Disclaimer: No, sadly I don't own any of them (though Kiba would be nice seeing as only he is a wolf in this story) and I'm definitely not getting anything out of this (other than this one's own pleasure. .)

A/N: Well, hey, I got chapter 3 up a LOT faster than I had anticipated. Cool! At this rate I'll be pass my original count of only 10 reviews…I recalculated it and now I'm expecting no more than 14 or 15 reviews. If I'm lucky of course. I'd also like to say that I don'tknow how the schools in Europe divide their breaks, except England. I'm assuming it's not too different all around… Also I'm sorry if this chapter seems a bit choppier than the first two- that's just how it was planned out. I was trying to show time going by without going on about every little detail. Oh, since someone left a review asking where Kiba was, this one got it into its head to add a bit more of him to this chapter. After all, Kiba is very important too. Yes. (Geez, this got long)

memory's strangers

"we dared to ask for more but that was long before

the nights began to burn"

-This Isn't What We Meant (Savatage)

He was running. So many nameless cities, under giant metal arches and pass tumbling, sour-smelling creatures that rumbled nosily, winding his way through narrow streets and high walled glass, he seemed to be running forever. Running through all of it, these cities that were the same yet different, for their scent spoke of life not decaying death. Another memory of another place followed him as he ran. A wasteland turning to ice. A pack of friends and brothers. A sweetly smelling maiden.

But as he ran he didn't have the time to dwell on these memories for there was something else, more immediate in his mind.

He heard a voice calling to him, and he was following it. A voice that was singing to him, a voice he had heard before, and one he would recognize even in death. He couldn't remember how long he had been running toward it. And that's how it was: he was not running after the voice, trying to track it down. No, he knew where the singing voice was, he simply had to get where she was first.

In the last few days her song had become louder to him, the singing clearer than it had ever been before.

He heard her. He had always heard her, somewhere deep inside his heart. And that's why he was running, because he knew she was calling for him, singing to him. If he had been human he may have dwelt on the thought, wondering why it was like that. Perhaps even pondering if the song was really just for him, or how he knew her so very well, so that every sense of him knew exactly where she was. But he was a wolf, and he was not weighted down by human doubts. He had his truth and his instinct, and that was as much as he needed to know to live without regret.

The rocky ground beat against his paws as he ran, the rhythm of his body a slower throb in time with his heart and swiftly in time with the ground. In a way it was his own way of singing, this running of his, at least for the moment.

But would she remember him? After all this time would she still remember him?

It was the closest to doubt that he felt as he ran, running toward that sweetly singing voice he heard.

I'm coming Cheza! We'll find all the others, if you haven't already. We'll find Paradise.

It was a dream. It had to be a dream. She had had others like it before but in her sleep this one made her smile.

She was going somewhere, up hill perhaps. There were others with her, as if in a group of some kind. They were all going somewhere, a house of someone. It was high up, in a rocky place with lots of shaggy grass. The grass was greenish-yellow, cut short by the path that they were one as in wound up toward somewhere, maybe a brownish house, like a wooden dome in the mountains. The sky seemed gray as if it was about to rain. She couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't supposed to be there. Or more that her being here wasn't any more important than anyone else, as if being here was special privilege but she shouldn't expect anything. Then they had greeted her.

She couldn't tell how many there were, but they were running around her, different shades of white and gray and black and brown. She thought maybe there were five. Kneeling in the grass, they bounded up to her, tails wagging, licking her face, crowding around her. One wolf even jumped up, as if trying to get on her back, but only bumping her shoulder. She petted them all, rubbing her fingers gently through their fur, so very happy inside.

When she woke up she didn't remember it right away, but Emma could still feel the happy feeling, golden glowing, silvery-white, lavender shade of happy jumpiness. Tilting her head, she wondered at the odd description but it was a very good one she had to admit. She just really felt good. It seemed an unusual feeling to have, especially considering how she had been feeling recently, but it wasn't uncommon for her to wake up one morning and simply feeling like skipping.

As she sat in her bed thinking this, her dream came back to her, oddly making the happiness seem even more potent. Smiling in a small way, Emma couldn't shake the feeling that this dream, or rather the feeling it gave her, was something…she had felt before? Biting her lip, she ran the thought through her mind.

