A/N: Okay, so it took me about a week to get this done n.n; not too bad, right? I'm a little sad that no one reviewed, but I guess it makes sense when you have a boring first chapter. I hope that this one will peak the interest of more people. A lot of things are explained here…but I'm hoping that I left enough out for later chapters…and that everything isn't too confusing!

I'm leaving for a trip and won't be able to update as quickly next time. Even if this wasn't very quick. Just hope that…if anyone actually reads this that fact won't bother them XD I'll just make sure to think the chapter out in my head for when I return~

Thanks to anyone that read this last week, and many thanks to my beta again! :3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the alternate universe. Code Geass and all the characters don't belong to me.

~*~*~*~*~

"Suzaku…"

A familiar voice was calling for him. He was unable to move or respond however, and there was a thick layer of blackness that seemed to coat all his senses. He couldn't see, couldn't smell, couldn't feel…and his hearing was very muffled, as if that voice was coming from far away, or if his head were under water.

"…Wake up…"

It was getting louder. There was anxiety and desperation in that voice. Although both emotions were glaringly obvious, the speaker was trying hard to cover them up with frustration and anger. He knew that voice…it was…it was…

"Damnit Suzaku, wake up!!"

Suzaku yelped and flailed in attempts to sit up and look around, but it appeared that he had gotten tangled in the blankets overnight, and instead of sitting up he managed to half roll off of the couch altogether, so that his torso was hanging over the edge with his legs thrown haphazardly over the arm and back. He stared dizzily up at nothing for a long moment before he was able to shake his head and try to focus his eyes. "Wha…?! I'm up!"

"I'm…glad?" A voice hesitantly responded. The cat Lelouch was leaning with his arms folded on the back of the couch, a thin eyebrow raised in that manner he seemed to love so much. He looked rather confused and startled.

"Ah…you didn't have to yell, you know…" He considered a few other, more pleasant ways Lelouch could have woken him up, but cut off the train of thought before it got too explicit. He didn't need this first thing in the morning…

"I didn't say anything." Lelouch frowned and his brow furrowed a bit as he came around the couch and offered Suzaku a hand, just like before. Suzaku gaped as his confusion increased a hundred fold, and ended up simply staring at the outstretched hand long enough that Lelouch was shifting uncomfortably. He looked ready to retract the hand. Finally his arm mechanically moved to grasp it and he awkwardly scrambled his way back onto the couch. He didn't want to admit it, but when he was worried about yanking Lelouch down, it actually made getting up harder with Lelouch's "help".

"But I swear I heard you…you yelled at me to wake up."

"You might have been dreaming you know. Things like that happen. I had only just come into the room and looked down at you when you started twitching and groaning in your sleep. I was about to wake you up, but it seems you startled yourself awake." Lelouch pulled the blankets back up onto the couch and dumped them unceremoniously on Suzaku, who made a grunt of protest and struggled to get them off of his head. "Was it a nightmare?"

"I wouldn't call it that. It was…just a loud voice…telling me to wake up. …You really didn't?"

"I didn't." A pause. "…I'll get you some clean clothes." Lelouch cleared his throat and turned to retreat back into his bedroom. Suzaku looked confused until he glimpsed his clothes sitting folded up some ways away and quickly studied himself. He was only in his boxers. Such an early hour and he was already faced with embarrassment.

Eventually he was dressed in a plain shirt and some jeans, both of which clung to him a bit more than he would have liked because of Lelouch's smaller stature. They were about the same height, but even this Lelouch, whom seemed more active than the one he knew, was thinner than himself. …And a good deal curvier than him too. Well, from what he could tell. Still, they smelled nice and felt okay and there was an interesting sort of thrill in knowing that Lelouch had, at some point, worn these clothes as well. This was, of course, what he mused over while he sat at the table and waited for Lelouch to finish with breakfast. It was to distract himself from feeling rather useless. But Lelouch had insisted that he do all the work, so in the end he was left tracing random designs on the tablecloth with a finger and feeling ten years younger.

Most of the meal was spent in silence. Suzaku would try to start up a conversation and Lelouch would shoot most things down with short and decisive answers. It probably didn't help that Suzaku was asking questions about this world and all, because Lelouch really didn't seem to like that topic. It became especially bad whenever he mentioned Lelouch's family, and often times he would have to sheepishly apologize and eat on without speaking again for a good while. Lelouch just wasn't willing to tell him much.

