"Tsume!" Toboe whined, dancing in place and panting softly. "Tsume Tsume Tsuuume!"
"You," Tsume said slowly, "are pathetic." He gently waved the stick clasped in his jaws back and forth; Toboe followed his every move with complete fascination.
"Yes, yes, I'm pathetic. Come on, throw the stick!" Toboe bounced in place and spun around in a quick circle. "Throw it throw it throw it!"
Tsume sighed and hurled the stick. Toboe shot off like a rocket after it; he outran it and caught it in his jaws before it hit the ground. He worried it enthusiastically and then proudly carried it back to Tsume with his tail held high.
"I will never understand this 'fetch' game," Tsume growled, beginning to smirk. Toboe just had time to cock his head in puzzlement before Tsume fastened his teeth into one end of the stick and yanked on it.
Toboe yelped and instantly let go of the stick; Tsume nearly tumbled over backwards. "No, kid, you hold onto it too!" he snapped, quickly recovering his balance. "Here." He picked the poor, abused stick up and offered one end to Toboe, who tentatively bit onto it, though he shyly kept his eyes averted and crouched a little.
"And now we play," Tsume instructed, lightly jerking the stick. Toboe kept hold of it, but didn't attempt to pull back. "You pull too," Tsume ordered with a sigh. "It's no fun if I'm the only one playing."
Toboe let go of the stick and sat back, looking thoroughly confused. "I don't understand!" he protested. "If you want the stick, you can have it."
Tsume blinked and then stared at Toboe in bewilderment. "Have you never played tug-o-war, kid? The point is that we fight over the stick."
"I don't want the stick that much!" Toboe protested, backing away. "See, you can have it, I'm going away…" he took a few steps with his head hanging.
"I don't- didn't mean… Hey, come back here!" Tsume chased after Toboe, who had taken off towards the distant figures of Kiba and Hige. He didn't even notice that he still had the stick clamped ridiculously in his jaws.
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"Oi, Hige!" Tsume called grimly as he caught up to the others. Toboe cowered slightly at his harsh tone and even Kiba looked faintly startled.
"Yes?" Hige asked warily, forgoing the joke he had planned about how Tsume looked like a playful dog.
"Come play tug-o-war with me," Tsume ordered imperiously.
"Ah… you're joking, right?" Hige laughed uncertainly, looking back and forth between Tsume, who appeared extremely intimidating even with a large stick in his mouth, and Kiba, who would presumably protect him from the gray wolf's madness.
"Do I look," Tsume growled, "like I'm joking?" He offered one end of the stick to Hige, who backed away, waving his tail and grinning in terror.
"Oh, no thank you, I'm not in the mood for playing right now, and may I say what large and ferocious teeth you have about three inches away from my neck!" Hige babbled as Tsume growled and swung around to face the last person he wanted to ask to play. This would be… humiliating.
"Kiba?" he nearly choked, and couldn't make himself go on. Kiba's eyes flicked to the obviously hopeful Toboe and back to Tsume with a question. Tsume stared steadily back until Kiba smiled a happy, genuine smile and pounced on the free end of the stick.
The two wolves wrestled over the stick, growling and jerking each other back and forth. Toboe watched in delighted incomprehension and Hige looked on with a vaguely demented grin. Tsume, who couldn't quite turn off his competiveness even in a tug-o-war contest with Kiba, had to make himself stop before he went over the fine line between game and fight to the death.
"See, kid?" he asked, relinquishing the stick temporarily to Kiba as he addressed Toboe. "That's how tug-o-war is played. Want a turn?"
"Yes!" Toboe looked as happy about a prospective game of tug-o-war as he had only ever looked about fetching.
Tsume took the stick from Kiba (who gave it up without a fight) and bellowed "Too bad you have to catch me first!" as he sprinted away. Toboe hurtled after him with a wide grin and sparkling eyes, yelling something about divine retribution.
"…Was it just me," Hige asked slowly, "or did Tsume really play tug-o-war with you?"
Kiba smiled again and took off in Toboe's wake. "Toboe's gonna have to fight me for that stick!" he called over his shoulder to Hige.
