(Summary: Welcome to my world, a world where thievery is not uncommon, and where the local bar on the corner is the main source of information. Where powerful beings act as tyrants over the lower classes, and where fear overpowers every other emotion. Welcome to Freeze, where thieves are kings, and kings are thieves. (Alternate Universe, contains original characters)
I do not own Wolf's Rain or any of its characters, but I do own Cyan, Tachi, Nikolai, Ryu, and Erron. Not much going on in the first chapter, you'll find out more later.
WARNING: May contain some yaoi, but no lemon. Thanks.)
Prologue
As I kneel in a long-forgotten alleyway, I stare out at my immediate surroundings with cold eyes. The streets have run red with blood ever since the massacre.
There are no longer bodies in the streets; the nobles have made sure of that. It might ruin their "spotless" reputation. The real reason for this view on the city is that everybody is too afraid of Cyan, the third in a line of powerful aristocrats who are rumored to have assassinated the other nobles.
A truck full or rations rumbles by my alleyway, oblivious to the desperate cries of a surge of people running after it. Suddenly, a soldier appears on the back of the truck. He fires a round of bullets swiftly into the stampede trailing the truck.
Their cries are subdued, and more bodies are left to be taken away.
I turn my head away from the all-too-common sight of death. The soldier glances in my direction, before pulling back into his truck.
The city has fallen to its knees. Cyan has gotten full control of the police force, letting them take care of his dirty work, which includes killing off any nobles that could threaten his position, or so I've heard.
So far, he's picked off Nest from his list of nobles. One down, two to go.
Seems like everything you hear nowadays is from other people. Nothing comes directly from a reliable source.
Besides becoming a total dictator, Cyan has wiped out nearly all of the forests. With this, animals have become uncommon, some even extinct.
Among these is the wolf. That species, in particular, has been extinct for over 200 years..
..Or has it?
Chapter 1. Tachi
Monday, June 4th
Rain had been falling for weeks. Wet gravel crunched beneath the boots of passer-by, including a young man who had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
Cold, gray eyes gazed up at a blinking sign reading 'Odin's Bar', and alert ears picked up the sound of bells on the door tinkling.
After a few moments of staring, he started towards the bar door and stepped inside. The doorbells tinkled behind him, and a bartender cleaning a glass with a dirty rag glanced up at him.
"Aren't you a bit young to be in a bar, son?", the tender asked, lifting a brow skeptically. There was no one else in the bar; it seemed as if a tumbleweed could bounce past at any minute.
The young man froze at these words, and gave the tender a furious look. He hated when people mistook his age because of his size. A large hand reached from the shadows and gripped the tender's shoulder.
"Now, now, Garfield..." – the tender winced at his nickname, or maybe it was just the huge hand squeezing his shoulder – "Leave our customer alone. He is one of our best, you know."
The tender eyed the young man with contempt as he fled to the kitchens. The large man stepped from the shadows, olive skin covered with dust. He had obviously been in the store room; that much was revealed by how he had to dust his sleeves off with his hands. This man was Nikolai, who had once been a well-known blacksmith.
Since blacksmiths were no longer needed, Nikolai had rented out an unused building and made it into Odin's Bar. It was one of the only decent bars around, so it pulled in fair business.
The young man, still standing quietly in the doorway, considered Nikolai for a moment, then slipped his coat off and kicked some of the water from his boots. He hung his coat on a rack, then walked over to the bar and sat down on a stool.
"Hey, Tachi. Sorry about Garfield. He's been a bit testy since I hired that girl as a tender.
Tachikoma, better known as Tachi, simply nodded to the apology, fidgeting with a pack of sweetener. His eyes lifted to peer into Nick's darker ones, and a smile cracked his blank look.
"Good to see you, Nick," Tachi said cordially, but then his expression became troubled. "I came here to ask you something.." He paused to look up at Nick.
"Yeah?", Nick replied, frowning.
"Uh, I wanted to ask if you've heard anything about—"
"Shh!", Nick shushed him, touching a finger to his lips. He then looked around suspiciously, and leaned closer to Tachi.
"Someone might be listening... God knows no one's trustworthy anymore...", he whispered, then stood, closing the door to the kitchen and stalking over to the main door to lock it. He returned to the bar and sat down again, making sure he could hear that Garfield was occupied before continuing.
"Now, you still have to talk quietly... these walls aren't sound-proof."
Tachi lifted a brow, then scooted closer to the bar top to converse with Nick in whispers.
"Anyway, I wanted to ask if you've heard anything about Erron lately..", Tachi began, trailing off and hoping inwardly that Nick did know something.
