Bit of a wait between chapters, I know, but I sort of forgot that this thing existed after winter break. :P It's back now!
"Wolves?" The question was timid and hesitant.
"Those are wolves!" The two phrases were repeated in a ripple around the room, some questioning, some suspicious, some awed. The muttering surprised me; I hadn't had time to really look at my surroundings yet and hadn't seen all of the humans flanking the one fierce-looking girl glaring at us. I stared back at them as they watched me, completely taken aback. Was this a trap of some sort? Even if the people didn't look vicious (except for the female), this could be dangerous.
"Yes, they're wolves!" The girl snapped back at the crowd, turning briefly to face them before returning her eyes to us, still glaring. As she flipped her head around, strands from her blonde ponytail came loose, shading her snarling blue eyes. "Use your eyes and shut up," she growled, addressing the humans without looking at them. When no one said anything, her eyes narrowed further. "I'm still waiting for his answer," she continued, putting special venom on "his" and not addressing Tsume directly, as if she was too good for that.
Tsume looked equally annoyed; if I had to choose someone to rival Tsume's heat, I think I'd found the person in this girl. "You're in for a wait," he said, fixing her with a glower.
But she wasn't put off by his refusal to cooperate. She strode over to him and thrust a finger in his face. "Quit with your passive aggressive replies! No one here is impressed by your aloofness. Just answer my question; I assume it was simple enough for you. What are you doing here?"
Tsume practically snarled. "Get your finger out of my face." He shifted out of the way, flashing her a look of pure contempt.
I wondered why we didn't just attack these humans. Why were we standing here, watching Tsume carry out a terse conversation with one of them? If they were in the way, we could take care of it. Then again, I had no idea why Tsume had led us down here.
The blonde girl sighed, frustrated, but stepped past Tsume and strutted over to the rest of us. I tensed automatically as she approached, very distrustful of this sharp-tongued human that seemed quick to consort with wolves.
"Who's really in charge here? It can't be him." She jerked a thumb towards Tsume.
"No one's in charge," Kiba said calmly, expressionless, but that he spoke first gave it away. The blonde girl looked relieved to find someone to talk with.
"Then I direct my questioning to you. What are you doing here?"
Kiba didn't speak at first, and I assumed that he, too, would refuse to tell her anything. It seemed like something he would do. But he ended up shrugging and speaking to her. "Ask him." It was clear that he meant Tsume.
She threw her hands up in the air. "Will no one explain themselves?" No one answered her, and I resisted the urge to snicker. "Alright, if you have no purpose here, then get out. We don't need you here." Her expression turned guarded, as if she was hiding something. And judging by the intense smell of lunar flowers floating around here, she probably was.
Kiba started forward, and I mentally flipped through the things Kiba might do next. But he didn't hit her, answer her, or do anything. He simply walked past her with a purposeful stride, to the blonde's obvious surprise. "Hey! And what are you doing?" She rounded on him, but Kiba didn't bat an eye or look back at her. He walked straight for the crowd of other humans, who watched him warily as he passed.
One broke off from the others and crept closer to the blonde girl, who seemed to be in control of all of this. "What do we do?" He whispered. "We can't just stop him."
The girl shot him a disgusted look. "I'll handle this." She whirled on Kiba, though she was a few yards away from his retreating back. "You! Stop moving. You have no right to go back there!" Her voice was obviously being carefully controlled, as if she was on the verge of snarling at him. When Kiba still didn't halt, she curled her lip and set her features determinedly. "Especially with one of your pack members being a traitor and all."
If she thought that would stop Kiba from venturing further into her little underground whatever it was, she was sorely disappointed. He didn't even break stride. But I was suddenly very curious; how did she know anything about this pack? But she had said something about Tsume betraying her when we first arrived. Maybe they knew each other.
"Oh, don't you even care who it is!" She snapped after him, looking as if she was very close to throwing a tantrum, foot-stomping and all. But she didn't, not even when Kiba still didn't reply and disappeared around a shadowed corner. "You think he wants us to follow him?" Hige wondered aloud, but no one answered him, either. We were all busy watching the scene unfold before us; or, at least, I was.
The blonde girl hurried over to the crowd of concerned-looking humans, where she began talking to them in hasty, whispered tones. "Should we attack him?" One human asked dubiously, louder than the others. I bristled automatically; if he wanted a fight, I would give him one.
