A/N: This fic is a post-series follow-up to "Shots in Paradise" and "Tougher Than Leather." If you haven't read them, you should be able to follow along anyway, provided you've seen the end of the anime, but those sister stories establish the connections that will be seen later in this fic.

I don't own Wolf's Rain, and that's the truth. Extra points to the readers who can recognize either inspiration for "Sheila." (Hint: one's the same as that for the late Franklin of the light red hat, and the other has to do with Bruce, alcohol, and philosophy. But certainly not pooftahs.)

Dedicated to our own overengergetic Franklin, and the stories he left behind. Thanks to Words without for the beta help!

"Reincarnation enjoys a joke as much as the next philosophical hypothesis."- Terry Pratchett, The Truth.

Last Life -

Darcia howled in pain as he stepped into the pool. He had won. Even with Jaguara's poison numbing his body, even with Cheza's blood further outraging his system, he had done it. He had been the first to step into the pool leading to paradise, and it raced to accept him, absorb him, in a flash of light.

He had lost so much to get here. He had seen too many horrors due to those wolves. He couldn't let Hamona see him as one of them. Despite the fiery pain of the light, Darcia fought the poisons within him enough to put one thought at the front of his mind: leave the eye…

He could not appear before Hamona with that wolf's eye. It was too deeply a symbol of all the blood on his hands. Could even the pool to paradise wash away that red taint?

Two trails of blood ran behind him into the pool, offering nutrients to the newly sprouting seedlings.

2227 -

"Any survivors?" the man asked. Wolf corpses were strewn out all around him. The beasts were coming too close to their paradise. He would never let them into Kyrios, but every winter the wild grew closer with the cold.

"None that I've seen," his companion shook his head sadly, then jerked at the sound of a soft whimper. "Wait…" The hunter followed after. There, amongst the bodies, was a small child, barely more than an infant. The boy's clothes and dark brown hair were in disarray, and a fist had been stuffed into his small mouth to stifle another sob or scream. Those dark eyes were widened in shock, leaking tears.

"Shh… it's all right. You'll never have to face another wolf again." He tried to untangle the child's other hand from the dark fur of the unmoving animal he had hidden behind. Its eyes were disturbingly bright blue and glassy, staring accusingly and unseeingly up at the hunters.

"With any luck," the second man muttered, scanning for any less-welcome stragglers. Despite his soft words to the frightened child, both men knew that the beasts would be back.

"Mama?" the boy asked piteously, looking at the blue-black fur that clung to his sweaty, trembling fingers.

The boy's savior shook his head, remembering the savaged bones beyond the settlement. The Yaiden place was an empty shell, now. "Poor kid."

2259 -

"What are we to do with the boy?" The youngster in question was sitting alone, halfheartedly turning a wooden block in his hand, apparently oblivious to his parents' conversation. "He never seems to want to make friends, and he hardly does anything on his own..."

His father at least took pity on him. "You worry too much, dear. Hubb's still a child. He'll find his purpose someday." In the floor, the brown-haired youngster turned the cube around his left ring finger before letting it fall to the floor, unheeded.

2263 -

The girl froze, torn between the desire to steal closer to the rare wild visitor to this neighborhood and the need for stealthy silence. If only she could get close enough, it would surely allow her to touch its iridescent plumage. She meant the bird no harm, after all. Drawn forward by the pulsing beat of its shining wings, she reached out a hand towards the tiny creature that hovered over her mother's meager garden plot. As quickly as it arrived, the hummingbird fled from view.

It was all right, though. She could be patient. She would wait a lifetime for a chance to touch such wild beauty, like a fairytale made flesh.

2264 -

The other pack had pushed quickly through his territory, but something had lingered behind them. Paradise was on everyone's mind. His mother had insisted that the wanderers were mad; that they were well rid of them; that paradise did not exist beyond pups' tales. Zali was not so sure, though. He wanted to run after them, to chase the scent of lunar flowers. His elder brother thought that the young gray wolf was more interested in chasing after a certain tan female that ran gypsy-like at the questing alpha's side. Zali wouldn't deny this, though he refused to confirm it either. Rather than risk an argument with his mother, he snuck off after a hunt, following the lingering scent-trail of wolves and flowers.

He found the pup shivering in the snow, no other intelligent life in sight. He wasn't sure that the pup counted as intelligent life, honestly; why would one so young be out alone in such weather? "Where do you think you're going, runt?" Zali asked, lifting the little lighter gray by the scruff.

"Paradise," the skinny little pup said, squirming between his teeth. "I saw a pack running after the lunar flowers and I want to go too."

"You're awfully little to go on your own, aren't you?" Zali relented and let the runt walk on his own four feet. Well, stumble along in his elder's footprints, at least.

"If you can do it, so can I." The pup was stubborn, and it wasn't like the young wolf could drop his unexpected companion off with a nearby family. Zali didn't know this territory.

