Author's Note: I apologize that this chapter took so long to write. School has been an… arse. xP Seriously. And I've lost interest in this for a little bit. But now I'm back – with a vengeance! x3

Character Notes/Response to Reviews: (I know I shouldn't have this up since the recent 'respond to reviewers' feature they added. Shhh! Don't tell!) Thanks to all those who have reviewed this story! And so now it's time now for some fun! xD When you review – I want you to tell me what you think could make this story better! Any suggestions will be taken into thought for the next chapters! Thanks in advance!

Manga: Yay! Good news, all! Since my family has gotten a new printer/scanner, I can show you the most important parts of the manga. :3 I'll simply scan them, and then I will post the links to the images via here. It'll be very basic – I might just upload (the prologue from this story) the end of the manga for now, so all of you can see whom Jakken and Tiben look like. :) (Seen in the normal right to left format of most manga). Manga of Wolf's Rain © BONES, Keiko Nobumoto
Page 1: www . boomspeed . com / auroranwing / manga1 . JPG
Page 2: www . boomspeed . com / auroranwing / manga2 . JPG
Page 3: www . boomspeed . com / auroranwing / manga3 . JPG

Wolf Interaction: (Going to post the past statement I made – just to get it into your heads.) Now, in this story I have many references to where the wolves in here change from wolf to human without me saying/typing so – it's the way that I type this story that you have to interpret if they're human or wolf at the moment. If you get confused at how you read a sentence – if it doesn't make sense, just think if it would make more sense if they were human or wolf at the moment. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Wolf's Rain; or any aspects of it. Or the song 'Gravity.' I consume the copyrights only to this story's plot, Jakken and Tiben's personalities, and dear sweet Blanke! x3

-…-

"The moon is not shamed by the barking of dogs."
-American Indian Proverb (Southwest)

-…-

Wolf's Rain :00: An Other Story

Chapter #Six: The Rain Will Cease to Follow
Current Ages (Wolf):
Tiben: Four
Jakken: Four
Blanke: Three

"Why do we have to run so fast again?" Blanke piqued up, her breathing hard.

"Because… we're on our journey and that's what you do. Run fast and hard." Tiben responded shortly. The wound on his shoulder was aching again, and it put him in an irritable manner.

"…So when Jagara finds us we're easier to catch." Jakken added in, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he ran, his blue eyes wide with amusement.

"Very funny." Blanke responded dryly.

The two brothers exchanged looks, looks holding the same look of fear they had two nights ago when the Noble behemoth had passed over their heads. They couldn't tell Blanke about that yet. It would scare her even more. She was younger than them; although age had no discretion over knowledge. She could know more than they realized.

The three wolves slowed their pace when all of them had begun panting mildly. Blanke, during this small break, tipped her head to the sky, and a worried expression flitted over her face. "Looks like there's going to be rain, soon." She commented lightly.

The brothers looked up as well, and a grim look settled on Tiben's face. "I'm afraid she's right," he said to Jakken's look of outrage, "it is going to be raining eventually."

Jakken growled. "Well that just puts the beef on my day…" He muttered under his breath.

Blanke giggled and Tiben simply shook his head.

No sooner had Jakken spoken than a sudden downpour opened down on them, the three of them looking into the sky with different expressions on their face.

"This is just great!" Jakken shouted, as thunder suddenly rumbled deeply after a crack of lightning had split the sky.

"Shut up and start running." Tiben responded shortly, and began to run, with the two other wolves hanging back for a moment.

Jakken motioned to Blanke, and she leaned in for a moment, listening to gray wolf as he whispered, "He gets cranky in rain."

Blanke giggled as the two spread to their respected ranks beside Tiben. His cool brown eyes held no emotion as the three began their normal pace again, the rain spattering and staining their fur darker shades of off-white and gray, while the mud splattered and dirtied their legs and muzzles.

Tiben kept his innermost thoughts to himself, not even revealing them to his life-long friend, partner, and brother Jakken. Now was one of those times he thought, while Blanke and Jakken passed jokes occasionally and spoke a few words. Running was one of the only times that his mind cleared, and he was able to focus on one subject.

As he ran, and as thunder and lightning filled the sky with their rumbles and lights, he became confused (not for the first time on this journey). The first thought he had: Why were things changing? It used to be easy enough to live as a wolf, but that was a long time ago, when they were barely a few weeks old and even that was torn away from them. All they had to go by was the mysterious petal they had found at the massacre from their former pack, the strange blue-black wolf that had told them to go on, and the longing, the strange instinctual longing, to go towards the place their parents had been looking for. But was that place?

Why had he and his brother run into so much trouble since they met Blanke?

And speaking of which, who was she, really? She didn't have a family; she didn't have any recollection of her past that she had told he and his brother of. She was just a lone wolf.