His own irritation was starting to rise as he watched the cat boy get ready for the trip. The thin boy had a large bag that he packed full of various things, most of which Suzaku wasn't allowed to get a peek at, and when it was full he did a once over of the house to make sure everything was in place. It was only a two-day trip, so Suzaku couldn't understand what all the fuss was over, but he did his best to wait patiently despite his inner mind demanding that he get answers. He felt nervous not knowing.

Lelouch pulled the bag out of the house and locked the door behind him before turning to look at Suzaku. There was something hard and firm in his eyes that made Suzaku's mouth go dry. He shifted once before Lelouch spoke.

"The plants need to be taken care of, and then we will be ready to head off. Stay here and don't touch anything, all right?" And then, because the bag was too heavy to bring with him, he left both it and Suzaku waiting on the porch as he headed around to finish his chores. At first Suzaku felt that that look had been enough to get him to follow that order…but after a few short moments he was already itching with a curiosity so strong it felt impossible to resist. How could he, when Lelouch was keeping secrets? Secrets that he showed Suzaku he was keeping? His fingers twitched and he bit his lower lip before he was on the bag and digging through a few of the pockets. A compass, some maps, coins he believed to be the currency of this place, and…he paused when he came across a book. It was flimsy and bound in soft leather without any words to label it. A simple buckle held it shut and Suzaku looked around before undoing it and flipping it open to some place in the middle. The pages were filled with tiny, neat, gracefully scrawling print that he knew, somehow, to be Lelouch's. Even more surprising was that he could read it. It was convenient that, as well as speaking the same language, they also wrote the same. Whatever it is this was…

At first none of what was written made sense, even if he knew the words. It seemed to be a record of some sort, with each page dated and multiple lines numbered with times. Some of the entries next to the times were short and brief, and some went on for paragraphs, carefully describing details he figured Lelouch thought were important. But what was being recorded, he didn't know. His eyes started to skim a larger paragraph in hopes of understanding, but a cleared throat made him go pale and slam it shut.

"I was…I was…" he began to protest weakly before the book was snatched out of his limp grasp and shoved back into the bag. Lelouch was glaring coldly at him.

"I specifically told you not to touch anything. All of these things are mine. If there is something in here that I choose to share with you, then I will make that decision." Lelouch reprimanded him as he hefted the bag up and pulled it onto his back. He seemed to struggle with it at first, but shoved Suzaku's hand away when he offered to help. "Let's get a move on, or we'll arrive in town too late."

They walked along the vague path through the forest again, Suzaku with his head hung and Lelouch a bit ahead of him, tail flicking in aggravation. Once again they were plagued with silence and Suzaku didn't know the right way to break it after his mess up. For now most of his attention was given to the ground, as the path was hardly a path once it reached the trees. It was back over all those branches and roots, but it looked like he had a slightly easier time than Lelouch. He extended a second offer to carry it, only to be hissed at. He didn't ask again.

Once out of the forest they were walking through the plain Suzaku had been lying in. Now that he could look around, it was mostly a vast area of tall grasses with a few zig-zagged trails left from travelers. The forest curved like a crescent around one side of the plain, but on the other side, after an expanse of flat ground, started the rolling hills. That's where Lelouch seemed to be headed, although his only indication was the direction he was traveling. Now that he no longer had to focus on not falling on his face, Suzaku was left with very little to set his mind on. He easily became bored as they walked, and then increasingly agitated. Whenever he tried watching Lelouch's tail he got a bit too distracted, and so he had to settle for the field ahead of them. There were plenty of bugs flying around, but after another cold look from Lelouch when he tried to make a game of chasing them, he had to try ignoring them as well. Before the trip hadn't seemed so daunting- most of a day's walk to town, it seemed easy enough. Considering Lelouch probably walked slowly, it didn't seem very far to him in his mind. However, the more he was faced with the never-ending terrain, the more he started to see just how long this was going to take. They were going to walk on for hours and he didn't have a single thing to do.

It didn't take him long before he started trying to talk again.

"Um, that book you have…" he trailed off, half wondering if he had chosen a horrible topic to try and break the silence with.

"It's just a log. It has no meaning to you, and I'd like it if we could keep things that way." Lelouch's voice was void of emotion and Suzaku couldn't see his face, as they were walking single-file. At the very least, he thought to himself, he had gotten the boy to respond. With words, even, not with cat-like noises that made him shiver and want to put his arms around him.

"Right. Just a log. Okay, we can go with that." The silence threatened to settle in, so he grasped at straws for conversation topics that weren't off limits. "You're still not going to tell me about humans, are you?"

