AUTHOR'S NOTE:

And so, I leave you here. If you're reading this, thanks again for disappearing into this world with me and giving this fic a chance. I'm taking a break to work on other projects before hammering away at the sequel, Book of the Harvest. Love until then.

The Reset

The Countess D

Kiba was floating. He opened his eyes, hoping to see the sky bright above him, but there was nothing. The world had gone dark, silent, little more than a nest of blank space.

Cheza's voice split the emptiness, cutting through to his bones. Kiba.

He sat with a start, glancing down to see the shadows trickling down his arms like water. Rather than Cheza greeting him, there was a girl standing in the dark. Pale skin, purple eyes, short hair colored toffee brown.

"Who are you?" He asked.

The pained smile she gave him was so familiar it made his teeth ache.

Kiba reached out as she turned and ran. "Wait!"

He stood and chased after her, her silhouette morphing between blinks. An animal, like him and not. A wildcat with ears topped with long tufts fur, like sprigs.

As he followed her through the shadows, he realized he wasn't in pain here. His wounds had disappeared. But even then he was moving so slowly, as if pushing against a current determined to push he and the strange girl further and further away.

When she disappeared into the shadows, Kiba slowed to a stop, his panting the only sound in this godforsaken place. His head hung heavy as he tried to catch his breath. Almost a whimper, he tried again. "Wait."

"But I'm right here."

With a jolt, he looked up.

The world was alight again, a bounty of blues and greens. Sky, water, trees, and grass, sprawled as far as the eye could see. In the center of it all, a far distant pool reflected the sky above, as perfectly round as the moon. And before all that, just a few feet ahead, was the most beautiful woman Kiba had ever seen.

She smiled at him, amethyst eyes crinkling at the corners. Behind her, a wild mane of hair tumbled to the grass, the color of the first sprout that breaks the winter snow.

There was a tickle at the back of Kiba's mind. He knew he should have recognized the shade.

"You've come a long way," she said, her voice a wisp, musical and ringing. Kiba struggled to fit it around the right words. "You do know, don't you? You've been here before."

And like that, he understood. The voice. The echoes. The sensation of someone watching, hovering just above. "This is a dream?"

"Of a kind." She looked past Kiba to the meadows behind him, to the animals calmly grazing. "A dream, and a goodbye."

"A goodbye?" Kiba's eyes swept over her, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. Then, with a shake of the head: "I'm sorry. I don't remember you."

"We've never really met." An elegant hand drifted upward, her fingertips resting at the base of her throat. "Hamona. My name is Hamona."

"Then why…" Kiba began, brow creasing as he tried to make sense of it all, "If we haven't met before, why did you call to me?"

"There was little else that I could do." Steady as it was, Hamona's smile turned bitter before Kiba's eyes. "Would you hold it against me, little wolf? My attempt to set things right?"

Pale strands fell across her eyes, calling to mind another lock of hair. His breath hitched as he understood. He stared at Hamona, remembering the stricken look on Darcia's face. Of shock, of heartbreak, of loss. Her chin dipped as if in a confirming nod.

A string of questions. Which one to choose?

Kiba closed his eyes, settling on one, and said, "Why did I hear you this time?"

"This time?" Hamona blinked in her curiosity. Then, with a soft smile, she said, "Perhaps this time, you were ready to listen."

A puff of breath escaped him in place of a laugh. It was exhausting, Kiba thought. The maybes. The murky notion of perhaps. But something about the way this woman had said it made the ambiguity of it all easy to accept, as if she'd infected him with her own ease.

"May ask a question before I go," Hamona said, folding her hands over her skirt. With the blessing of Kiba's reluctant nod, she asked, "What exactly are you fighting for?"

A single word stuck in his throat. Paradise, of course. But for the first time in his life, it wasn't quite right. It was the easy answer. The simple one. And Hamona had said fighting, not searching, a distinction that felt heavy with meaning though Kiba couldn't articulate why, so he found himself saying, "A future," the words slipping past his lips so suddenly that he was caught with the urge to take them back as soon as they'd gone.

"A future," she echoed.

A future. Yes. On her lips, he found that it was an answer he'd accept. "Not hope or despair. Just… a future."

A path forward. A life.

And by the smile on Hamona's lips, he knew that this would do.

The gentle breeze strengthened, surging across the meadow. Kiba raised his arms, ducking his head behind them to protect himself as it began to circle them, filling the air with dirt and debris. But Hamona kept smiling, standing still and calm.

His eyes stung against the wind. He shut them as it became too much to bear. As he stood blind, Hamona spoke once more. "My last gift to you, little wolf: go to the water. See what you find."

Then, a sudden, heavy hush. Slowly, Kiba lowered his arms. Opened his eyes. Hamona, the sky, the grasses, the trees were all gone. Besides the pool in the distance, the world had once more returned to black.