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"Okay, kid, so you've mastered the fine art of tug-o-war," Tsume congratulated Toboe, releasing the stick they had been playing with so suddenly that Toboe fell over backwards with a yelp. "It's time to move onto bigger and better things."
"Bigger and better things?" Toboe asked with a happy grin, rolling over to lounge on his side. "What sort of things?"
"Things like… tag!" Tsume yelled, poking Toboe with his nose and galloping away. Toboe climbed to his feet and stared after Tsume blankly.
After a short while, Tsume trotted into view over the crest of a nearby hill, looking exceptionally put-upon. Toboe lowered his head and flattened his ears back, aware that he'd messed up again but not quite sure how. "Another game I don't know," he commented sadly when Tsume was in easy hearing range.
"Yes, well, at least this time you know it's a game. That's progress, I suppose," Tsume grumbled, disgruntled. "It works like this: I start off as It. Then I tag you, and you're It. Then I run away and you try to tag me so you're not It anymore. Are you following?"
"No, I don't get it," Toboe muttered. He began pacing back and forth, ever closer to Tsume. The game sounded easy enough, and if only the other didn't notice him getting closer…
"By the bloody moon, kid, every pup knows this game!" Tsume said in frustration. "It's not complicated. I run, you chase me, and then you-"
"Tag! You're it!" Toboe howled with laughter as he stuck his nose into Tsume's ear. While the other wolf was paralyzed by a combination of surprise, disgust, and reluctant admiration, he scuttled away at top speed, cackling like a crazy hyena.
Tsume narrowed his eyes at the almost puppy vanishing over the crest of a nearby hill. "It's on now," he happily snarled his own special brand of a declaration of war, and loped after Toboe.
"Hige! Hide me!" Toboe begged as he scanned in every direction as carefully as he could. "I don't wanna be It!" For lack of a better hiding place, he burrowed under Hige, though the random giggles and protruding tail gave him away at once.
Hige half-opened one eye and groaned with deep feeling. "Toboe?" he asked ponderously. "Why are you trying to hide under me?"
"Tsume is chasing me! We're playing tag!" Toboe was so excited that he could hardly breathe because he was panting so hard, though Hige's bulk on top of him probably didn't help any. His tail wagged wildly, sweeping a small fan shape into the sand of the desert.
"Oh. Tag with Tsume," Hige repeated vaguely, and shut his eye again. "I always have the weirdest dreams after I eat whatever that lizard thing with the horns was."
Kiba nonchalantly lay down against Hige's back, hiding Toboe's tail.
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"Okay, kid, that's enough," Tsume gasped after Toboe nearly knocked him over with an enthusiastic tag. He sat and watched the nearly-puppy celebrate his victory, bouncing as though he was trying to walk through a nest of fire-ants (the mutant sort that really did breathe fire) and then spinning in circles as if he was trying to chase his own tail.
"Are you tired, Tsume?" Toboe asked, for once standing in once place, even if he did shift his weight rapidly back and forth with his paws dancing. "I think the world must be coming to an end!" He feinted playfully at Tsume, "bowing" with his hindquarters up in the air, all lashing tail and lolling tongue.
Tsume nodded slowly, suddenly realizing the deep and fundamental truth of the statement. "Yes, I remember now. 'Things fall apart; the center cannot hold'."
"Tsume?" Toboe asked, as the grizzled gray wolf lowered himself to the ground. "I don't understand, Tsume. What's going on?"
"Don't wory, kid. Toboe," Tsume smiled sleepily as he corrected himself. He could feel the blood seeping warmly though his fur again, the searing cold of the wind, saw the unearthly lights in the sky. The world's end had a stark beauty all its own, tempered by the tenderness of his hallucinations. "I'll find you later. And we'll play then."
"Okay!" Toboe said happily. He yawned and flopped over against Tsume's side, not existing on the same plane as the bitter cold, scarlet blood, and pain of violent death. "I'll wait here."
"'This is the way the world ends," Tsume thought, and howled a fond goodbye and good luck to Kiba. Then he rested his muzzle across the back of Toboe's neck and waited impatiently. "Not with a bang nor a whimper."