Yes. I know I've had other dreams with wolves. In the beginning there had only been one wolf, a specific one she was trying to reach or find or pet. She couldn't remember the name anymore, but she remembered that she had said the name in her dream. There had been a few others, another with two or three wolves. She did remember that one of the wolves in that one had been black, whom she had petted. It must have been some time after that the naming had started. Odd that she had forgotten that.

Shrugging it off, she climbed out of bed, shivering in the cooler air.

I wonder what that first name was?

Well, there was no point worrying about it now; it would came to her someday, she was sure of it.

"Hey!"

The protest fell on deaf ears, as a giant wave of water splashed dangerously upon the low shore. Ripples of clear water rustled the cattailsthat stood tall as sentries on the lower end of the lake. It scoped an odd shape through the meadowlike that of a lima bean, with a small line of drooping trees trailing their twiggy fingers in the brown waters. Buds were only beginning to bloom, the branches still mostly bare despite the warmth of the late March sun. The sunlight waltzed across the lake's center, showing the crystal clarity of the water though with the bottom choked with wet mud it gave the rest of the lake a murky sheen.

A grumbling mumble that sounded surprisingly close to swear words was followed by a hiccupped laughter, as the one laughing tried to hold back his amusement. Despite the glaring golden eyes, Hige found himself unable to keep up the pretense. The older man just looked so darn pissed off!

The blue-eyed girl beside him kicked him in the shins, hard without restraint, and he gave her a small splash in accord. She gave a yell of annoyance and forcible shoved the tawny haired boy into the lake. They had both been sitting quietly enough, Hige amusing himself by throwing in stones, preferably big ones to make a bigger splash.

He sputtered in the warm water, stunned speechless.

"That's probably the smartest thing you've done yet." Tsume's sarcastic drawl made Hige wince and Blue smirk.

"Yes. I think I'll take that as a compliment."

As if oblivious to the current bantering, the youngest of their odd little mismatched group peered over at the floundering Hige, kneeling on the other shore's side, his hazel eyes curious.

"How's the water, Hige?"

The grey-eyed boy stared at him a moment, then grinned. Paddling his way over to where Roger sat with Cheza, he called out, "It's a lot nicer than I would have thought, this time of month."

"It's probably the sun."

Hige chose to ignore Tsume's comment.

Sullenly he began to form a witty retort in his mind. But before he could deliver Cheza spoke up instead, as if trying to keep the tension from accelerating anymore. He didn't think she did it intentionally; it was merely the way she was, trying to keep peace between her wolves. He grinned at the thought, his good humoring returning, even if the thought did not precisely make sense. Though there was a kind of sense to it that he found he liked.

"Whatever the reason, the weather is nicer than normal."

"Yeah, especially when we were suppose to get more weeks of winter." Roger piped up.

Tsume raised an eyebrow at that, trying to shake off the last residue of dampness that had just nearly showered him.

As if deciding to change the subject, the silver-haired man, asked, "Where in hell did you find a boulder that big?"

"I'm more curious as to how he was able to lift it." Blue muttered, snickering softly though her voice was good-natured, even teasing. He decided he sort of liked it, though Hige did wish that Tsume and Blue would stop ganging up on him. It was uncanny!

Blue's comment even got a chuckle out of Cheza, who gave Hige a sympathetic smile. Albeit a small one but he was glad of it.

Wadding to shore, Hige snorted back at Tsume and Blue, "By the side of the lake of course and heck, I live out in these parts so no rock, big or small can stand up to me." He grinned wider at his words, somehow pleased with himself. Blue shook her head at him though her azure eyes were smiling quietly.

Roger watched them from where he sat, contemplating everything that had happened recently. It was all so…unbelievable? He wasn't sure that was the right word. If there was one thing he thought, it was that it was best to always use the right word when you were speaking. Or thinking for that matter.

Chewing on some other words, the young auburn-haired boy decided that weird or unusual worked a lot better. None of them had known each other for very long, Cheza and Hige having never even known each other though they lived in the same town. It had been, what? About a month. Whatever it was he found he was glad his school back home had had the problems it had giving him an extra month to stay here.