Without any other paths presented to him, Kiba began his trek to the pool. Though Hamona's presence was gone, it seemed that she'd infused him with renewed energy during their talk. His limbs were stronger, lighter. Where they'd resisted him before, the shadows now seemed to carry him, ushering him along to the water's edge.

As the pool grew closer, he realized he was not alone. A bird flew high overhead, its wings beating as he followed along Kiba's path. An owl he'd seen once before.

"You," Kiba sneered. "Who the hell are you?"

The chuckle that once filled the Forest of Death resonated further here, reverberating across the dark expanse and grating on Kiba's ears. The owl flew lower, eager for Kiba to hear his taunts. "Who are you? Where are you? Whether you're alive or whether you're dead, there is nothing. Nothing matters."

Kiba growled, turning his head to track the pest. "I asked you a question."

"A question, a favor, an answer, and yet," the owl swooped down, aiming a gust of wind at Kiba with his wide wings. "Nothing to show for it! Nothing at all!"

Kiba snarled, his hands curling to fists at his sides. "Come down here and say that again!"

But the owl only chuckled. Rose higher. "Life is short, but there still might be time," he crooned before speeding towards the water. "Time to live free. Time to turn back. Turn back!"

Kiba shucked the warning aside, opting instead to give chase, tracing the path the owl carved through the shadows.

The owl was fast, pulled along by a swifter wind. He reached the pool long before Kiba was able, flying in circles over its perfect edge in the manner of a scavenger. Kiba pushed himself to run faster, his sprint stuttering for only a moment when he finally spotted the reason why.

Below, at the center of the owl's orbit, was a body. Still and sprawled across the mud, with hair so dark Kiba had failed to spot it against the shadows. And while the owl smelled of nothing, just as he always had, Kiba suddenly recognized the trace of another scent.

He hastened, racing towards the water as the owl lowered itself in a languid spiral, eventually perching himself on his prey. Between blinks, Kiba could have sworn the bird's visage shifted. That for a split second, there was Darcia, or a man who resembled him, standing on the shore.

"Get away," he roared, lunging towards the owl and snapping his jaws. It rose up into the air with an awful shriek, filling Kiba's vision with a flurry of feathers. Kiba batted at him, hoping to feel the resistance of flesh against his claws. But there was no such satisfaction. The owl was gone.

He glared at the empty air before that scent found him again, dragging his attention back to the body in the water. The girl of so many other dreams, resting at his feet.

"Atra."

No response.

Kiba fell to his knees and reached. "Atra," he called, his fingertips barely ghosting over her shoulder when she finally, mercifully stirred. His breath spilled out of him in relief as she blinked awake, her lids heavy and slow. His heart clenched at the sight, adoration gripping him as fiercely as the day he woke to find her at his side.

It seemed an eternity passed before her gaze found his. As their eyes met, a hopeful notion Kiba scarcely dared to entertain crept along the edges of his mind. That this was more than an act of imagination Hamona had given him. The sense of something real.

Atra took a soft breath at the sight of him, murmuring, "A dream?"

And all at once, Kiba found himself paralyzed by a rush of feeling, the urge to kiss her as overwhelming as the urge to scream. He wanted to blame her for all of it. He wanted to lie to her and himself, claim he hadn't missed her at all and wreck her as she'd done him.

He wanted her to come back to him; beg her to never leave.

All words failing him, Kiba gathered her in his arms and pulled her close, the water on her skin chilling him in an instant.

Slowly, Atra relaxed in his grip. Rested her head against his shoulder. Then, with an inexplicable chuckle, she said, "It's nice to see you too." Her voice was softer than he remembered, raspy from a lack of use. "You here to take me to Paradise?"

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. For him, Paradise meant a future. But Atra's tone made it clear that that wasn't the definition she had in mind. "Don't joke about that," he scolded. He pulled her tighter against him, as if to punish her. "I thought you were—"

When he refused to continue, Atra bluntly finished the thought for him. "Dead." She pressed her cheek against him and lowered her voice. "Me too."

Kiba froze. He entertained the thought of pulling away, of asking her exactly what she meant, but then she was the one pulling him closer, burying her face against his shoulder. "Sorry." She tried to chuckle once more, but the sound was broken. Weepy. "I'm sorry."

His own eyes stung as Atra shuddered against him. Without much thought, he rearranged them, placing Atra on his lap and curling around her as she began to cry, softly, gently, her tears indistinguishable from the wet of her skin. He pressed his lips to her hair, his own voice strained as he said, "You should have stayed."

"I wanted—"

"To help." Kiba shook his head at the thought of it. The absurdity. "I know."

"Did it?"

The question wasn't like her. Uncertain. Hopeful. It nearly broke him. "I don't know," he admitted. "We're back where we started. I don't know."

