sudden motion caused my paws to skid across a patch of especially slick ice and send me sprawling. As if the commotion from my spring wasn't enough, I was skidding across the humans' path. Their laughter halted abruptly as they took notice of my desperately moving form and I tried to bound away.
"It's a wolf!" One frail-looking woman shrieked, throwing her hands into the air as if I had a gun held up to her forehead. The man of the party of three jerked back in surprise, indecision clear on his features. He was obviously fearful of me, which made me want to smirk, but he knew that he had a responsibility to terminate the "filthy creature."
"Wolf!" He called supportively, obviously hoping that someone else would come to his rescue and be the man of the night. There was a commotion in the café, but no one came bursting through the door. He looked at me grimly and, swallowing, lunged at me.
My paws scrabbled for purchase as I fled, not looking back. I wasn't afraid of the unarmed man, but chances were that his buddies inside had already called for the troops. And I couldn't fight them off.
"Maybe it's a dog…?" I heard someone suggest uncertainly as I disappeared into the street. Traffic was sluggish at this late hour, as if no one wanted to be caught out in the slush and ice when it was this dark. Luckily, I wasn't driving, so I could dash through the domed city without fear of a collision.
Streetlights painted the puddles a dingy, faint yellow. The color disappeared as it splashed up my forelegs, but I couldn't help but think that the littered water that was drenching me made the darkened, abandoned roads look eerily lit. Even without the moon, with the help of the reflective pools of water the dirty bulbs that flanked the streets did a good job of keeping my path bright.
Not bright enough to warn me of the knife spiraling towards my spine, though. It caught me behind my shoulders with the kind of aim that would have killed me if the arm throwing the weapon hadn't been so weak. I snarled, sounding as feral as the beast that humans thought I was. Not even my determination could keep me standing, though; I crashed to the asphalt, shoulder-first. Pain exploded in my back and shoulder, making my head spin. My thoughts were incoherent for a moment, as panicked as I was. No one was out here! How the hell was this happening? I couldn't even shift my body to see my assailant.
Someone laughed, and I hear two very human palms slap together. Either someone had clapped once, or two people were involved here and they were high-fiving. But the laugh wasn't what I would expect: instead of being cruel and sadistic, it was reedy and gleeful.
"What if we just killed someone's pet?" Sounded a very dubious voice.
"Shut up, Alina," a rougher, male voice snarled back. No matter the anger in his voice, though, I could still tell that it was a kid, as was the "Alina" person.
"Yeah, Alina," said another kid, though he sounded considerably gentler and reassuring. For some reason I thought of an older brother. "We just killed a wolf! Imagine the fame, the fortune!" He sounded excited. "Maybe this is the last one left – it's possible, since no one's seen one in forever. If it is, then we'll go down in history!"
"Just grab it so we can wheel it home." I heard the squeak of old wheels, as if the disgusted speaker was pulling some kind of wagon.
That was when, if I had the ability to adopt a human form, I would stand and say something witty, or just something powerful like, "I'm not dead." But I couldn't do that, so I writhed violently instead. The motion achieved my goal, and the dagger dislodged itself and clattered to the ground.
"I-it just moved!" Someone shrieked, and I assumed that it was Alina. Yeah, I thought wryly, living things do that.
I suppressed a painful whine and staggered upwards. Blood was making my fur sticky, but as I shrugged my shoulders I found that the wound wasn't too deep. Not enough to stop me. I lunged at them desperately, nearly tripping over my own paws. Run! I'm scaring you off! I'm not sentimental, but I didn't want to kill children. Well, maybe I wouldn't mind ripping the throat out of the snarling boy. But that was beside the point.
It occurred to me that it was pitiful to be struck down by a group of three children and then try to scare them off instead of avenging myself with teeth. But at that moment I wasn't as concerned with pride as getting away and licking my wounds, so to speak. Possibly literally.
"Someone stick it again!" The snarling boy roared. Great, they had more weapons? "Rory! Get it!"
The night cast shadows over the childrens' expressions, but with my eyes I could still make them out clearly. Rory must be the medium sized one with fair, curly hair, and "Snarling Boy" must be the string-bean looking kid with lank, dark hair. Rory gripped a knife in his right hand, and he was biting his lip as he approached.
