"This place is unnatural," Kiba had told them and none of them had really understood, but now Toboe might.
The grass is supple, growing all around, and bugs are chirruping with the heated vigor to mate.
"Kiba," Toboe whines and the white wolf opens both of his amberlight eyes. There is a kind of satisfaction and pleasure across his brow and muzzle.
"This place bothers you," he says, because Kiba never asks because Kiba is never wrong, he is always as he should be and never anything more.
Toboe slinks closer. Tsume and Hige continue to sleep, they are not comfort in this place where the pleasant breeze tickles their fur like a caress. Yes... this place bother him.
"But I don't know why," Toboe murmurs, settling down beside Kiba. "It's so nice here. Warm and green and safe."
Kiba's eyes flash for a moment, a flicker that might have been pain if Toboe had caught it.
Not that expression are something you can catch, not when you are a wolf and waht you catch you kill and maybe that hurts Toboe too.
"Toboe," Kiba breathes and Toboe wonders how he can breath things into being that way, just by saying their name. "Springtime... has been over for a long time, as has Summer and Autumn and Winter is closing her jaws around the world and she will not let up until the world stops struggling. Until it lies still and dies."
Toboe is shocked by what he's saying and he whimpers, "We, we should give up then?"
Something like a grin and a snarl moves across Kiba's lips.
"We should not. It is an option in mother nature's plan for the wolves to pass on to a new world. But Spring is over, and this glade has no right to defy that decree."
There is little conviction in his words and Toboe is confused. He nudges Kiba gently and the white wolf startles from his thoughts. He stands suddenly and Toboe scrambles to follow after him. They approach the hill's downward slope and Kiba motions to the sprawl of land.
"Do you see the shadow?"
"It's night," Toboe answers uncertainly, "there are shadows everything."
"Not those," Kiba whispers and Toboe wonders just what it is Kiba sees with those eyes. He wonders what it is Kiba hears with those ears. He asks and Kiba turns toward him in surprise. "What do I see?"He looks back out across the land and sets his jaw. "I see the black sea, pitch and shadows, and it is swelling, frothing voer its boundaries and flooding out into space. It has been at our heels a long time. If... if we cannot outrun the tide, everything will be over."
Toboe strains his eyes, searching for Kiba's piceous sea on the horizon. He only sees nighttime shadows and he is more confused that ever.
"we haven't encountered Spring anywhere else," Toboe muses to the sky. "It seems as if nature has just lost her strength... does that mean something else has brought the flowers to bloom here? Or is this it, the last Spring in the entire world before Winter comes?"
It is a sad thought and perhaps Toboe understands something now.
Kiba touches him hesitantly, turns them both back toward the glade to look up at the tree and its caterpillar green leaves.
"Perhaps..." Kiba tries to say, "one last bastion of Spring will not... hurt, unbalance things. The flood will be here to tear it down soon enough."
Their eyes meet, steel and amber and gold.
"Yeah," Toboe smiles. He feels very kind towards Kiba, who sees the terrible things they cannot and bears the burden alone; feels the pain alone. "Maybe it's okay for us to enjoy it tonight, since we won't see it again."
They return to the tree and the strange underwater moonlight it filters through its Springtime leaves.
They sleep close together and dream of, What we taught each other tonight...
(Kiba is not Frightened of anything on this
Sad & Sorry Journey, because the Dark
Plague which follows him, staining his
White tail Black, is the only creature to
stalk his Nightmares. He will protect
himself from Nothingness and he will
protect Them from what he sees.)
Standard Disclaimers.