Yes it was certainly unusual. He hardly knew anything about any of them and yet he felt instinctively that he did. Not being one to get carried away by his feelings, Roger Winterhart commonly found himself swayed by those very same feelings anyway. Out of all of them he had found the closest thing to a shared sense of self with Emma Starr, more often called Cheza. He wasn't sure where he had heard the name before but with it came sweet smelling memories, if a memory could have a scent. She shared something similar to him, maybe in her dedication to words or maybe her seemingly nice nature though he knew she wasn't all sweetness.

Hige was a different matter. The older boy, five years his senior, was an odd mix a clumsy charisma and cheerful cunning. Roger could bet there were things going on in the other's head that he never really let out. But whatever it was, Hige was a good guy, the kind of person who always kept his word. And he was funny, or at least he always tried to be.

His cousin Blue didn't entirely count, since he had known her for longer than the others. Fiercely protective and cautious, she had a good heart, the kind that would probably find a way to use it to the advantage of those in need. It was just in her nature. And right now she was struggling with Hige over "dominance" of the lake's other shore. As Hige tried to climb out further she would push him gently back, just as he would attempt to drag her in. Tsume watched them, a little out of the way, a wary expression on his face.

And then of course there was Tsume. He was an odd one, that one. Shrugging absently to himself, he figured it was the older man's way of keeping his distance. Every movement the silver-haired man made spoke of a remoteness, a kind of trepid wariness. Though Roger thought he had seen it slip once or twice in the last month. Yes, Tsume was really odd.

He turned to Cheza, to say so to her, when he noticed she was watching Tsume too. She didn't look content about it but was biting her lip self-consciously as if something was gnawing at her.

"Cheza? Emma?"

Startled she spun her head toward him, her eyes blinking in surprise.

Tilting his head, he stared at her and then unspokenly wagged his head in Tsume's direction.

She gave a small shrug, her face increasing to a pinker shade. Roger watched amused as she plucked carelessly at her earlobe. He had come to learn that that was one of her nervous habits, something she did when she was confused or at a lost of words.

"Do you think there's another?"

"What?"

Her words weren't what he had been expecting, leaving his mind jilted.

Wrinkling her nose, she sighed, a strange sound partway melancholy and partway dreamy.

"I just have a thought…or a feeling I suppose that there's…another. Someone…else."

"You mean...someone else who should be with us?" As he said it, he knew that she was right. Just as he felt he knew these seeming strangers, just as he had always felt these unspoken, unrecognizable feelings, he felt there was a significant truth to Cheza's words. It gave him a chill though that wasn't a bad thing.

"What are you two whispering about?" Hige called, having won the battle and now sat beside an equally wet Blue. For someone who had just been dunked, she looked rather pleased with herself about something.

Roger scowled. "We aren't whispering."

"I…" Cheza blinked. "I was wondering if there was another…someone else." She finished, answering for him.

Looking curious Blue inquired, "You mean with us?"

"As if we've always been a friendly all-know-each-other group." Tsume muttered.

Everyone ignored that comment.

As Cheza and Blue bounced back words across the water, Roger found his eyes wandering toward the closest end of the lake, the side lined with winding trees. They looked so sad, dangling there like that. He sort of felt he could relate though he certainly didn't feel sad. It was just…sometimes he felt he was missing something that the others could sense and he couldn't. Especially around Tsume and Hige. With Blue it wasn't as bad since his cousin usually tried to explain her strange actions, while the former two never bothered to elaborate. Perhaps Cheza shared the feeling of uncertainty with him. Maybe that was what made him feel so similar to her.

Feeling a strange impulse, Roger crawled through the slinking grass toward the row of trees. No one seemed to notice.

I should have brought Snow, was his only thought.

He rubbed his hand against the bark. It was rough and knotted, like a cracked, thick skin and in the shafts of sunlight it shimmered with a brownish red twinge, the darker shadows a grey green-brown. Two long arms leaned into the water, longer than any of the other branches. It gave him a curious feeling watching the two branches sway gently in the water's depth. It was building up inside him, a slow smoldering something that seemed to be rising from his gut, an automatic response that was completely natural. Without thinking, Roger found his hands clinging to the tree, this one bigger than the rest as he pulled himself up to the lowest branch.