He was getting too close. I snarled and launched myself at him in an explosion of mottled gray fur, jaws snapping. His hand was easy prey for my furious attack, and with almost no mercy I snapped most of the bones in it and split the flesh as if it were ripe fruit. His scream made Alina dash away, yelping. Snarling Boy drew back, cursing. "Rory, get your fricking hand out of its mouth!" His yell was more of a scream, wavering and high pitched.
I felt a sudden deadweight and Rory's hand was yanked from my mouth as the boy fainted on the spot. I backed away from him, resisting the urge to spit his blood out of my mouth. But that would be un-wolf-like. I let another snarl rip from deep within my chest as I stared Snarling Boy down.
"I'll kill you," he said, but his voice wasn't confident at all and there was no avenging note in it. It seemed that he wasn't interested in defending Rory or even stopping to see if he was ok. After a final, nervous glance, he disappeared into the night after Alina. Maybe he wasn't so bent on killing me, after all.
"Really? You could have killed anything for me, but you got that? That's completely inedible," a male voice groaned from somewhere behind me.
I whirled and spoke the first thing that came to mind. "He's not dead." What a pointless statement. For all I knew, it could have been a human talking to someone near me and not addressing me. But no one else was around, and who else would talk to me but a wolf? If it was a human, then they would just hear growls and barks. Other wolves could talk to humans even when they were in their own fur, but that was a result of their ability to change shape.
"Oh? It doesn't matter, I guess, since it's a human. I wouldn't eat it even if it were dead."
He definitely wasn't a human if he was talking like that. No human would sound that cocky and amused when faced with the mangled hand of an unconscious boy. Or threaten to eat the boy in question.
I watched as the speaker waltzed from the shadows, one corner of his lips upturned in a relaxed grin. He was a wolf, as I had determined, and pudgy one at that. The thought amused me briefly as I looked at him with my head cocked to one side.
"Any reason your head's turned like that?" The other wolf said, his grin broadening. He had the sort of eyes that looked like they were always charged with laughter, I noticed.
"Just curiosity," I responded. "You're pretty strange."
"And you can tell that from a few sentences?"
"I'm pretty intuitive." It felt strange to be holding a conversation with someone after so long. I was in a rush to get all of the words out; I just wanted to talk until I had exhausted myself. I'm not normally talkative, but all of those stale thoughts caged up in my head had found a key in the newcomer.
"I'm Hige," he said without preamble. I got the feeling that he had decided I was amusing enough to know his name.
"Skyler," I said, wondering why we were exchanging names this quickly. Normally, as far as encounters with other wolves went, it was a quick, polite nod and then the two wolves moved on. Wolves weren't sociable creatures outside of their own packs.
"Sky, then," Hige said, shortening my name with a grin that, if it got any wider, would split his face. I accepted his jab with a roll of my eyes – not that it's easy to replicate such a human tendency with these wolf eyes. I have a tendency to copy human mannerisms; I suppose that results from my desire to be able to do what the other wolves can. I don't want to be a human, but it would sure simplify things. I don't think I'm necessarily jealous, but I do envy what the humans can do. And I'm not fiercely prideful about my origins as some others are.
Hige straightened and slipped into a human form that closely resembled his "true form" – same color of wild hair, laughing eyes, and a thick build to match. The heavy hoodie wasn't helping any slimming efforts he might have been undertaking. He strode over to the limp body of the child and poked it once before calling out, "Yup, guys, this is definitely not a food source."
"I could have told you that, Porky," a thoroughly disgusted voice answered. I imagined a shake of the head to go along with the words before I realized that this meant that there was someone else I couldn't see hiding around here.
My fur bristled and I swung my head around in an attempt to locate the newest intruder. I scented deeply, but all the smell in this place was overcome by the earthy, powerful scent of Hige.
Hige turned. "He's actually over there," he said with a smirk and raised a finger in the opposite direction of where I was staring. I supposed that he was making fun of my possible overreaction, but I didn't have time to berate him about it with a new wolf joining in the fun. I could clearly see a flash in the darkness as the whites of the wolf's eyes were exposed when he rolled his eyes.
