Kiba padded along. He had ran for about a mile now and the scent of a city came to his nostrils. He sniffed the air some more, this city was full of food. It made his stomach rumble quietly. Before he did anything, such as go get the pack, he was going to explore.
Going in his human form, his eyes scoured the buildings. It was another dump of a city. He could hear the cackling laughter of a pack of humans about a third mile from him. He could smell the bitter scent of gas and cars, he could see the garbage that flowed in the water system, he could taste the stomach-wrenching scent of burning animal flesh, he could feel the thick air that surrounded him and sensed the eyes watching him as he stepped further and further into the city.
Kiba kept his guard up. He didn't have a good feeling about this city, like something important was here. The same feeling he had gotten when he found Cheza for the first time ever. Kiba just couldn't describe it.
Jumping slightly when he felt a hand wrap around his upper arm, Kiba looked swiftly to see who had grabbed him. He blinked, it was just a frail-looking old lady that was connected to the hand wrapped around him.
"You look like a strong, young man," she spoke in cracked, scratchy voice, "How would you like to help out a diligent young lady with some heavy work?"
Kiba at first thought she was talking about herself until a tall thing of boxes caught the corner of his eye. The tower of cardboard stopped just a few feet behind the elder woman.
"Grandma...! I told you not to walk off on your own!" A younger voice called out from behind the boxes. The boxes were then softly placed on the ground. The holder stood up, his eyes rising to scan the person.
It was definitely a young woman, just like the elder one had talked about. She had a beautiful river of long black hair that flowed down her back, stopping at the beginning of her legs, two shorter strips of hair draped around the frame of her face. Her eyes were a burning red-orange that stared hard at the old woman. She was very thin, her skin very pale but so clear, like the dull reflection of the moon. Her height reached a little lower than his own shoulder, roughly to his collar bone. She wore a tight, white, short-sleeved shirt with a black jacket loosely hanging on her arms, tight light blue jeans torn at the knees hugging her legs. He could smell the wolf in this girl.
"I told you Grandma, I can do this just fine on my own! Don't bother others!" The younger woman screeched.
"You are so tiny, you cannot do it all the way..." The Grandma replied stubbornly.
"I've done it before! I can do it again!"
Kiba stood silently as he watched the two bicker back and forth. He couldn't exactly blame the elder, she was small, and the boxes were taller than she, but maybe they weren't as heavy as the grandma thought they were. Only now did Kiba even realize as they fouht that the woman had released him from her grip.
As they fought, he walked over to the box tower and picked up the top two boxes out of a stack of four. They were heavy, even for a wolf like him. He wondered how a tiny girl could lift four of these heavy boxes at the same time.
"Oh, please, I can do it on my own. You don't have to..." The young one spoke to him, ignoring her grandmother.
"It's fine, really. It's a good chance for me to see the city anyway." He told them as the elder stuck her tongue out at her grand-daughter.
"Right..." She mumbled as she bent down and picked up the other two boxes. "Thanks." The girl started walking ahead of him and the elder woman.
"So, young man. My name is Kavita, and the hot-head over there is Saki Tsukiko. We call her Tsuki for short, mainly because she just reminds us of the moon. Her delicate skin being the dull shimmer of the moon and her hair being the nightsky." Kavita explained without him even having to ask. He did think the same thing earlier. The only ting that never really matched her looks were her fiery eyes, unless they were the dying moon told in the Book of the Moon. Also known as the way to open Paradise, if they had Cheza at that time of course.
"Kiba." He said plainly.
"Hm?" The grandmother huffed out curiously.
"Kiba. It's my name." He repeated.
"Ah, well it is a pleasure to meet you Kiba. We appreciate your help." Kavita told him with a smile.
""Speak for yourself..." Tsuki scoffed under her breath, barely audible. "Turn this way."
Nodding once, he followed behind her as they turned into a dark alley. It was damp and narrow, but wide enough for the boxes to fit through. He started to wonder where they were going, then a foul smell came to his senses. It was disusting, but he kept a cool outlook.
Then the two ladies stopped. Tsuki placed down her boxes and tapped an odd pattern on a certain tile with her feet. The tiles were old stone, lined with a green slime through the cracks. Then the stone that she tapped lifted up slowly. An elder man peered out at them, and moved to the side, allowing two younger men through and taking the boxes Tsuki had carried. So far everyone he has seen have been wolves.
"Come, we shall show you, young Kiba." Kavita spoke up as the boxes were taken from Kiba and taken down the secret passage way.