Questions rose up in her. He could see it by the shine of her eyes. But Atra opted not to ask them. She accepted her failure, theirs, with a nod. Rested her head against his chest once more, her sharp breaths slowing. For a long while, they sat there, committing the feel of the other to memory and relishing the embrace.

It was Atra who broke the silence, softly saying "I miss you so much," and oh, there was only so much he could take.

Kiba's fingers traced along her chin, tipping up. He captured her lips in his, a palm cupping the curve of her cheek while the other settled against her waist, holding. She responded in kind, her hand finding its place at the crook of his neck, her lips parting to draw him deeper, the taste of her sharpened with the salt of her tears. He fought back a groan, his head going dizzy with the revelation that he'd been starving for this, his chest aching at the cruelty of it—how a single kiss could be at once too much and not enough at all. Desperate for more, or else desperate to keep her, he pulled her closer only to have her go rigid, parting from him with sharp gasp.

Her hands flew to the one he'd rested on her hip, prying herself free of his grip with a shuddering exhale.

"Atra?" Kiba said, panicking as her eyes squeezed shut in pain. "What is it? What's wrong?"

She moved off his lap and into the water, clutching her waist. A drop slipped between her fingers and into the pool, tinting the dark water red. Kiba stared before looking down to find his own palm bloodied, his gut twisting as Atra grit out, "It's fine."

"Who did this to you?"

She twisted towards him to answer only for her words to break with another pulse of pain. Kiba swore, moving to sit before her, his hands uselessly hovering between them in his fear to touch as her mouth opened in a silent cry. When the ache finally subsided, Atra hunched forward, her hand falling into the shallows to brace herself with a soft splash.

And there was that thought again, that hopeful belief that Hamona's last gift to him was more than a simple dream. He'd asked for a future. Perhaps she'd given him a chance.

Kiba gently touched his fingers to Atra's cheeks. One hand strayed, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as he asked, "Atra, where are you?"

"Where?" She repeated softly, her eyes roving across his face as she struggled to make sense of the question.

Whether in his mind or in the distance, Kiba heard an echo. Whether you are alive or dead, there is nothing. Nothing matters.

"Where are you?" He insisted, panic setting in him as a gust blew over their skin.

Atra shuddered against the wind, tears beginning to spill across her cheeks once more. "Kiba," she whimpered, the sound cutting at him as surely as any knife.

Kiba.

Another voice. Not Hamona's, not the owl's, but Toboe's.

"No," he breathed as the winds circled faster.

Kiba! Hige cried.

When Kiba looked to Atra again, her expression was too peaceful for his liking. Not content, but resigned. He took a deep breath and raised his voice over the din. "I'm not letting you go."

Kiba! Tsume and Kuri called.

They were the eye of the storm now. There was an owl's chuckle on the breeze.

Atra's hand rose up to cover his. She leaned into his palm, burdening him with the weight of her cheek.

Kiba blinked back his own tears, his voice an anguished growl. "It'll end well this time," he said, relief ringing in him as Atra's eyes met his. "We'll make sure of it."

Finally, Cheza's voice rang through the space. Kiba, she bid him. Come back.

And at that Atra smiled. When she responded, her voice was lost in the howl of the wind. It didn't matter. He watched closely enough to understand. She'd echoed him once more, in a question or an affirmation, her lips shaped around the word, "We."

With the ship gone, there was a clear line of sight to Hakik's island. They woke to find its trees blackened and burnt. Kuri couldn't take her eyes off of it. Neither, it seemed, could Kiba.

It had taken ages to pull him from his sleep. Kuri was the first to stir the morning after, waking to a battlefield more devastating than any disaster her imagination could have conjured. She found Toboe first, his body landed not far from her. When he woke, she nearly sobbed at the sound of his voice. If not for the rest of their pack being lost in the wreckage of the marsh, she might have never left his side.

She helped Toboe move to a resting spot against a tree trunk rest before flitting across the forest. Darcia had carved a new clearing in his cruelty, and Kuri traveled across it slowly but surely, clambering over the deep trenches his attacks had hacked into the mud.

Hige was next, though the state she'd found him in gave her pause. He was propped up against a tree at the edge of the clearing, unconscious and wounded like the rest of them. Nearby, a number of armored corpses lay scattered across the grass. Hige's neck, bare. As much as they looked for it, his collar couldn't be found.

Hige had dismissed the idea of a longer search. There were more pressing matters to tend to, and instead, they set out to look for Tsume among the debris. But Kuri could see Hige fidgeting across the way, rubbing at his throat as if he might rediscover the leather band beneath his skin.