A pause, and then, hesitantly, "Some consider humans to be freaks or mistakes, while some might as well worship the ground they walk on. It's a genetic mutation in this world to end up a human, although no one is sure how it occurs or why. It does seem to happen most frequently when a forbidden relationship between a cat and a dog is consummated."

It was more than he had hoped for when he brought it up so he did a silent victory dance in his head and resisted the urge to actually leap up. He had to keep Lelouch talking- he was on a roll!

"If that's all a human is, why have you been going on about how valuable I am?"

"Certain things exist in humans that do not appear in cats or dogs." Lelouch shrugged without looking at Suzaku, although there was a certain hint of unease in his voice that suggested he didn't particularly want to continue with his explanation. "Once again, some people find it a blessing and others call it a curse."

The window of opportunity Suzaku had uncovered was beginning to close, and so, desperate, he tried to squeeze a bit more out of Lelouch. "So either you think that whatever…things exist in me happen to be real important, or you're hoping to find someone else that thinks so and…"

"You can't honestly be accusing me of trading you like some object." Lelouch sounded incredulous as he stopped and turned on his heel to stare at Suzaku. The brown-haired boy laughed sheepishly and looked away while kicking at the ground with the toe of his shoe. "As much as some people believe that one race is higher up on the food chain than another, that is a black practice that has almost always been forbidden. Even if the trading of any race was acceptable, those that are disgusted by humans would not want anything to do with them, and those that believed them to be valuable would treat them far more like honored beings than creatures to be enslaved."

"…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you or anything, it's just…" Suzaku rubbed at the back of his head with a hand. He looked so much like a scolded puppy that Lelouch had half a mind to check for any ears and tail he might have previously missed.

"I know. You don't understand what is going on, and you can't be sure of whether or not my intentions are harmful to you." After a moment more of studying his traveling companion, Lelouch turned around again and continued to walk on the path while hefting his huge bag higher up on his back. Suzaku hurried to follow while chewing at his lower lip. It didn't seem like an easy burden to carry at all, especially for one as thin as Lelouch.

"I trust you," he said, and his voice was firm enough to startle the both of them. They didn't know each other, although Suzaku swore he knew a Lelouch. And yet he was so certain that trusting him wouldn't be dangerous. "But I don't understand this world and what's going on, yes. So that's why I'd appreciate it if you told me, so I didn't have to make such stupid guesses."

They walked on. Lelouch didn't say anything more and Suzaku hoped it was because he was simply thinking over their conversation. His eyes wandered to the terrain again, starting with the sun. It was almost directly above their heads, suggesting noon. He found himself confused…that meant that they had been walking for quite a while, and although it had felt like a long time…three or four hours of walking couldn't have been correct. When he looked around he noticed that they were now in the rolling hills, the ones that had seemed forever away from back on the plain. The slopes were colored green with a much finer grass than that of the plain, and there was the occasional tree dotting more even areas. Rather than the tall and narrow trees of the forest, they had thick trunks and branches that seemed to spread outward, giving them a more stout appearance.

It seemed like ages later that Lelouch finally said, "I'll explain it to you, but now isn't the time."

Suzaku wanted to groan. At the very least it could be seen like a promise, but he hated being left in the dark.

"We're just walking. What better time to talk is there? There isn't anyone else around, we have nothing else to pay attention to, and who knows how much longer we'll be out here walking? I can't think of a more ideal situation. I will admit that yes, I'm not the one that does the thinking, nor do I understand anything about this place, but honestly…" Suzaku wasn't paying attention to where he was going as he ranted, and ended up bumping into Lelouch's back. He was lucky he wasn't stomping along at any decent speed, because he very nearly knocked the both of them over. The cat hardly seemed to notice.

"What's…?" Suzaku started to inquire; only to shut up the moment Lelouch raised a hand. Both ears were very still and pointed forwards, and the idle swaying of his tail had ceased- everything about his frame suggested tenseness. Suzaku really wanted to attempt inquiring what was wrong again, but he himself froze as well.

There was something coming towards them.

Or, well, it was spreading across the grass like some sort of puddle on crack.

It was pitch black and glossy with a very fluid movement, but it didn't leave any of itself behind as it made its way closer. Instead, in its wake the grass yellowed and shriveled as if burnt. While its direction very obviously pointed it towards them, it didn't seem to notice or care about them. The pace it maintained wasn't slow, but it definitely wasn't rushed either.

"…The hell is it?" he hissed under his breath to Lelouch. An ear vaguely twitched but he seemed reluctant to move.