I wonder why I'm the only one without an unusual name.

The thought left him confused and made the already 'building-up' feeling grow louder, if such a phrase could be used. Getting rushed under a wave of rebellious stubbornness, Roger continued to climb the dangerously leaning tree. Ha, look what I can do and they can't. It was a…strange feeling. Swirling and churning as if he wanted to prove something.

It was when he had made it nearly to the top that someone finally noticed him.

"What the hell are you doing!"

Tsume's voice of outrage attracted everyone else's attention.

His cousin was the first one to react. Jumping to her feet, she yelled loudly, perhaps a little too loud, waving her arms expansively. "Toboe get down! You could fall and –and…" Her reprimand fell short when she seemed to realize that there wasn't much for him to hurt himself on in regard to falling. Nothing but water and he could certainly swim.

"I thought his name was Roger?" Hige asked nonchalantly from where he sat by Blue's feet.

Roger had been wondering the same thing. He had never heard Blue call him that name before. Her eyes blinked rapidly, her features twisted between puzzlement and anxiety, the former at Hige's question, the latter at her cousin's current position.

"It's perfectly safe, Blue," he called back, trying to ease her mind.

At just the same time, even as he spoke the words he heard a soft crack and then with a yelp of surprise he found himself swimming unintentionally in the brown waters. Hige burst out laughing; Blue gave a small shriek and gaped, while Cheza gave a quirky half-smile though she too seemed a little concerned. And Tsume gave out a hoarse chuckle, watching the paddling youngster with his hands on his hips.

"I think Toboe's a great name for the runt. He's loud enough to earn it."

The first day of a new month. He always found a quiet kind of pleasure in them. It was a fresh start, a new beginning, happening twelve times a year. The kitchen window was partly opening and dawn had only just broken through. Everyone else in the house was still fast asleep which added to the peaceful feeling of quiet newness.

Only one thing seemed to mar this perfect morning. It was the strange way his wife, Susan Winterhart, now Mrs. Toswiski, had been acting the last month or so. Ever since Katherine and Roger had made what he supposed were friends of some kind, there had been an odd demeanor in his wife's attitude. Even now, Albert Toswiski wasn't sure exactly what had happened to introduce such an odd bunch of people together.

Katherine, a level headed seventeen year old and Roger, a little too enthusiastic for his own good thirteenyear old seemed to have little in common with the three new people they had met. The oldest, at least he figured the tall, somewhat dangerous looking man was the eldest, looking to be over twenty, had a silent aura of moodiness to him, though despite of all that Bert found himself liking the guy. The other two were just a year older than Katherine, one being a guy with a laidback, friendly attitude, the other being a girl seeming lost in her way but sweet enough.

It was this girl, one Amelia Starr, that had thrown off his wife. Susan had seemed to find something odd about the girl and seemed determined to figure out what it was. As if a young girl was science equation one could solve.

He had tried talking to Susan about it but she had only brushed him off. 'Just something I can't help' was all she had said. Right. It was as if she was trying to discover something, some elusive answer she had forgotten she was trying to find. Yes, it was the only damper on this fresh new morning in April.

The sound of loud yells and the reverberating bangs of a body being shoved into wood came from the stairwell, alerting him to the newly awakened presence of his rather rambunctious nephews.

The wind was blowing hard, lounging through the tops of the trees as it gave a lonely howl, making the branches whistle. Green leaves and white blossoms shuddered in the blast, flapping against one another and adding their rhythm to the already loud voice of the wind. Even the park swings were swinging on their own, pushed gently by the wind's hand. Surprisingly the park was empty except for the two of them, Hige mused to himself. Usually even this early in spring this place should have been swarming with kids. The wood-chipped ground round its way in-between a circle of trees, a colorful place filled with various shapes and sizes of expensive plastic and metal. Long tunnels, monkey bars, swings, even those whatcamacallits that you sat on, rocking back and forth like it was a pony. The park had two, an elephant and a something that looked almost like a horse. Maybe it was a donkey…or was it supposed to be a unicorn instead?

He squinted at it through the wind. There did look like there was some sort of bump on the thing's head, right?

"Hige, what are you staring at?"

Her voice drew him out his thoughts, and he waved sheepishly at her.