"Thanks for the introduction," he said acidly, walking over to Hige and ignoring me. He was already in his human form, all leather and gray.
"Right," Hige said amiably. "Are Kiba and Toboe coming?"
"I don't see why. You found us nothing but a mangled human boy. Nothing they can eat."
"And her," Hige suggested, swiveling his outstretched finger so that it pointed at me. The leathery wolf didn't seem surprised to see me, though judging by how he had ignored me earlier it seemed like the first time he had noticed me.
"Are you suggesting that I am edible?" I asked, frowning. I had been too confused by the names to properly follow the conversation, but I heard Hige's line clearly.
"You never know until you try it," Hige said with a mischievous lilt to his voice.
"Stop screwing around," The newer wolf said sharply, but Hige didn't drop his happy-go-lucky ways. "We'll never find anything if you keep getting distracted."
His careless write off of me reminded me quickly of how not-involved I was in this. I had been getting comfortable, throwing out banter and observing. But now it seemed like they would be on the move again and I would trot back to my domed domain and tend to my wounds. Alone again. Not to sound desperately lonely, of course.
Hige groaned theatrically, as if dramatically hindered by this course of events. "I don't even get to see what she looks like? It's not often that we get babes around here."
Ah. Way to make me feel incompetent. I looked like this and only this. If he was interested in human-ish girls, then he would have to move on.
Leather wolf was in the process of making a tsking noise and looking disdainfully at Hige when a new voice burst onto the scene, as high and kiddish as the ones from my earlier assailants.
"A new wolf! Wow! She's just like us!" I could practically hear the exclamation marks bouncing from the scrawny wolf that leapt into the scene from behind Hige and his friend. I almost wanted to correct him: not exactly like them.
"You've been quiet," Hige noted, elbowing the kid to shut him up. The kid gave him a reproachful look as he did so. "Got nothing to say, Sky?"
"Her name is Sky?" The little wolf interjected eagerly.
"Skyler," I corrected hurriedly. Not that it mattered – these wolves would never see me again – but if they were going to talk to me, they could at least get my name right. I could only describe the look the runt gave me as adoration, but I got the feeling that he looked at everyone like that.
Hige looked amused. "It's Sky," he reassured him. The kid looked confused.
"Are we done here?" Leather Wolf cut in. "We have to get a move on, and this wolf isn't helping us any." He gave me a look of unbridled contempt, which made me feel indignant. "And where is Kiba?"
"Here," a serious voice said in response to his question, and a dark headed wolf stepped behind the group. "I was just waiting for you to finish your talk."
I was going to tug my fur out if one more wolf stepped into the picture. I wasn't equipped to deal with this overload of company. Hige I could deal with, but not all of his pack.
"We're done," Leather Wolf said scornfully and turned his back on the crew.
Kiba raised one eyebrow. "Alright." He turned after Leather Wolf and walked past him, striding purposefully forward. Leather Wolf reluctantly trailed after him, and the kid wolf waved once, shyly, before springing after the two. I watched curiously as they melted down to four paws and broke into a run.
Hige turned back to me. "Wanna come?"
I shook my head at the ridiculous request. He walked over to me, though, and held out a hand. He was obviously intrigued by the idea of anything female trailing after him. Of course, I couldn't just jump up with human feet and take his with a human hand even if I wanted to.
Hige looked mildly disappointed when I didn't accept. "Well, at least show me your face as a parting gift?" He turned up the charm, flashing a mouthful of white at me.
"I can't," I said flatly.
His eyebrows shot up. "Why not?"
"Don't ask me." I shrugged my wolf shoulders, which sent a jolt of pain down my spine. I had almost forgotten about that. Suddenly weary, I asked, "Don't you have a pack to catch up to?"
He looked at me as if he was considering something. "Hey guys, wait," he called. "This one's different."
There you have it. A bit of a filler – typical "first meeting chapter" between an OC and the pack. Expect more soon. But I must warn you – they won't all be this long. :P Thanks for reading!