"You can see it, right?" Lelouch responded slowly after a drawn out pause. He sounded a lot calmer than Suzaku, but there was still an obvious strain to his voice.

"Of course I can see it! How could I miss something as messed up as that? What is it? Why is it killing the grass?" Each question was more of a demand for an answer than anything else, and it seemed like his anxiety was rapidly growing. Sure he didn't understand much about this world and therefore didn't know what was and wasn't a threat…but for the most part he had pretty good gut feelings when it came to this (or so he hoped) and while his feeling for Lelouch had been to trust him, right now…every cell in his body was screaming that this thing was bad. A blanket of dread and dislike draped over his senses and he wanted very much to get away from it as soon as possible. In fact he was getting ready to do something like that when a hand closed around his wrist. It was the same warm and soft one that had removed his fatigue yesterday, and once again the touch seemed to cleave through the turmoil inside his head. Everything cleared and sharpened and left him with a new sense of determination. He couldn't understand this feeling, but it was strong.

"This is why you're important, Suzaku," Lelouch murmured. He had dropped the large backpack down nearby, and the touch seemed to steady him as well. His focus was still solely on the black sludge, which had now ceased its movements and sat there quivering.

Apparently it had also noticed their shared touch, somehow. A burst of movement across the grass and it was a few feet in front of them. It really did just look like a puddle of oil…until the surface started bubbling. Slowly, and still in that very fluid movement, it began to raise itself up and develop a form. Its peg legs and body were thin, and it hunched over as if unable to support the weight of its upper half. Its head was circular, and most of the "face" was covered by a large, crooked grin filled with dagger-like teeth. There weren't eyes, a nose, ears, or any other distinguishing features. The real kicker of this monster was its arms and hands.

They were long and gangly limbs, but bulged with what might have been muscle. Both were bent at the elbow and kept mostly at its sides, so that the hands were held limply in front of it in a manner reminiscent of a praying mantis. These also looked long and thin, but there were four individual fingers that curved inwards like a sickle and came to a very sharp point. Together they looked as if they were made for piercing; apart they looked like eight knives. It raked its "hands" over the grass in front of itself, and every blade within the immediate vicinity withered. The head kept turning left and right as if inspecting them after flaunting its ability. Both sides remained where they stood.

Suzaku was reluctant to speak, but he managed to whisper to Lelouch, "I…get the feeling we need to kill this thing. We don't have weapons, Lelouch…"

"We have plenty," was Lelouch's even response. He seemed awfully confident, although he continued to hold Suzaku's wrist. "Unfortunately I'll have to ask for your permission later." Before Suzaku could inquire what he meant, Lelouch made a gesture in front of himself that seemed to agitate the creature. A few words that Suzaku couldn't catch were murmured under the cat boy's breath, and that's when the thing charged at them with the intent to hurt them.

A tingling feeling flooded his body as Lelouch calmly continued his incantation, and just when Suzaku was really starting to freak out and had prepared himself to tug the two of them out of the way, a large burst of power seemed to surge through him. Lelouch thrust his palm forwards towards the monster and a ball of light shot out. It went right through the inky blackness of its body, disintegrating half of it in the process. The thing seemed to be in agony as it writhed for a moment, and then clumsily made a last attempt to get at them. Lelouch shoved Suzaku to the side and both toppled over to get out of the way, although one of those deadly claws nicked Lelouch's shoulder on the way down and he hissed in pain. He resisted his immediate desire to cover the wound with a hand in favor of going through a much more rushed incantation while the monster struggled to get back up. The rest of its body fell to the next ball of light and Suzaku let out a long breath.

"You have so much explaining…" It was only then, when he turned his attention back to the cat boy, that he noticed he was a dead weight on his chest. Lelouch had passed out.

~*~*~*~*

Suzaku hadn't known the rest of the way to the town, so he opted for carrying Lelouch over to the nearest tree and setting him down against it before fetching the bag. Once settled he immediately tried to tend to Lelouch's wound, and he noticed that the skin around the thin cut looked as if it had been burnt. He used a bit of their water to dab at it but found he couldn't do much more.

The waiting was pure torture. He was incredibly worried about the boy, as well as desperate for more answers. So the few hours he spent sitting there watching Lelouch and doing his best to tend to him felt like ages. When he finally stirred Suzaku held his breath.

Dark purple eyes slowly opened to groggily look around in hopes of regaining his bearings. Eventually his gaze settled on the anxious Suzaku sitting next to him and he lifted a hand to try and rub the fuzziness out of his vision. A moment after he winced and craned his neck to inspect his shoulder, then heaved a sigh at what he found there. It seemed to Suzaku that this wasn't the first time for Lelouch. He opened his mouth but Lelouch cut him off.

