My first Wolf's Rain fanfic. It's going to be pretty short, only a few chapters really. It's about Blue, the half-wolf, and her journey to find her other half. I'll add another chapter as soon as I get a few reviews, it needs to be edited.
Blue Blood
Chapter One: I Don't Know
All day the sky had been cloudy and the air humid. In the street people pulled up their collars and tightened their hats, kids were rushed indoors by worried mothers and apartment windows were being bolted shut. Cars were moved into underground garages and shops closed early. People were bunkering down for the predicted storm.
No one noticed the figure that shuffled quickly down the sidewalk, and into a deserted alleyway. The man paused for only a second to loosen his heavy jacket before pulling out a small cardboard box wrapped with duct tape.
The sky rumbled loudly and the man jumped, looking over his shoulders and dropping the box. It moved. With a sigh of relief he buttoned his coat again and looked around. He saw the box at his feet where he had dropped it and sighed. He raised his hand just slightly and gave a small wave before the toe of his black galoshes met with the box and kicked it into the back of the alleyway.
The sky opened up a few moments later and rained poured down upon the dreary grey city. No one heard the small whimpering that came from the dented cardboard box.
"Ruth!" A woman's voice called. A boy of about six years old looked up at his mother and father, who was loading groceries into the truck bed. He was hopping on one foot down the sidewalk, avoiding the puddles from the last storm. In his right hand he clutched a smooth red ball, the size of a tennis ball, between between his slightly chubby fingers.
"We have to leave soon, Daddy just needs to finish loading, come back here!" his mother called. She was a woman in her late thirties dressed in a pink gown with the sleeves rolled up from helping her husband load the groceries. Around her shoulders was a woolen shawl, which she loosened and took off, folding it carefully on the seat.
Ruth watched her for a moment with his quite brown eyes that his bit of chestnut hair kept falling into.
"One more bounce mommy!" He said with the playful innocence of a child, meeting her old grey eyes with his liquid brown ones.
"One more bounce, but don't get into the street." His mother says with a smile then helps her husband, a tall, muscled man with grey hair and a stub of a mustache, load a crate of groceries into the truck bed. Living out in the countryside meant they didn't have many chances to get groceries. A delivery was too expensive for them, Ruth's nanny had been the only thing his nursery's sold furniture had bought them.
The boy smiled happily and raised his right hand, throwing the ball as hard and as far as he could. It flew in the air for a few feet then bounced once, twice, and hit a parking meter, making it seem to disappear into a wall. Puzzled the boy ran after it and peeked his head into a dark abandoned alleyway with only a flickering streetlamp to light it.
The shiny red ball rolled slowly down the alley, bumping over the cracks in the pavement.
It's movement was stopped as it hit a long forgotten cardboard box that lay sopping wet in a puddle. You could barely see the print on the cardboard and the peeling duct tape was the only thing that held it together.
The boy trotted down the alleyway with innocent confidence. He stopped to pick up the ball when his hand touched the soaked box. It let out a yelp and so did Ruth. He jumped back with fright and held the ball tightly to the chest, waiting for his eyes to grow used to the dark.
One sodden corner of the dented box started to slop away, and a small black head pushed itself out, followed by a paw, which was all the would fit. The duct tape still held the box together around the middle
Ruth stared at the head of a black dog, which stared back at him with startling blue eyes. After a moment he smiled and bent down, rolling the ball towards the dog.
The dog batted at the ball, which stopped just out of her reach. She tried again and the box gave a hop as she reached for it. It was just small enough for her to get her large fangs around it.
Ruth moved through the darkness towards the dog and his ball, his hands spread in front of him. It was his foot that first found the box and he knelt down to get his ball back. The dog gave it up easily and looked up at him with sorrowful eyes as he started to walk away. It gave a pitiful bark and tried to follow, making a splash as it dragged the box a little.
The boy couldn't help feeling sorry for it and bent down to unwind the duct tape, which was made easier by the rain. As soon as the dog was free he headed back towards his mother, the dog followed.
"Ruth, there you are!" the woman called, her hands on her hips. "We're ready to leave now!"
"Sorry mama-" the boy began before his mother cut him off.
"What's this?" she exclaims, peering around him at the black dog with bright blue eyes. Ruth turns around as well, surprised that the dog has followed him.
"Mom can we-"
"No." his mother replied, cutting her boy off again. "Ruth, you know we can't keep her. Dogs cost money, and we don't have it. You know what your father would say, if it can't be useful we shouldn't bother with it."
"But it's alone, and hungry, and wet." Ruth mourned sorrowfully.