Hesitating, he followed them down the hole the stone tile hid, he saw a large room, filled with wolves. Young, old, male, female, injured, weak, strong, healthy and sick. The tile then covered the entrance again.
"Kira...? Where is she? I can smell her from up there, if she's due I have to see her, tell me where she is!" Tsuki commanded impatiently.
That explains the scent... Kiba thought to himself.
"This way." A young teenage wolf spoke and led Tsuki to a closed-off room. Before she entered, she turned.
"Kei, bring me boiled water, and cold water to drink. Kai, you bring me towels and blankets, lots of them. Raiden, bring something that can withstand applied pressure for her to squeeze, bring me a mop too. Somebody else, give me pillows for the babies, go now!" Tsuki ordered, the selected people scurrying off to complete their orders. She then went into the closed off area.
"What is all this?" Kiba questioned.
"It's our pack. We stay down here in hiding, otherwise the humans will try to kill us." Kavita said as she sat down. "You see young man, we had lived in peace until about seventy years ago. I was just a pup when the peace was disrupted. Humans found out about our existance eighty years ago, the year I was born. They didn't mind so much, so allowed us to stay, even though we had founded this city. At first, ten years later, it had just been about a food shortage we had, and naturally the humans blamed us for that. They claimed it was because we kept having so many pups, since wolves tend to have twins, triplets or more. Not in our control... Our suffering then came from having our food supply cut in half. MAny died in the next years, starvation and not a lot of healthy food, so disease went around and killed them off like that. The incident was what really tore it..." Kavita trailed off into deep thought.
"They were violent, cruel yet human gangs back in this time. It was fifteen years after out food shortage. They caused havoc wherever they walked... One night they had caused fires in multiple locations, such as home and hot places to go back then. The wolves, since we bred more, were still more populated than the humans so a lot of us were found around these areas as the fires roared angrily, licking the wood they turned to ashes. Wolves felt no hard-feelings toward the humans, so broke down doors, tore down walls, smashes windows, they did whatever they could to get in these buildings and helping the humans. We rescured parents, adults, children, teenagers, children, all of the above. Yet we still couldn't rescue as many as we would have liked, we lost a lot of our kind that day as well, as did they. To our misfortune, the real cultprits had died in the fires they began, so proof couldn't be given. They were angry about this as well, but what really set them off was, well, obviously a wolf, but the one he had attempted to rescue died. It was only an infant, poor thing... This wolf later became my mate, but anyway. The infant had died in the fire from smoke inhalation, it's tiny lungs not being able to take very much of it as it screamed and cried... As he stood by it sadly, they thought he had killed it, but instead of doing a proper autopsy, they went ahead and assumed he was the killer. With this, they hunted us. They shot us, tortured, skinned, ate, you name it. So we found refuge here, so we can remain living in our city without fear of being found and killed." She finished.
"And even after forty-five years?" Asked Kiba.
"Yes."
"Haven't they forgotten? It was such a long time ago, surely-"
"Nay, young man... They haven't. Parents of that generation, through that lifetime have told their children about that time, and their childrens' children, so on so forth. They tell them this story in order to warn them of us and scare them, so that hatred flows in new veins. Any other misfortune they also blame on us..."
"You and Saki were just outside though." Kiba pointed out.
"Yes, it's not like they all carry guns with them... Or that they expect us to show our muzzles around, but when they do see us, they throw whatever they can or do whatever they can to harm us. We got lucky, it was only rocks this time."
"But you look just fine..."
"I may, only because I wasn't hit, thanks to Tsuki."
Kiba fell silent Saki, protecting someone was and wasn't hard to imagine.
"Why don't you just leave? Why live in fear and hiding?" He questioned like bullets, trying to understand their reasoning.
"This is our city, why should we have to leave?" Kavita questioned right back.
"If you feel like that, then why don't you all do something about it rather than hide and cower to them?"
"We're not cowering, I'll have you know." Another voice spoke up. Turning to see who it was, he saw Saki standing there with a towel as she was wiping blood from her arms. "If we push against them then that's only going to prove what they think of us, providing a valid reason for their hate. So if we shove them out of this city, they could go and gather more humans with their weapons and come back, and a war is the last thing we want."
"There has always been a war between wolves and humans, they will always fear us." Kiba explained.
'No, that's not true. There was a time in which we could live in harmony." Saki protested.
