A/N: Meh. I changed my mind and decided to turn this into a collection of one-shots instead…hopefully it's clearer than the first.
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It was something about the
building, he thought, though he couldn't say exactly what. Some combination of
the openness, the trees, and the quiet background sounds. It was an oddness in the atmosphere, he thought, as though
something nonexistent tapped constantly at his shoulder.
Whatever it was, he was the only one feeling it. Certainly no one else was
leaning out their windows this late at night, unable to sleep – Horohoro snored loudly in the next bed over, dead to the
world. The Chinese boy stifled a groan,
resisting the urge to hit his head on the wall.
Something had been left unfinished, and it followed him doggedly, an evasive whisper in the back of his thoughts.
When did this start? he questioned himself, stifling a yawn. So tired. It hasn't stopped since the Shaman Fight ended—and here he stopped his train of thought. It hadn't been then – it had been before.
"End it already, will you?" he asked the night, the stars, in mild annoyance. "I want to get a good night's sleep." He almost laughed at himself - talking to the air, as though it would answer back!
Hhhhhhhhhhh~
The wind was his answer, and Ren leaned out a little further, the soothing breeze cool against sweat-dampened skin. It rustled the leaves on the trees, gently, and the Chinese shaman breathed deeply of the clean rush of air before closing the window with a sense of unaccountable relief, and clambered back into bed.
He dreamed, then, of stars, and forest, and thin pinpricks of golden-orange light that flickered teasingly before winking out of their ephemeral existence. He dreamed the moth, and its infatuation with the beckoning of its doom. He dreamed a child that was no child, its barely formed mind holding an elder's wisdom.
Then came the Phoenix which was not, with it's white wings of flame and magnificent sweeping plumes, and it regarded him out of a solemn dark eye, fathomless and unfathomable. It hovered before him, and its cry rang through the universe, a tearing, a weeping, a melody of utter sorrow.
He reached out to comfort it, to stroke the white smoothness of its feathers though ferocious heat pressed on his flesh-
And fell into the whirling infinity of its eyes-
The stars, the stars!
And woke, hand still outstretched and chest heaving in great gasps for breath.
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A little crimson being blinked over his master's shoulder. "No, I don't know what it is…"
Twined about the dark-haired youth's fingers was a circle of cloth – white, simply plaited, too big for a ring, too small for anything else. Bason simply didn't understand the significance such an insignificant thing could hold, that Ren could be so distracted by it.
Fingers closed loosely over the object, as their owner gave his spirit a faint, bemused smirk.
"I think…I think he just wanted to say goodbye."
Bason looked at the cloth circle hard, shuddered, and chose to keep his silence.
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A/N: Yow. Another five-minute one-shot. I must really be disturbed/bored/depressed/something. Yes, this was an implied Hao x Ren, a mild one. I seem to have become something of a Hao fan…
Kiiro Asakura, thanks for the review. *snaps fingers* Damn! I didn't even KNOW of this anime a month back! Oh well, I'll manage. And the sentences? I know that the sentences were odd – an explanation is that I was trying to recreate what Hao would have thought under his circumstances. I honestly doubt he had a lot of coherence left in those final moments, but I tried my best.
Read and review? Reviews make my day, and I need ideas for a new one-shot ^o^ Ja ne for now!