"But I'm not traveling on my own," he informed the kid, picking up the pace. Cole's pack couldn't be too much further ahead…

"Oh?" the pup cocked his head. "Where are your friends?" The older gray wolf gave him a long stare over his shoulder, and the pup blinked; answering the question for himself.

Zali laughed at his expression. "Hurry up, runt."

2261 -

It was not simply the world against their love; it was basic biology. A female wolf went into heat in the winter so that her pups would be born in the time of easy hunting in spring. However, unlike their prey, a young wolf was not able to reap the benefits of spring's bounty alone. The expectant pack needed every free hunter it could get in order to properly nourish one litter of puppies, let alone two. For every female left suckling, there was one less hunter to pull down game. Less game meant that fewer pups would survive, and so nature enforced the rule: only the dominant pair breeds.

Great Spirit help them, they were most definitely not the dominant pair. He was too easy-going to stand up for himself, and while their pack mates respected her nose, she earned no friends with her secrets and calculations. Her pregnancy became one more thing that separated them from the rest of the wolves.

They could attempt to start their own pack, but she knew the odds of a dispersal pair surviving alone their first year were no better than one in seven, and adding even a single first-born pup into the equation dropped their chances to no better than one in twenty. Therefore, with no chance of continuing with the pack and little enough of surviving on their own, they turned to their last option: humans. There was a small dome not too far from their home territory, and she had learned to manipulate the boundaries well enough. The pair clung with all their will to their projections and attempted to blend in. Money was tight, even with every trick of thievery the pair knew, but they acted as human as they could. Their alphas mustn't find them or the pups.

Their pup. It was twisted when it came out, neither fully projecting a human image as she'd prayed nor quite resembling a wolf. She had insisted that she stay home for the birth, not quite trusting what the humans might think of a puppy that could not yet control its apparent form.

He had agreed, but he began to have second thoughts when he saw the way its legs twisted, smelled its sickly odor, felt its shallow chest rise and fall too quickly to be healthy for the lungs. "Let me get him to a doctor," he said, taking off with it and not even caring that he'd abandoned his own projection.

The maternity ward had been quiet. Most of the doctors had left; the few working night shift were too busy with other cases to notice a frantic canine with a dying bundle of fur in its mouth. An orderly screamed as she came face to face with the wolf, and he felt like screaming back. The shallow panting had stopped.

He snuck away, finally emerging into a room full of rows of bassinets. The nurse on duty had fallen asleep, and he padded in quietly so as not to wake her. A few of the babies awoke as he entered and peered within their small beds. It was not fair, the way these human infants cooed or gurgled while his own son, the one they had given up everything for, lay quiet in his arms. All these chubby, healthy children around him, and not another of his kind was alive in the room.

No… perhaps that wasn't true. In a bassinet simply labeled "#23," an infant blinked his round, almost red-brown eyes. They did not focus on the wolf, but the baby's nose twitched, and the projection was dropped. The fur beneath was the exact same shade of golden brown as his mate's was. It was destiny.

Laying the twisted shell in the infant's place, the wolf snuck out of the hospital and trotted triumphantly home to his mate. "Humans can accomplish all sorts of miracles, these days."

2262 -

They'd known Rebecca's family had a history of fertility problems, but that hadn't made them stop wishing for a houseful of children. The easiest way, in Quent's opinion, was to try for adoption. Rebecca had been a bit embarrassed about it at first, but Quent had more than one way of convincing her that being barren didn't make her any less of a woman in his eyes.

It was rather ironic, then, that by the time they had finally gotten everything ready to welcome their baby girl into the house, Rebecca announced that the little one the agency referred to only as Sheila wouldn't be coming alone. Well, the foundation was built. Quent was more than happy to throw open the door for the pitter-patter of little feet. He wouldn't mind an extra set.

2274 -

He was not really her grandson, but he reminded her so much of her Franklin that she had to take the poor boy in. He was affectionate and energetic and really livened up the whole household, perhaps more than her old bones could handle. She had jokingly bestowed the nickname Toboe upon him, for the small one certainly knew how to make use of his little lungs.

The boy was also fascinated with animals, although she had told him that her superintendent most empathetically did not allow pets. She sighed, but had not been overly surprised to see the dog. "Toboe?" she called for her errant ward, hoping to have a few quiet words with him before the super threw them to the streets. The last thing she saw was the beast running towards her, its mouth open in a wide doggy smile.

2286 - This Life

No one had been there when he had awakened. No mother had nursed him. His first liquid was blood. No teacher had guided his path. His purpose had always been clear. No prey demonstrated for him the need for silent, patient waiting. He remembered what came from impulsive pride. No brother had told him tales of paradise. He knew the tales already. No alpha taught him his place in the pack. His pack, - human, flower, and wolf alike, - had been scattered with their deaths. No father showed him how to hunt. He fought and killed instinctively. No human attempted to curb his wildness. He would slaughter any that tried.

Kiba had opened paradise, but Tsume had been wrong. The white wolf had not done it alone. The voice in his head was no more than a half-remembered echo. He wanted it back. The wolf rose and began to run.