The Storm Shelter

by Mezi Matsuki

Chapter Two

Author's Note: The title starts to make sense now! Yay! Btw, thanks to the two people who already reviewed it. That was quick! ^____^;;;


          As the girl followed the man with bat wings, she got caught in her thoughts about where he was taking her and who he was. She knew he was talking to her, but she had no idea about what. She was still in plain shock from everything that happened, and was a little afraid to talk since he had told her to be quiet. She didn't quite know what he had told her, but she knew she was supposed to be silent. Suddenly, the girl snapped out of her daze by a fat drop of water on her head. She looked up at the sky and stopped, getting another drop between her eyes.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

          As he was walking, Kuronue was just trying to get the girl to speak in a language he understood. As they walked, he got more and more annoyed. He began to think that the girl couldn't understand or hear anything, but then he remembered how she got quiet when he told her to. Then he began to think she was ignoring him, and then he just shut up altogether because he was tired of talking to himself. He didn't notice any rain drops as he walked, but when the girl stopped, he jerked to a halt and turned to find out why. As he did, he then discovered that it was raining. After about ten seconds of drizzling, the rain began to pour. Only in Makai could rain begin to pour in less than a minute. Looking around for some sort of shelter, Kuronue saw a cave. Taking the girl's hand again, he pulled her into the cave. Once they were inside, Kuronue began to build a fire with dried leaves and grass inside the cave.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

          As she sat on the floor, the girl watched the bat-winged man as he began to build a fire. As he gathered things for the tinder, her eyes grew large. The man was gathering things in the pitch-black area of the cave as though it was as bright as day! She found that amazingly strange, and began to try to gather stuff from the entrance of the cave to help. This got the girl twice as wet as she was in the first place, since the rain was coming in where she was looking. Most of the stuff she managed to find wasn't worth getting wet for anyway, since most of it was also too wet to even light on fire. By the time she got back over to the man, he had a fire going and was sitting on the floor of the cave. She sat down next to the man and looked into the fire. She continued to be silent the whole time they sat there, but now it wasn't because she was afraid. She just didn't want to talk. She sat there, watching the fire, until the man began to speak again.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

          "I'm Kuronue." He said, holding out a hand. The girl looked at it, but didn't shake it at all. She sat there, shivering and staring into the fire. Kuronue didn't quite know what was so fascinating about it, but he decided to sit and stare too. The longer he stared at the fire, the more it made him want to talk. Suddenly he remembered a little bit of his past, which he didn't like doing. Most of the time he just avoided it, because the past was something that could come back to haunt him very easily. He remembered all too well the suffering he went through growing up.

He lived in the backroom of a tavern, living off the pity of the barkeep. He was a mutt of a youkai, too many actual breeds to count, looking like something most people hadn't ever seen. He didn't know his mother or his father, and the barkeeper at the tavern had found him and taken pity. He spent his first 100 years there, until he began to hear rumors about a great thief. He'd always had to steal to get a little bit of extra food to eat, and he was beginning to actually like the idea. He decided that as a young youkai, one who'd actually had some experience stealing, that maybe he'd be able to get away from the tavern. Being scrawny and thin as a young youkai, not to mention an odd looking breed, he had always been picked on and messed with. He'd gotten tired of this, and he decided now was his chance to leave. If it didn't work, well, once again, he was screwed.
          Kuronue wondered vaguely if the girl was interested in a story, or even if she understood him, but he decided he wanted to tell it. He began to speak out loud and tell the story. Listening to himself, he got to the point where he'd met Kurama, his best friend and partner.

"I was standing there, right in front of, but of course, another tavern. That was where the thief supposedly was staying. I went in, and then I began to look around the dark room. Asking questions got me nowhere, cuz nobody likes to tell anything about anyone. Eventually I got up to the front of the bar, and asked the barkeep about this thief. He said he didn't know. Now, most people would just accept this answer, but living in the backroom of a tavern, I knew damned good and well that the barkeeper knows everything going on in his tavern. So I grabbed him by the collar, and hoisted him up and glared. Even that young, I was still fairly tall, so it was a good six inches off the ground for the old keep. Before I even had to threaten him, he started pointing to the back and telling me which room to look in. I dropped him, went in the back, and began to follow his directions. Finally I got to the door he told me to go in. I knocked once, didn't hear anything, and opened the door a little and peeked in."

"I didn't see anything at first, but then I continued inside. As I kept walking in there, I noticed another doorway without a door, and went through it. When I went through, I saw something moving under a blanket, so I went up and poked it..."


*flashback*

"What the hell..." said a silver youko, sitting up a little. His head poked out from under the blanket, along with the female he was with. She was an ookazi-yasha, female wolf youkai, with blond hair and blue eyes, and she looked half-asleep and tired despite her fear. The silver youko looked like a girl at first, but then it dawned on me he was just a pretty-boy. He had silver hair and ears and a tail sticking out of one end of the blanket, and gold eyes that seemed to glow in the dark. He really was a very pretty pretty-boy, even though I don't swing that way. He looked like he'd be taller than me if he stood straight up, but I wasn't really sure at the time. Suddenly snapping awake, he let out a surprised yelp, wrapped a blanket around his waist, and jumped up, all in one fluid motion. He threw a seed at me, and then stepped back as a vine from behind me grabbed me. Up in front of me a few minutes later, he was glaring directly into my eyes and demanding to know what the hell I wanted. So I of course blurt out what I want.

"Where's that thief?"

"Do you know how broad of a question you just asked me?"

"No."

"You are stupid."

"No I'm not! I'm looking for a thief that supposedly is staying here! The barkeep said it's true too!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm looking for a thief. He's becoming famous, and I want to talk to him. Where is he? Do you know?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"Gimme a mirror."

"Why?" This achieved a look of pure stupidity from him. "I don't get it..."

"Obviously."

"Explain it then. There's no reason for you to groom yourself."

"Think of it this way. You tell me to show you where the thief is. I say give me a mirror. What will I show you with a mirror, you idiot?"

"Your reflection."

"And who's in my reflection?"

"You?"

"Right. Me. The thief." This earned an incredulous look from me.

"No way!"

*end flashback*


"I remember it all perfectly. The day I met my closest friend in all of the Three Realms..."