Chapter 2
~ Fleeting Wolf ~
Sora gathered her wits back and snapped her fingers. Startled by the sound, her attacker stiffened and saw the flapping shadow casted on the ground. She saw the long, black hair of the girl as she plucked her bowstring.
The tiny wyvern she had created burst back into shapeless air after a few more seconds of silence. Flickering her aqua eyes around, she lowered her bow and assumed a more defensive stance, with her hands in front of her and her feet apart. Spotting the knife imbedded in the tree she had been standing in front of, she silently thanked whatever gods or goddesses that were out there for letting it miss her. Just as she turned around to walk back where she had come from, the same eyes, purple and piercing, met hers from the shadows.
"Oh!" The girl leaned back. "I thought you were a werecat!"
"What?" She fingered the two points jutting out of the sides of her hair. "This makes me look like a cat?"
The girl nodded slowly as she walked past her to retrieve the knife. "I'm not particularily fond of felines." She tucked the knife back into her sleeve. Sora saw the ebony ears set upon her hair and the dark lupine tail that gently flicked back and forth.
"So that's why you...attacked me?"
"Haha..." She rubbed the back of her head. "Yeah, I apologize for that." As the clouds shifted to let a shaft of moonlight in, she saw that the girl was wearing a white satin dress with sleeves that were detached from it. A couple of charm bracelets hung from her left hand's wrist, while a red ribbon was tied to her right hand's wrist. Another two ribbons were tied within her hair. First glance at this girl might have told Sora that she wasn't lethal. But she had already proven that wrong.
"Pardon me for landing on you. It was an accident, one that I didn't wish for." Her voice was strangely flat; what had happened to it? Surely she didn't sound like that before; she frowned as she tried to summon the memories into her mind. Only blurry images and fading sounds came up.
"It's okay, er, kind of. Well, I gotta get going now." Sora saw her purple eyes flash up at the moon. "I'll be taking my leave now!"
"It was-ah! Wait!" She dashed after her, her brown shoes hitting the damp earth. "I haven't asked you your name yet!"
Her black ears twitched as she heard her voice. "It's Mayumi."
She managed to steady her breathing from her short burst. "Mine is Sora no Yuki. It's been nice meeting you. Hope I wasn't too heavy." She grinned at Mayumi and turned around to leave when she heard a gasp from behind her. "What-"
Mayumi was crouched down on the forest floor, clutching her head. Her ears were pressed flat against her hair, showing distress. Then her entire body relaxed as she fell against the tree, unconscious.
"Mayumi, wake up! Are you alright?" Sora got no response and could only think of one solution during the situation-to drag the girl to somewhere safe.
She blinked once, then twice. All around her, she saw smoke rising into the air. Fire raced down the houses and slowly incinerated all that it touched. The flames licked at the sky, as if wanting to swallow it up as well. She couldn't see through the thick haze, couldn't see if anyone was trapped in there as well. Where was her family? Her friends?
Mayumi looked behind her. The emerald hills were rolling out beneath her. In the distance, a lake rippled in placid silence, reflecting the white moon that hung in the sky.
She went up the nearest tree and stared at the sight of her village burning. This couldn't be real, could it? The stormy sky rumbled. Something in the air snapped. All of a sudden, rain poured down in an unrelentless patter. The droplets slid off of her tree's leaves as she gazed up at the moon. It seemed so cold, heartless, distant. Inside her heart, before she could even feel pain, she felt loneliness.
"Why?" That one word she whispered was directed at the lunar disk in the sky. To her, it seemed like a powerful word. The light continued bathing her with no reply. She hadn't expected it to.
A wave of anger surged up to drown out the loneliness and the words that were being said in her mind. Without heeding the words, without knowing that her eyes had turned crimson, she went back through the rain, alone.
Mayumi sat up abruptly. Her usually-glossy hair was in a tangly mess, with leaves still clinging in the strands. She pulled them out before looking around her.
She was in a pale orange room that was small and could probably only let one person live in there. A slide-open window was on the wall next to her; beside the bed was a nightstand with a buttercup yellow lamp on it. The white mattress creaked beneath her weight as she shifted.
The door swung open and her sharp ears heard hesitant footsteps come in. "Are you awake?" Sora's quiet voice sounded outside.
"Hm? Yeah. What happened?"
Her light blue top and sapphire skirt crinkled as she pushed a chair over and sat in it. For the first time, Mayumi saw her wings in perfect detail. They were feathered, just like any bird, and were silver. It looked nothing like those wings in books, that seemed like clouds attached onto the shoulders of the angels. "You just collapsed," she said, searching her with sky blue eyes.
"Why don't I remember anything about that?" As she spoke the word "why," the dream came rushing back at her. Even through all her mixed questions, only one managed to surface into her thoughts.
Who was talking in my mind?
AND...the OCs have been chosen! :D A lot of people PMed me theirs, gomenen for those reviewers! I'm sorry for those who couldn't make it (and even those who didn't want to participate anyway) so those that didn't get to be a main character get to have an appearance in WoS! ^^ The main characters will be revealed in future chapters; so far, we have Sora no Yuki, the angel, and Mayumi, the wolf...er...lady? Girl? Wolf human. Wolf hybrid. Wolf/human, that should be enough .-. Which is why she has ears and a tail! Sora has cat ear hair :3 And her eyes look feline. So Mayumi, in the darkness, thought she was a werecat XD Things will (hopefully) start making sense soon. Thanks for all those who're reading this right now! :)