"That was seventy years ago, you've lived in hiding for almost fifty years now, don't you think that if they wanted to be in peace again they'd stop spreading the hatred? Humans and wolves living in harmony is an impossible, foolish goal."
"Foolish? Maybe to you outsiders, but living in peace with others different from you, such as being a different race all completely without fear was a beautiful thing, something we wish to obtain once more. Impossible? No, nothing is impossible, if you try hard enough for it. impossible is a word people use to convince themselves and others that it is."
Kiba fell silent once more. He stared into her fiery eyes with his ice-blue ones. They were filled with determination that burned within her heart. He said nothing more about it, for it reminded him of when people spoke about him trying to reach Paradise.
"I have to go for a bit, Grandma. I'll be back in a little while." Saki told Kavita as she stepped up the few steps toward the place they entered, lifting up the stone and hopping out, placing it back in its original spot.
"Such a hot-head she is..." Kavita mumbled under her breath with a smile painted on her lips.
"...Why does she call you Grandmother when you two aren't related...?" Kiba decided to change the subject, looking at the elder.
"Ah, you have sharp senses young man," She said with a nod, "you see, Kiba, Tsuki is not originally born here. She is not of this city. I do believe if anyone knows of betrayal, it is dear Tsuki. I don't know much of the story, but when she had came here she had hated humans to a great passion, being raised with my mate and I made her reasonably tolerant, and forgiving if they had come to peace with us once more. The story I do not know, but I know she must have had such a horrible tragedy in order for a girl that young to habor so much hatred in one small body. i have asked her about it but the look that came onto her face, just made me want to cry, so we spoke no more of it, but I will never forget how we found her... It was pure luck she had survived at all. I was walking with my mate, it was our anniversary, so we had decided to get out of this hateful city. It wasn't until late that night when we had heard hardly audible whimpering. Startled slightly, we searched for the source of the sound and it wasn't long before we found a small black lump, red glistening on it's fur from the dull glimmer of the moon. We soon found out it was a small pup, Tsuki of course. Taking her home, we took care of her wounds and raised her as our own. It was years before she had spoke a word, in fact it wasn;t until just a couple years ago that she started speaking when a human had tried to attack me. Oh boy she exploded then... Well, it's fair to say she's well now, but even so she still had issues trusting..." She stopped.
"What, if I can ask, exactly, happened to your mate?" Kavita then smiled sadly.
"He was killed about a year ago." Kavita answered with shimmering sad eyes. Then she blinked, snapping out of her little world. "Oops, I forgot to ask about Kira's delivery." She stood up. "Come, young man, you may see."
Without another word, Kiba followed. Opening up the back door that Saki had walked into before. Peering over the elder, he saw an even more frail young woman. He assumed this was the Kira they had spoke of. No wonder she needed help with birth, she looked like a fragile porcelain doll.
"Hello, Kira. How do you feel dear?" Kavita asked with a gentle smile.
"It went well, thank you." Kira responded with a smile, her voice soft like a thing of fine silk, yet tiredness dripped in it. Then he figured he caught the new mothers' eye, for a loud, vicious growl erupted from her throat, her fragile image changing into something monsterous as he could see her wolf form. It was a light gray fur painted on top of white, brown spots all over her. Her purely white teeth bared viciously at him. Kiba did nothing, a slight fear of alarming the mother than he already had. Ater all, it was only a mothers' instinct to protect her newborn children. Twins at that. Anytime really.
"Calm, Kira. He is just a visitor, just here to observe, he will not harm them or you. I invited him personally to come and view your newborns." Kavita informed her. Kira relaxed slightly, but made sure to keep a sharp eye on him.
Before anything else could happen between the three wolves, a quick, anxious barge-in interrupted. The wolves looked slightly panicked as they came through the tile entrance.
"Guys!" One yelled to catch their attention. "Tsuki is out there fighting! At first it was a small pack of humans but now it is a pack of wolves!"
"Why did you come back?" Someone yelled.
"She had told us to come back and tell you!" He defended himself.
"What do they look like?" Kiba asked him, stepping forward.
"Uh, one is gray, two brown, one light one dark, and another a black-blue collar. One has a scar on his chest, a collar on his neck and the last has three bracelets on his paw." The second wolf had described to him, but Kiba had already ran off.
((Author's Note: Just a fyi, Saki and Tsuki are the same person, Kiba calls her by her first name, Saki, and the pack by her last name, Tsukiko, but Tsuki a nickname if you don't remember from reading earlier... Thanks for reading. 3 :3 ))