"We can't!" Another human voice, this time female, spoke up. "Wolves and Paradise, you fool! We should be honored to have them here."
"Honored," the blonde girl snorted. "Right." But she shook her head. "No. We can't lay a hand on them, unfortunately." Her tone suggested that she would very much like to do what she was rejecting.
Another male turned to her with a fearful expression. "But what about when he finds them? Won't he…"
Hige turned to face the rest of us. "Come on, guys. Let's go see what they're talking about." He wheeled and trotted after Kiba, so I followed suit. I was getting very curious with all of the commotion the humans were making.
"And now they're all going," the same fearful man groaned as we padded past them after Kiba.
"Let them," the blonde girl hissed. "But, wolves or not, they're not going to touch them. Not after we've worked so hard. And we can't forget Tsume's bad habits, can we? Lee, Rana, keep an eye on him." I could practically feel Tsume's anger at her last couple of words, but he didn't say anything.
Two humans nodded assent and immediately fell into their jobs, keeping their eyes trained on the gray wolf. I thought it was a bit ridiculous – with the entire group of humans hovering behind the pack and the wolves packed closely in the thin hallway, what did they expect Tsume to do?
Thinking of Tsume made me remember how ignorant the rest of us were about this situation. What were we even doing down here? Not even Kiba knew, apparently. It felt…important, though. Or maybe the lunar flower scent was flipping my brain upside down and making me think I felt things that I didn't feel. Either that, or my prolonged exposure to this pack, who was so myth-driven, was rubbing off on me. Whatever the cause, padding down this hall felt strangely normal, even though I knew it wasn't natural to converse with humans and then explore their dwelling.
I wanted to ask Tsume, but even as I thought of doing so I knew that it would never happen. I wasn't shy by nature, but I knew sharply that I didn't really belong in this pack. When it came down to me and him at base level, he was no better than I was. But storming up to this respected pack member and demanding answers was just wrong. He had a right to ignore me as much as I had no right to exact information from him.
It occurred to me that this strong feeling, different from meekness or shyness, was because of my "disability." I didn't know what the other wolves were like, but it didn't seem that they'd ever be paused by such instincts as this. Maybe it was because they were becoming more humanized with access to two legs. I had no connection to people, so it was possible that my basic wolf instincts were much cruder and animalistic. Packs like those that used to roam the lands didn't exist anymore, but when they did the hierarchy was strict. Lower pack members had to be very submissive and absolutely never challenge authority. As a newcomer, I supposed I was the equivalent of a lower ranking pack member, and that that could be the cause for my sudden hesitance.
It didn't matter what made me balk, though. I'd just walk along behind these wolves and wait to see what happened. I didn't even think about how unusual it was for me to take things lying down. How unusual it was for me to operate with company, let alone tag along and consciously acknowledge how low I was in comparison to them. How unusual it was that I wasn't making for the door right now, leaving this pack to their issues. This pack had gotten to me, I realized without wanting to think about it. No matter what I wanted personally, I knew that they would have a hand in what I did. I was drawn by them as much as they were drawn to the legends swirling around their species.
Even with this clarity of knowledge and the facts that I admitted to myself, I still didn't do what I normally did and get the hell out of there. I knew what this pack was doing to me, and I still didn't turn away. That's what started the prick of fear in my heart. I was being weakened here, blinded, and what that meant about me terrified me. And yet, it felt right and altogether inescapable.
Shoving such thoughts aside, deciding quickly that reflexes would be needed more than logic, I refocused my eyes on my immediate surroundings. I noticed that several humans' facial expressions were tightening with each step we took, and the particularly fearful man looked downright nauseous. There was something near that they didn't want us to discover, and I had the feeling that Tsume was deeply wound in all of this. These people knew him, and I was apprehensive about learning how.
With a bit of new urgency in my strides, I pressed on after the pack. We turned abruptly – it seemed that even the turns of this place were squared like the buildings – and came upon another opening in the gray brick walls. This one didn't have a door, just like the entrances to the first two rooms of this underground structure.
Kiba was standing there, utterly still, in the midst of hundreds of shining white flowers that could only be the ones I had always heard about.