He found Tsume, in the end. Called Kuri over in his horrified excitement. When Kuri arrived, she understood just how infuriatingly stubborn Tsume could be. The number of wounds he sported was second only to Kiba. Based on his location, he'd come within a hair's breadth of being crushed by a fallen tree. Before she could help it, she found herself placing a hand on his cheek.

His skin had gone cold in the mud. It made Kuri's stomach turn in a way that seeing Hige and Toboe hadn't, perhaps because she knew how warm Tsume's embrace could be. The thought alone summoned a warm uncertainty that made Kuri want to shake him awake, wounds be damned, and in her panic she shrugged off the responsibility of waking him to Hige. She was still looking for Kiba when Tsume opened his eyes.

She found him back where they'd started. Closest to the water, not far from where the ship had landed, the white of his coat nearly invisible beneath a mess of dirt and blood.

Cheza was nowhere to be found.

The way Kiba slept, it would have been easy to assume he was dead. It had taken all four of them to pull him from his slumber, bent over his body and calling, calling him to wake. When his eyes finally opened, they were rabid. Wild. He was up in an instant, never mind their questions or their hands pressing on his shoulders, or their frantic pleas to rest. It was clear by the turn of his head that he was searching, always searching, and before he'd spoken a word, he was running to the edge of the water.

There, the sight of the island took the wind out of him. He fell onto this knees as the rest of them looked on.

None of them spoke. Too much had happened in so little time. Too much lost. Nothing at all to say.

How much time had passed? The pack wasn't sure. But little seemed to matter now, with Cheza gone.

When the sun bore down on them from the peak of the sky, Toboe spoke their uncertainty aloud. "What happens now?" He was sitting curled beside Kuri, his chest flush against his knees. "Did we really just… Was everything we did… Was it all for nothing?"

"Sure seems like it," Tsume replied from his perch on a tree trunk nearby. If not for the slashes across his skin, it might have looked like he was basking in the sun. "It's not like we can go after her now."

"But we will eventually," Hige pointed out. He laid on his back not far from them, his arm thrown across his eyes. He'd settled there not long after they'd woken Kiba, complaining of headaches sharp as knives. "We have to, right?"

"Can we?" Toboe murmured, his voice muffled as he dipped his head lower to his knees. "Who knows how long it will take us to heal from wounds like these."

"Even if we weren't wounded, they've got quite the lead," Kuri murmured. "Traveling in an airship and all."

"She's not with the ship."

Kuri started at the sound of Kiba's voice. Tsume quirked a brow. "Talking already?"

Kiba shot him a glare at him over his shoulder. He moved to stand, his motions painfully slow. "Rafe took her."

Toboe frowned, glancing between them. "Rafe? But he's—"

"A Noble dog." There was a soft grunt as Kiba adjusted his posture, then a hiss smothered with a growl. In the pause, Kuri glanced at Hige in time to catch sight of his wince. "Ask Kuri. He's been working with the Nobles all along."

"Either way, it doesn't change much," Tsume pointed out. "That troop probably traveled by air to get here. There's no way we can heal in time to catch up."

There was a soft scoff as Kiba stepped into the shallows. "The Noblewoman who leads them… They called her Lady Jaguara." He paused as the water lapped at his ankles. "Cheza. And Atra. We'll find them wherever we find her."

"Atra, too?" Kuri said, unable to stifle her hope. "But… you don't think she'd be with Rafe?"

Tsume shifted, sitting up to look at Kiba with a more critical eye. "Is this instinct or your sense talking?"

That earned him another glare.

"So we're going after them," Toboe said, his chin lifting. "But how will we find her?"

Kiba glanced at Hige as he lay on the shore. Tsume frowned as he understood. Before Toboe could press them further, Kuri placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, "We'll find a way."

Hige nodded, a forced lightness to his voice. "We always do."

Kiba acknowledged this with a simple nod before turning once more to the water.

He walked, his shoulders tensing with every step. He clenched his teeth as the water rose higher, deeper water washing deeper wounds. Behind him, he heard the crunch of stones as the others moved closer, the knowledge of their presence dulling the pain. He came to a stop when the water was barely touching Rafe's bite on his shoulder, the edge of the wound stinging in its proximity.

There were soft splashes as the pack joined him, their journey just as aching and slow. When they were at his side, Tsume spoke again. "So what's next?"

Kiba looked to his feet. For the first time, he noticed that the water was full of shadows, that what was once clear was now dark with ash.

What next?

Another path. Another future. Another life to live.

Kiba glanced at the others and wondered if they felt it, too, this sense of standing at a precipice with no soft landing in sight. He wondered whether it was what they'd call fear.

"We keep going," he answered.

And that was enough.

As the others watched on, Kiba closed his eyes and let fear take him. Without warning, he took the plunge. And for one pure, precious moment, there was only this: the water's embrace, its hush in his ears, and the salt of the marsh burning his body anew.