"First of all yes, I am fine. Secondly, I passed out because of the spells, not because of the wound. This thing will heal all right with the proper attention. Casting spells takes a fair amount of energy."

"Okay. I'm glad. It would've been nice of you to tell me about this stuff beforehand, so I didn't have to go through all this!" Suzaku couldn't help but feel angry towards Lelouch, although he figured that some of it was out of worry for the boy. Lelouch was a reckless person, both here and…the other place that he recognized as home. He kept secrets and didn't inform people of things, often leaving them to figure it out as they went along or casually telling them after the information became useless to them. It was frustrating as all hell…he never seemed to notice how much he worried about him. He never noticed how badly he wanted Lelouch to share these things with him. "I didn't even know if you were going to wake up…I thought it might have killed you with that or something! What if there was poison on those things? What if you had to use your life force or some crap like that to kill it and used too much? If I don't understand then I can't help, and if I can't help, then I'm just a burden!"

Lelouch remained silent even after the anger and frustration drained from Suzaku's limbs, leaving him feeling more weary and worried than anything. He hadn't meant to go off like that, and now he was starting to regret it despite knowing that he had valid points. He was just that kind of person. "Look, Lelouch, I…"

"You helped very much." It was quiet but it still stopped Suzaku in his tracks. Wide green eyes stared inquisitively at the cat next to him, silently asking him to explain. "You helped more than you might have thought." Knees were pulled up to his chest, then thin arms wrapped around them and he placed his chin on the slim space between. Next to him his tail rested in the grass like a sleek black snake, and the only sign of life was the occasional flick of the very tip. Once again he was reluctant to go on, but he seemed to realize that this time Suzaku wouldn't let go of it. He didn't have a choice now that he had put them both in danger.

"Only humans can see them," he started out tentatively.

"…What? But you saw it! You knew it was there before I did!" Suzaku sounded incredulous as his brow furrowed. Lelouch was good at lying. He wouldn't try one that seemed so easy to see through.

"When I was a kitten there was a human that visited now and then at my father's request. She took a liking to me. She wasn't just a regular human, however…she had learned a lot about the potential humans held- their abilities. While she looked young she was experienced and an older woman. As I grew older, I paid more attention to why she visited my parents. They sought her out for wisdom…but when she told them about important things, things they needed to know, they disregarded her. She came to notice that I listened and gave up her attempts to get through to my parents. She told me about the monsters. Eventually she taught me that humans were the key. If she gave me her hand when there was one around, I could see it, but never on my own." He shifted and looked ready to attempt getting up. "…We have to get moving again. We have to get into town before nightfall…"

Suzaku got to his feet, and when Lelouch stumbled he was ready to catch him. "You're not in any condition to keep going right now. We'll just have to stick it out here until tomorrow. Besides, you aren't done explaining. You only saw them when you were touching her, so how could you know one was there?"

"Apart from the grass withering in its wake?" he replied as he begrudgingly accepted Suzaku's help. Suzaku lowered them both back down so they could continue resting against the tree, but didn't notice that one arm still remained around Lelouch. "She wasn't the type of human that could help out in battle, but as a parting gift she was able to give me a higher awareness of them than most other cats and dogs. They're easy to feel when you know what you're looking for."

"All right. So are you going to explain to me why you thought it would be fine not to warn me about these things beforehand?"

"Are you going to let go of me?" he snorted, and then looked amused when Suzaku hurriedly separated himself and put some distance between them. "They're usually in the town. It's not good to see them this far out. They originate from the town, although I'm not sure why. And that…I wasn't expecting to see that type. It's getting worse."

After a moment's pause Suzaku made a gesture for Lelouch to continue as he forced himself to calm down from that surge of embarrassment.

"Usually they're smaller and relatively harmless. The one we encountered was a second generation." He sighed and tilted his head back a little to inspect the sky. By now the sun was nearly ready to set and a chill was settling in.

"So you thought there were only…first generations running around, and near the town, but they've spread out and grown into second generations. You've known about them for a while because of a human girl, and she gave you the ability to sense them, but you had to use me to actually see it. I guess I can kind of see why that would make me worth something to you, but it doesn't seem like that's all of it." As Suzaku laid the picture out for himself in his mind like a puzzle he was trying to piece together, Lelouch dug through his bag until he had retrieved a blanket and some sort of fruit for them to chew on. He shifted closer and draped it over both of them, then handed one of the bumpy objects to Suzaku.