"Sorry, Blue. Got distracted." In explanation Hige pointed a finger toward the unicorn. He had decided that was what it was. "I was trying to figure out what that was."

Blue gave him a half smile, thought her eyes appeared as distracted as his thoughts had been. Their blue depths seemed muted and hung with an intricate veil he could not quite see through nor comprehend.

"Blue?" He inquired, moving beside her. The wind whipped her dark hair wildly around her face.

Her blue eyes glanced at him then danced away, staring up into the white-blossoming trees instead.

He stared at her a moment then nudged her, butting her shoulder with his.

"C'mon, you're the one who wanted to talk. What's up?"

Blue continued to stare at the swaying trees. The weather was warm, but the wind made goose bumps rise on the skin of his arms.

Rubbing briskly at his forearms, Hige opened his mouth to ask again, when Blue took it upon herself to answer.

"The winter's ended a while ago."

He nodded in tentative agreement despite the fact that her back was still to him.

"We only had planned to stay until the first couple days of April. School works a bit differently over there, you see."

Again he nodded dumbly after her words until their meaning dawned on him.

"You mean, going back to Italy? Or wherever you go to school. You were just…staying for the spring –what break or something? Is that all this is." He turned his hands out in a gesture of relief. "And I thought it was something to worry about."

At that, she turned to him again; her eyes glinted angrily even though they seemed to shine. "How can you say that?" Her eyes seemed to say to him, but what about everything? What will happen now? What will we do? What about us?

Feeling a bit ashamed, he tried to give her a remorseful smile, saying in what he hoped was a nice enough voice with just the right amount of seriousness. It had never been one of his strong points; seriousness that is. "Aah, Blue. There's nothing to worry about. We'll still keep in touch." He gave her a small hug, letting his arm linger around her shoulders. "It's all right Blue. I…" he paused a moment, blinking at the range of feelings that were fluttering in his chest. "All the others—well, mostly Cheza I guess—will still keep contact with you. You know that. And…" he bit his lip, "that is, I will too. I mean, c'mon Blue…your…I…that is…" Scratching his nose he felt his cheeks grow warm, confused a bit by his rambling. Whatever it was he was trying to say, somehow Blue seemed to grasp it because she gave a tiny smile, this one softer than the one before and kissed him gingerly on the cheek.

He was a bit stunned and it took him a few seconds to hear what Blue was saying. It sounded like she had been talking for a bit.

"…give us a ride to the airport, since Aunt Susan has a special meeting and Uncle Bert is usually busy on Wednesdays."

"Eh? What was that? Who's taking you?"

Giving him a mocking scowl, she said, "That friend of Cheza's, Raphael. The one you met at the picnic two weeks ago."

"Aaah."

"I thought that would help you remember."

He gave her a hard nudge for that one. Still grinning at him, she dug her elbow into his side, making him laugh.

Ah yes, life was good. Distance could never really separate people when they really loved each other. Distance was just another insignificant factor when the feelings of two were concerned.

It was evening. The velvet blueness had sunk behind the greater darkness though there were still traces of crimson orange and fiery scarlet smeared on the farthest edges of the horizon. Crickets chirped, the tall grasses crackled, and the branches overhead rattled; the growing nightly noises. But there was another one, more a scent or a feeling than anything else. It was something so familiar but not the way her singing was or even the memories of the others were. No, despite the lingering similarity there was another odor, one that made his hackles rise. A low growl permeated from his throat, threatening this familiar smell. With it came back memories of a twisted blackness mixed with the aroma of blood, full of sharp angles and corrupted vitality. It smelled like a stain, violet blue like a bruise shimmering with a glint of gold. A wolf's eye. He felt the growl grow deeper as his senses keyed on the source of the scent.

Just beyond him, pass a small sheltering of thin trees ran one of those black paths and with it one of the loud, bad-smelling creatures. It was there, right there! He wouldn't let the other get in the way again; he would stop the other before anything else could happen. Before paradise could fail again, unopened.

With these thoughts behind him, the white wolf leapt forward finding himself on the front of one of the rumbling creatures. There was a shout of panic, then a screeching wail followed by a loud collision, and he felt himself thrown to the hard black ground.