Nick didn't answer for a moment, hesitating and twiddling his thumbs distractedly.
Tachi's eyes lowered, and he gazed at the marbled bar top, waiting for the inevitably bad news.
"Erron's been captured by Cyan's troops, Tachi...", Nick finally said, closing his eyes.
"Damn! I knew it!", Tachi said angrily, one fang revealed temporarily as he growled in frustration.
"And there's not a goddamn thing we can do to prevent this, is there?", he snarled, standing up and dragging the ragged brim of his hat down over his eyes.
"I'm leaving...", he said, eyes hidden so Nick wouldn't grow overly-suspicious of his sudden mood swing.
Tachi pulled his coat and gloves on, striding over to the door. He pushed it open, then paused, not looking up at the man still sitting behind the bar.
"If you need me, you know how to find me," he concluded, disappearing into a curtain of rain and leaving the door to shut with a dingle of those annoying bells.
Nick nodded to everything he said; he knew Tachi would react like this, and it was why he had been reluctant to tell him. Tachi and Erron had been very close, before Erron had been called off to work for the Crim Yotes, one branch in a large, secluded organization of street bandits. Since then, Tachi had only been able to visit Erron every few weeks.
As soon as he stepped outside, Tachi was hailed by a call of his name; "Tachi! Tachikoma!"
Tachi's ears immediately picked out where the call was coming from. He turned his head—too late. He was tackled to the ground by a gangly boy of about 16, wearing a school uniform. His mop of black hair fall into his dark blue eyes, which were outlined in black.
"Ryu, gerroff me...", Tachi demanded, opening one light-sensitive eye to stare up at the boy in exasperation.
The boy, obviously named Ryu, squeezed Tachi in a rib-crushing hug. "I haven't seen you for sooo looong!", Ryu clung harder to Tachi, even as the older boy began peeling him off.
"TachiTachiTachiTachiTachiTachiTa--" Ryu was cut off in his incessant chattering by Tachi covering his mouth with a hand.
"Ryu?", Tachi started, and Ryu nodded his head obediently. "Shut.", he paused for only a few seconds for the effect, "Up."
Ryu stared down at Tachi with his lip pouted out, then finally let himself be pried off of Tachi. Tachi stood and shook some water from his coat, then jammed his hands into his pockets.
"So, Ryu, what was it you wanted?", Tachi asked calmly, looking up at the boy again. In the surprise of the moment, he had almost forgotten about Erron, but still kept her in the back of his mind.
"Tsume kicked me out of the house again..." Ryu replied sheepishly, scratching at the back of his neck as he did when embarrassed.
Tachi quirked an eyebrow, but decided not to ask. Instead, he simply shrugged his shoulders, thinking he knew where this was going...
".. and I was wondering if I could stay at your place, at least for tonight...", Ryu finished, blue eyes shifting to stare at the ground.
Tachi considered the pitiful figure for a moment, knowing that, if he refused, Ryu would only go bother Kiba or Hige, and they'd yell at him for skimping on his responsibility as Ryu's "protector".
Pausing, Tachi lifted Ryu's chin with thumb and forefinger, "Fine. But it's only for tonight. And if you try any funny stuff, it's out the door you go. Yes?"
Ryu smiled widely, then nodded, hugging Tachi again.
"Thank you, Tachi-kun!", Ryu gushed, clinging to Tachi's midsection. Tachi, finally giving up on trying to remove the eager boy, simply stood, waiting until Ryu found the appropriate time to slide off of him and grab his wrist.
"Come on, Ta! We have to get going!", he whined, continuing to drag the unenthusiastic Tachikoma along the sidewalk.
When they finally reached Tachi's apartment building, they had taken 2 buses and a taxi just to get there.
As Tachi climbed the stairs towards the third floor, he turned his head to look at Ryu, then said, "How'd you know I was at Odin's?"
Ryu shrugged, looking down at his shoes.
"... I watched you go in..."
"Eh?", Tachi frowned as he led Ryu into a hallway. Maybe I'm losing my sense of smell, he thought, bewildered. Ryu had such a distinctive scent. So... happy.
Remembering again what he was doing, Tachi jammed the key to his apartment into the lock, pushing the door open with his shoulder.
Ryu bounced past him, flinging himself onto the couch with a dull 'thud'. Tachi stared for a moment from the doorway, as Ryu clung to Tachi's jacket that he had somehow pulled from him as he walked in. Tachi blinked, then closed the door, starting towards the kitchen to make himself some coffee.
(Whoo, it looked longer on paper. 10 pages on paper, to be exact. Eh, well. Second chapter soon, hopefully. Read and review! 3)