Hi! Um, so this is my first Mentalist story and it's not even canon, it's totally AU...

I'd say that I regret it, but I really, really don't XD.

Anyway, this is an Alternate Universe based on the anime Wolf's Rain. If you haven't seen it, I can't recommend it strongly enough- the entire series (and it's short!) is gorgeous, haunting, and ends like a punch to the gut.

For those of you who don't know anything about it: Wolf's Rain is the story of four wolves who are travelling through a dying world to find Paradise. The humans think wolves are extinct, so the wolves disguise themselves as humans through the use of spells. They're looking for the Flower Maiden, a being created by alchemy from Lunar Flowers. On the way they're stalked by a vicious Noble determined to open Paradise for himself and a world that is swiftly dying.

This AU is based on that, with the Mentalist cast as wolves, crazy Nobles, living flowers, and alcoholic old men. Er, enjoy?

And since it is an anime, silly things like conventional physics don't apply at all. If you have any more questions, just ask me via review or PM!

Many thanks to Cassie, who, as always, is ridiculously knowledgable and supportive! Love you, dear!

Disclaimer: I own neither Mentalist nor Wolf's Rain.

thistle & weeds

rain down, rain down on me…

0. the love song of a dying wolf

Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized on a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells;
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question…
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

There's no such place as Paradise. It doesn't exist. Whatever you've heard, whatever you believe, whatever you think you've seen, you're wrong.

There is no Paradise.

There's nothing at all.

You're wrong, you tell me, you're crazy. You haven't looked hard enough.

You're too weak to reach Paradise.

I was there. I went to the end of the world, to the First Tree and the mountains and the Lake of Souls. I was there, and Paradise wasn't.

Paradise doesn't exist. Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.

Patrick Jane was more dog than wolf. I knew this from the start.

He was too different to be all wolf. His fur curled at the ends and his paws were too wide. His shoulders were too narrow and his ears too round. He had blue eyes and ours were gold.

He was not a wolf.

But we followed him anyway.

Lisbon was the pack alpha, of course. We all saw it in her sharp, sharp teeth and the curl of her tail, the way she held herself. She was small and light, built more for speed, but she was a wolf through and through.

It was in her eyes and her howl.

Jane never howled.

But she trusted Jane and so we followed him.

We were wolves then, don't get me wrong. We may have followed a dog but it was Lisbon who gave the orders, and if she'd told us to stop, to turn around, we would have.

Maybe.

See, Jane was special. He wasn't a wolf. He didn't like to fight and he'd rather steal from humans than hunt, and he stared at water and mist like he could see things we couldn't.

He was mostly insane, utterly devoted to one thing, and he wanted to kill a Noble.

So why did we follow him, all the way to the end of the world?

Easy.

We followed him because he smelled like Lunar Flowers.

In the mountains where I was born, Lunar Flowers bloomed everywhere. They were white and beautiful, and our territory was the envy of all the other packs.

We were proud of our territory, and ourselves. My pack was strong and we were never hungry. The land loved us and we loved our land.

But maybe we were too proud.

Our home burned to the ground, a hundred thousand flowers gone in an instant.

I survived. My pack did not.

After that, I didn't see a Lunar Flower for a long, long time.

We were going to Paradise.

It was Jane's idea.

He had a lot of those. Crazy ideas that no wolf ever thought, dreams that only men dreamed, that only humans chased to the ends of the earth. Fantasies, almost, things that we couldn't see or hear but he could.

Paradise was one of those things.

Maybe we all believed it. All wolves look for it, that's the law of our kind. We all feel it calling to us, just out of reach, and we run to it. But before Jane, none of us ever thought we'd go there. We thought someone else would open it. Someone else would sacrifice everything. Someone else would take that long, impossible journey.

Jane changed all that.

Come with me, he said, and we'll find the Flower Maiden. We'll go to Paradise.

And maybe we saw it too, for a little while, because we all went along. We left our lives and took that journey. We followed him to the ends of the earth, through stinking cities and Noble's keeps and deserts.

We followed him to the place where the moon touched the earth and flowers fell from the sky like raindrops.

We followed him until our legs gave out and bodies failed and our souls cried out for Paradise.

We followed him until we fell asleep, and we dreamed a beautiful dream. There were flowers everywhere, enough food to last lifetimes, wolves as far as the eye could see. We didn't have to hide anymore, didn't have to worry about humans or soldiers or sudden, flashing death.

She was there—Moon, she was there—and she laughed and stroked our faces.

"It's a good place to be with friends," she told us. "This one is very happy to be with friends."

And we ran and ran until the sky turned to ashes and I fell then, into the dust, so hard I felt my bones snap.

I watched them run into the bloody sun, one by one, until there was no one left but Jane and I, and he turned to me and smiled as his fur caught fire.

"I can see it," he said. "I see Paradise." And then he, ran into the sun and I was left alone in that beautiful, terrible dream as the world exploded, swallowing them all in a single, brilliant heartbeat.

I opened my eyes and the world was cold.

(I grow old… I grow old…)

There's no such place as Paradise. Maybe there was, once, but it doesn't exist now. It can't. It's not possible.

I can feel the ice—or water, now, so cold, so cold—creeping, pooling around my feet, my nose.

There's no such place as Paradise. I don't believe in it. I can't. Paradise is not real.

And yet…

There's a voice inside me. It's smaller now, drowning inside, but it's there, and I can hear it.

Go, it says. Search for Paradise.

I close my eyes. Paradise isn't real. It can't be. I won't believe in it.

The wind howls. The earth shakes. The ice splits and cracks and the moon glows red. The water rises. Light is fading.

It's strange. The world is dark, dead, and cold. There's nothing alive here, not anymore.

There is no Paradise.

But… I smell…

Flowers.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
'Til human voices wake us, and we drown.

The poem verses are from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot. Each chapter will have either song or poem verses from the name of the chapter title.