"Basically. Eat this. It's a little tangy, but it should tide you over until the morning." He took a bite out of his own and scrunched up his nose while chewing it. Suzaku briefly forgot what they were talking about as he watched him. "The spell I casted. The energy it takes for a cat or dog alone is usually more than they have. Humans seem to be in-tune with that sort of thing, however, and so through a mixture of the two energies it not only makes it plausible for the spell to be used, but it's more effective. I had meant to ask for your permission after I had time to explain things in town, but…I figured it would be better to take it and save our lives rather than get us both killed trying to maintain common courtesy."

Suzaku snapped out of it and took to chewing on the fruit in hopes of looking as if he hadn't been mindlessly staring at Lelouch. The sudden burst of citrus caused him to give a loud noise and nearly choke on the thing. It was surprising that it would have such a strong flavor and he struggled to recover while Lelouch hid his amusement behind a hand.

"A little tangy?" Suzaku grumbled in annoyance. "…So that's what I felt." He paused again as he came to a realization. "You've been looking for a human, haven't you? You want one that can help you defeat those things. That's why you took me home with you."

Surprisingly Lelouch looked a bit sheepish as he spun the fruit in his hand, but he eventually managed a nod. "She couldn't channel energy, but she explained to me how much of a threat these things are. There are very few people that know of their existence, and even fewer that care to do something about it. I didn't think we would meet up with one like this. I had hoped to explain it to you in town, where it would be easy to find one and show you what they are. I realize you could very well be from a different place and might not care for the affairs of this world…that you may be far more interested in figuring out how to get back, but it's better to try to persuade you and fail than to have not attempted at all."

More silence settled between them. Lelouch had said all he felt like saying for the moment, and Suzaku wasn't sure of how to respond. He liked Lelouch, but there was a certain longing to return…"home". Wherever that was. His natural instinct was to help and protect…but how far was he willing to go when he didn't understand what these things were capable of? Both finished their fruit as darkness became more prevalent. Lelouch already understood Suzaku's answer, but he voiced it anyway.

"Let me think about it." He felt the nod next to him more than he saw it. The actions of the day seemed to fall heavily on him as the last of the light faded and crickets started chirping. Or at least, they sounded like crickets. As he prepared to doze off despite the unpleasant cold, he felt Lelouch shifting next to him and then a warm body was pressed closely to his own. The heat in his cheeks wasn't part of Lelouch's warmth. "Wh-what're you doing?"

"It's only going to get colder," he murmured in response as he made himself comfortable against both the tree and Suzaku. He pulled the blanket up to his chin and rested his cheek on Suzaku's shoulder.

"Oh…well…" But his protests were limited. It wasn't a bad feeling at all. Lelouch was soft and warm and his weight was comfortable rather than overbearing. That lithe tail hit his leg occasionally and he fought back his shivers. "…good night, then." Suzaku could feel the cat boy breathing and found it to be surprisingly relaxing, and when Lelouch gave an affirmative noise, he felt the vibration of the sound in his shoulder. All of these little things seemed so intoxicating that, while he noted that it didn't take long for Lelouch to fall asleep, he ended up sitting there tense and awake for far longer. How long that was he couldn't be sure…and he knew that he had eventually gotten some sleep, because the next thing he knew it was morning time and the sounds of crickets were replaced with birds and lazy bumble bees. He vaguely remembered dreaming about someone talking to him, but who that someone was or what they had been saying was escaping him.

One thing he was aware of, however, was a very tense Lelouch against him and practically hissing into his ear. This was enough to cause his eyes to snap open and he found himself face-to-face with the point of a sword. Not his favorite way to start off the day, that was for sure.

He noticed that the person holding the sword was dressed in shining silver armor like some sort of medieval knight, and he winced when it reflected the sunlight right into his eyes. There were a few more around them, all holding similar swords to prevent them from escaping their semi-circle. There was plenty of hate in Lelouch's glare as the cat remained curled next to Suzaku, and the tail against his leg was obviously bristled underneath the blanket. Yes the knights were threatening, but it really led Suzaku into wondering just why Lelouch despised them so much. Of course it was probably better to ponder that when he wasn't staring down a…sword. The one wielding the sword pointed right into his face puffed out his chest and cleared his throat, as if to make sure he had their undivided attention before sharing his very important message.

"By order of His Royal Highness, Emperor Charles zi Britannia, ruler over the cats, you are to accompany us to the castle."