I do so hate to do this, but I must. Konbanwa. I'm Kantama, the author of this fanfic and the unfortunate writer of this particular Author's Note. I wanted to make something clear very quickly here. I'm an avid fan of Wolf's Rain, but I haven't been able to watch many of the episodes, so I'm fuzzy on some of the details regarding the wolves. I'm working off the assumption that when the wolves appear human, they feel human as well. My main support for this is Tsume. Yes, Tsume. You'll notice that when he fights he tends to pull out a pair of blades. If he were fully "wolf" or whatever you want to call it, there is no logical way for him to be holding those blades. I just wanted to clear that up.

Oh, and to you yaoi people. You do realize that wolves are pack animals, right? And that most of what people read as being gay behavior amongst our favorite wolf pack is actual wolf behavior? You didn't? Oh. Silly me.

When waking up, generally there are several things that one hopes won't be there. One is a giant man-eating monster of unknown origin yet known intent, another being stampeding zebras. And yet another one is tax collecters, but I digress. On the top ten list of the blind woman who was currently being shaken from the depths of slumber, however, was pain. Pain and lots of it.

"Hey, Syri! Syri wake up! Come on!"

Ways Not To Wake Up: In Pain and Disoriented.

"Mmmmnnnnghh?"

"Syri!"

"I'm up, I'm up." Still not fully awake, she slowly rose to a sitting position. Rubbing enthusiastically at her face with her hands, it didn't occur to her until after she'd turned and kicked her legs over the side of the bed that she didn't recognize the voice that had woken her up.

Oh dear.

"YyyyyyyyyAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Screaming bloody murder and then some, Syri aimed a vicious kick in the direction of the voice whilst groping for her way-cane. When she couldn't find it her fear heightened, her rage doubled and she launched herself at the unknown intruder, pounding with her fists.

Had she been more awake than she was Syri would have swiftly realized that, being blind, she didn't have a very good chance of beating away anyone who managed to catch her without her way-cane. Another epiphany would've been that, had the person been aiming to kill her or worse, it would've been in their best interest for her to stay asleep while they committed their nefarious deeds. Added to the list (my, we're finding a lot of these lists today aren't we?) would be the fact that Kantama, who was notorious for the feline version of howling loud enough to wake the dead when confronted by intruders, hadn't even meowed.

None of these revelations were forthcoming in her sleep-fogged mind, however, and so she fought. Or, she tried to. It's rather hard to do much of anything when the person you're trying to clobber manages to, judging by the feel of it, lay their body on yours to the point that you're squished beneath them and can't move anymore. You must admit, that sort of thing does make fighting of any kind difficult.

Syri, scared and now embarrassed, went stiff as a board. Kantama, lazily watching from a shelf, lethargically wondered how long it would take for her to crack her own spine that way. Kaze, who was trying to restrain the woman, wondered if it was such a good idea for him to have talked while trying to wake her up. Thus far it wasn't working out very well.

"Get off me." Her voice low and venomous, the blind woman hissed out her words with a heaping helping of miasma.

"If I do, do you promise to stay still?"

"Just get off me!"

Not wanting to upset her further, Kaze quickly moved back. She was up and against the far wall within seconds. She was fast when she was scared.

"Alright, now who are you?" Her voice wasn't getting any friendlier.

"You're not going to believe this, but I'm-"

They both jerked in surprise when the front door banged open, revealing a disgruntled Nadia with her friend's way-cane in hand standing on the threshold. She quickly crossed over to the bed, swearing softly. It was only when the woman turned to put the way-cane in its proper place beside the bed that she realized something was amiss.

"Syri, why aren't you in bed, sleeping?"

"Nadia! There was some guy in here and--"

"I'm still here, you know."

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

"Kaze, what did you do to her?!"

Startled into silence, Syri swiftly backpedaled and ran her friend's last statement through her mind again. Kaze? Brought back to reality by the thumping, scrambling and swearing that was assaulting her ears, the blind woman surmised that her best friend was currently chasing said intruder around her home and had knocked an unhappy Kantama from his perch judging by the sound of his furious hissing.

"Get back here you weasel of a wolf!"

"You'll kill me!"

"Take it like a man!"

"I'm not a man!"

"Take it like a wolf then!"

"I don't wanna!"

"MRAOW!!!!"

"Ack! The cat's attacking me!"

"Hold him still for me Kantama!"

"Stay away from meeee!"

"STOP!"

At the sound of Syri bellowing like a drill sergeant, both wolf and woman (Kantama had skittered off to a safer area) stopped dead in their tracks and stared over at where the blind woman was standing. The two had overlooked the fact that the cause of their little chase was in the dark as to what was going on, and Nadia quickly briefed her from where she was bent over Kaze's back with her hands wrapped tightly around his neck.

"Kaze.... is a wolf?"

"Aheh.... yeah, I am."

"And this headache is from a concussion?"

"Yeah honey. Hold still you stupid pup! I haven't strangled you yet!"

"Am I supposed to just let you throttle me?!"

"Heck yes!"

And so the chase began again.

Syri sighed. Her friends were so weird.