And finally – who was this Lady Jagara that was one of the more famous Nobles, aside from Lord Oakam and Lord Darica himself. Her name had quickly been rising among the villagers of the region, and they spoke it with fear – and with good reason.

Tiben focused for a moment on the wound on his shoulder, and it hit him with a grim reality.

They may not survive in battle of high-class Nobles.

He stopped, skidding to a finish, splattering himself and his companions with mud.

"What was THAT for, Tiben!" Blanke demanded angrily, looking over herself with a concerned eye, clearly upset. "It's going to take me AGES to clean myself off!"

"Yes, brother, why did you stop so suddenly?" Jakken asked, cocking his head and looking at his brother concernedly.

"I –" Whatever Tiben was about to say was cut off. The spray of gunfire cut through the ground only inches behind them.

"What?"

All three wolves cocked their ears where the gunfire came from. The trio narrowed their eyes, until they saw a caravan of soldiers' armored trucks.

"Guess they didn't like our little game of hide-and-seek." Jakken commented innocently enough, and then winced as he received identical looks of bitterness and irritability from both Blanke and Tiben.

"Just a joke…" He muttered as an apology as the other two sprang away from where they had been sitting and towards the train. "Hey – wait for me!" He called.

-...-

Tiben kept his feet moving faster than ever, saying in spare breaths to Blanke and Jakken, "Get… to… the train… catch a ride… won't… attack civil-… -ians…"

"Whatever you say, Tiben. Just get us away from those soldiers!" Blanke called, yelping as clods of dirt were kicked up from the machine guns on the trucks and hit the three wolves in the back. "Not as though were dirty enough as it is…" She muttered in response to this, clearly upset over the cleanliness of her fur.

Running, running as long as long as they could breathe. The three wolves did not stop and think, even as the small raindrops hit their faces and mud spattered their coats with mud. They couldn't stop – not now, more than ever. Especially with the sharp and crisp sound of gunfire that followed their every move.

"Lucky for us their aim is about as good as Tiben's skill at hunting." Jakken commented dryly, earning himself a sharp and hurried look from his brother as they neared the tracks.

"Funny you should mention hunting, Jakken," Tiben began to say, before he was cut off by Blanke as she shouted something with a sudden bark.

"Shut up you two – can't you see we're there!" She called, her words barely heard over the clattering of the train's wheels on the tracks.

The group had reached the train and the railway at last, and it seemed that Tiben's prediction was indeed correct. The mechanical bite of the machine guns' bullets had ceased, albeit for now. Though their pace was quickly reduced from their fatigue and seeming safety of the train, this quickly proved to be the wrong idea. The caboose of the train was pulling up quickly, and it soon became clear that they needed to jump aboard soon if they were to survive.

"Climb aboard!" Blanke shouted, as the brothers responded with equal surprise, "WHAT!"

"It's now or never, guys! Don't you two trust me?" She shouts, the roar of the train and the explosion of the thunder almost drowning out her voice.

Tiben's brown eyes become unsure, almost hesitant. But his actions do not. "Now!"

At Tiben's word of warning, the three wolves leap, and land on top of one another on a small platform on the edge of the caboose. Their nervous laughter quickly dispel any fears that are left.

Jakken pulls himself up from the pile, leaning on the thin railing surrounding their small patch of safety. He stuck his tongue out in a gesture of defiance to the already fading convoy of soldiers.

"Yes!" He shouted happily, wiping some rain off of his face, "Good job, Blanke!"

Tiben simply nodded in agreement to this statement, his eyes already searching for a way off this platform. Clearly they can't stay on here forever. "There!" He said, pointing to a ladder on the side of the train. "We'll mingle." He says simply.

-…-

As the rain pattered softly against the windowpanes, and the lightning and thunder roll across the plains as echoes; the storm itself already fading away, no one notices three very wet and muddy teens blend into the crowd, wiping water from their faces and squeezing their sodden clothes dry. The trio found a spare cabin in one of the more mediocre carts for citizens to buy passage on, and decide to rest, one against the other as the rocking of the train and the slowing patter of the rain against the window lulled them to sleep.

The moon was finally revealed as the clouds from the dying storm parted, leaving the beginning-to-wane moon and its light to shine briefly, before it fell beneath the rim of the earth and let the sun take over. But now, while three wolves slept in comfort of its light, others barked and snarled at the light it shed, having crawled out from the comfort of their homes and shook their wet fur.

Coyotes, barking wistfully at their only guide and light, unknowing of the destiny being fulfilled.

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Wings: -writhes- I feel so bad because it literally took me around six months (and more) to upload this story. You all have my dearest and humblest apologies. Finding inspiration to start typing this again was hard. Again – I apologize. –bows-

Preview for Next Chapter
The group is now inside a train (hopefully) going to Theriopolis. So now what? What will happen now, after a battalion of armed soldiers are found aboard the train? Tiben, Jakken, and Blanke have survived the trip onto the train; but will they make it off alive?