"I'm sorry, Ruth, but it can't be helped." his mother said, caressing Ruth's cheek with her callused hand. "Now get in the truck, we have to drive back to Curious-." her attention was diverted suddenly by a street vender selling tomato seeds and she gave Ruth a pat on the head and hurried over, determined to get a few packets.
Quickly, Ruth took the dog and placed it gently in the truck bed on some burlap bags in the shelter of a carton of groceries.
"Don't worry." he said, giving it a pat. "I'll make them keep you." and he stepped quickly into the truck, soon followed by his parents, his mother clutching a sack of seeds, and they drove back to Curious.
"YOU WHAT?!" Quent Yaiden roared, glaring at Ruth and the black dog that was cowering behind his son.
"I saw it in the alleyway and put it in the truck bed." Ruth said meekly, his hands clasped behind his back.
Quent turned to survey the truck bed where a carton of groceries had once stood. The top had been torn off and a package of sausages had been torn open and devoured. They had meant to last for Sunday brunch for a few weeks. Other packages of vegetables and fruits were strewn around the truck bed, though most of the contents were still in place.
"I thought we could keep her." Ruth pleaded softly.
His father turned, an angry look in his eyes. "WHY ON EARTH SHOULD WE KEEP HER?" he hollered loudly over the cobblestone driveway where the truck was parked. It would go into the barn later. "SHE'S JUST DEVOURED FIVE POUNDS OF SAUSAGES! THINK OF WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO FEED HER WHEN SHE'S FULLY GROWN!"
"She could learn to hunt-" Ruth started before his father cut him off savagely.
"HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE WON'T TAKE THE COW? OR THE PIG? OR THE CHICKS?" he roared. "I SAID NO!"
"But dad, please?" Ruth said, begging, his brown eyes starting to fill with tears.
"Quent, please. We could train it to hunt rats, god knows we have a lot of them, or be a watchdog?" Ruth's mother had finally entered the fray, asking her husband in a softer voice, putting a hand on his muscled arm.
Mr. Yaiden relaxed a little, but just a little. "That will take time, time we don't have! Besides, what would we feed her?"
"I'll train her, and I'll get a job to feed her." Ruth said in such a show of determination it stunned both of his parents into shocked silence for a moment.
Finally, with a great sigh, his father gave in. "You can keep her, but only for a week!" He said, quickly interrupting his son's celebration. "If she proves to be too much trouble she goes, got it?"
Ruth nodded and Mrs. Yaiden smiled.
"What's her name?" Quent grilled, trying not to lose his macho image.
"Uhh... She doesn't have one, or a collar."
Quent snorted. "No one in my household is going to go without a name." He looked at the dog for a second. "We'll call her Blue, for now. We can come up with a better name if, and only if, we decide to keep her." With that he grabbed broken crate and stormed back to their white farmhouse, leaving a trail of fallen produce behind him.
The scene was suddenly swallowed up by flames and the woman's voice that was gently scolding the child Ruth was disappeared into the roar of flames.
The flames filled the vision, flickering and lashing, almost daring someone to plunge into their fiery depths. The silhouettes of wolves danced within them and then there was a snarl and the flames became a massive column of fire, branching into a pack of wolves, slavering and snapping with a demonic look in their fiery golden eyes. They flew forwards but stopped before they made contact with anything.
"Who are you?" the flaming wolves howled.
"I'm Blue." said Blue's voice in reply.
"Who are you?" the wolves howled again, "Who are you, who are you, whoooooo?"
"I'm Blue, just Blue." Blue said, louder and starting to yell.
"Whooo whooo whooo?" the wolves howled again, "Whooo? Whooooooo?"
"Stop it! I told you I'm Blue!" Blue shouted, fearful of the fire wolves.
"There's a bit of wolf in you too." said a girl's voice and the flaming wolves dimmed as the image of a pale faced girl with red eyes and pink hair appeared.
"You're not just Blue. Who are you?" the wolves continued, "What are you?"
"A half-wolf!"
"But there's more, what are you? Whooooooo?"
"I don't know anymore!" Blue screamed.
Blue jolted awake from her dream, her ice blue eyes blinking rapidly to clear her vision and reveal the clear night sky and the outskirts of a city. She was lying in the shadow of the remains of a stone wall, cast by the moonlight. One her right lay Hige in his human form, snorting slightly, and on her left lay the young Toboe, flopped on his back. Tsume was lounging on his back on top of the wall the other three were sheltered behind, the only one still in the moonlight. The white wolf was nowhere to be seen.
She sighed and sat up, drawing her knees under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. That dream had been truly unnerving. Sure she dreamed of her past a few times but never like that, and.... Who was she? The questions in her nightmare had come back to her.
Who am I? She asked herself. Blue. What am I? A half-wolf. That isn't all, there's another half. What is that?
I don't know.