Long time, no see. I've written, too chicken to post 'cos it's all crap. I wrote this in such a way that it could just about be evaluated by someone who is unfamiliar with Wolf's Rain, so sorry for spoilers and or 'yeah, we knew about that/ don't give us their lifestory/how did they know that?' moments. BTW, Kiba AND Toboe were BOTH raised by humans, Tsume doesnt spend a great deal of time with other wolves so Hige is the only one who can talk about having 'pride as a wolf' (yes, despite the Jaguara incident) Yarrgh, my paragraphing is signature- as soon as I realised I was doing it i thought I'd retain it a a feature rather than trying to surpress it. I wrote this In the bath and again, no edits, only spellcheck, so sue me if it lacks continuity!

Disclaimer: Wolf's Rain belongs to Beez, and Gravity to Yoko Kanno... yeah, cheesy ending, like I thought it was an episode or something...

"Hige..."

Said boy shuffles restlessly against me in his sleep. I can see through a slit in the rock wall that the moon is still well out- and it feels like it is going to be a long, lonely wait 'til sunrise.

I look about the rest of the small cave at the slumbering forms of the others I dare to call my pack. It's been lonely without Quent. I was proud to call him my master, and welcome received the affection he showered upon me... I would kill or die for him- or so I thought, because when I sank my teeth into Tsume's arm, I felt a pang of an emotion I now recognise as guilt. Tsume is curled up tightly with his tail over his eyes, as if he is trying to shut out the rest of the world, but little Toboe is still lying quietly as close to him as he can get away with. Hige of course has made himself comfortable next to me as I sit awake near the mouth of the cave. Kiba, unsurprisingly, is lying on his side in the far corner, perhaps dreaming of Cheza and of chasing Rakuen.

Rakuen. The Wolves' Paradise.

I wonder where it is, what it's like and why Kiba so doggedly (with want of a better phrase) pursues it. The others tell me that it was Kiba who started it all- the exodus from Freeze City after he caught the scent of a Lunar Flower that he knew would guide him to Paradise.

Lunar Flowers. I've never smelt one...

In fact I've never even seen one. I wonder, is it because I'm only a half-wolf? Kiba will always be wary of me, I suppose. Ever since I came to the pack, he warned the others that I was nothing but bad news, but that was most likely because my master Quent was bent on killing them all, and used me to track them down. The longer I stay with them, the larger the rip in my heart becomes. On one side, Kiba spits on my blood of a 'broken spirit' and Quent on the blood of the species he's convinced tore his family apart. Maybe if we ever find Rakuen, there will not be a place for me.

Part of me curses the day Cheza, the Flower Maiden came to me and told me who I really was.

"This one knows... that your mother was a dog... and your father was a wolf."

That was the same day I realised I was everything my master loved and hated at the same time but I learnt I could also take a form that would allow me to attempt to reason with him. For over 200 years the humans thought we were all gone. But the wolves walked alongside the humans, as humans, to hide from humans- and they still are to this day. As soon as I realised I could, I came to Quent as a human and explained everything. Despite all that's happened, I still think of him as a father to me, but he simply pushed me away and old me I wasn't his dog anymore. I really wish things could have just carried on as they were. I could lie beside him at the fire on cold nights like we used to and he would stroke me and tell me I was good. I desperately want to go back to him, but that's out of the question now. I suddenly doubt myself and wonder if Quent ever thought I'd turn around and bite him, or perhaps he already knew there was wolf blood in me and hoped it would never surface.

No. There's no way I could ever return to him now we both know what I am.

There is nowhere left to turn but to this small group of rough-necked wolves. Kiba's lips draw back in his slumber and a paranoid thought drifts into my mind; maybe he hates me. However much he has assimilated with humans, Kiba is still very much wild and would not give clamping his fangs around anyone's throat a second thought, if they should irk him. I mean, Toboe is full-wolf and Kiba still regards him as a human-loving house pet and so has literally chased him to the edge of the pack. Firmly fixated on the mission of finding Rakuen, bitches were not high on his list of priorities, so I cannot even justify my presence by electing myself as a prospective mate. Tsume shudders a little from the cold, but continues to snore quietly. I catch a glimpse of the star-shaped scar on his chest and slowly trace the outline of it with my eyes. The fur has grown back paler where the skin has healed, and I begin to feel a little selfish for regarding myself as the only one dealing with issues of acceptance. He was thrown out of the pack he grew up in, attacked and marked permanently or fleeing in the face of danger. He then had no other choice than to run with a human 'pack'. Hunting, raiding- it's all the same game to Tsume; I don't think he ever did learn how to be loved by another soul.

Perhaps that is why he cannot learn how to love another.

Sometimes I wonder if Toboe is really a wolf at all. His legs twitch occasionally as he dreams- probably about chasing a butterfly or something. So gentle is his nature that I think I, little more than a dog, am twice the beast he'll ever be. The pup has a irrational fear of what's harmless, yet distrusts no human who approaches him- behaviour which gets him beat out if a meal by rats and nearly shot by my master when he attempted to make friends with him. Toboe... don't try to socialise with a grieving man with a gun. When I first came to join the pack as a 'wolf', I remember I talked with Hige through the sunset. We talked about where I had come from and why Quent wanted the last of our kind gone. I apologised for biting Tsume and for nearly getting them all killed, whilst Toboe quietly listened with a blatant flush on his face. Neither of them would of cared if I were a demon fur-farmer, they decided they wanted to accept me.

Though for Hige, perhaps he wanted a little more than that.

The new form of a human granted access to a world of enhanced emotions that nearly completely overwhelmed me. Though my teeth are blunted and my senses dulled, I have a whole new level of awareness and a more developed sense of reasoning. Communication is way more sophisticated and important to me (I had only ever needed to bark for attention before), but the new mindset comes with a price. Yes, the humans are the most cunning animals of them all, which keeps us at least level with or ahead of Jaguara's Hunters, but I cannot comprehend how humans cope everyday with such chaotic lives and swell of such intense emotions. I'm glad I don't have to live like them. I can take a day to wander up the side of the mountain and clear my head, without thoughts of a job or assignment the next. If I can manage to avoid a gun and kill my dinner, then I have nothing to fear.

I am in love with Hige and I don't know why.

Most of the time he can only be described as obnoxious, but breathing soundly next to me he looks almost beautiful. Calm, for a change. He wasn't exactly shy in his conversational approach the first time we 'properly' met. He described his fruitless search for a mate and lengths he went to in order to relieve himself if he got into a predicament with a particularly attractive wolf.

"Sometimes... I have to go take a leak."

I don't know what made me giggle immaturely, or what made me think I was any different to the countless others he'd chased but I think I must have like the fact he was just so free and honest. From the day I first met him 'til now, barely three months have passed, yet he clings to me like I had always bee his mate. Actually, I don't remember ever agreeing to go with him...

The guilt he felt when he realised his collar was an RFID planted by Jaguara still plagues him. Everywhere he went, every pack he joined, he was tracked and they were all slain. It seems he just gave up running in a pack and wandered the streets as a 'lone wolf' in human from, stealing to survive until Kiba and the others found him.

And then they found me.

The blood of many wolves still rests on Hige's shoulders and he too isn't sure if he will be allowed passage to Rakuen. "If we ever get there", he says, "No matter who enters or sits outside the gates, I will stay with you." There have been so many before me, and I'm so broken. We barely know each other, yet he has decided he would deny a wonderful eternity for me...

I look up again at the moon through the small slit-like cave entrance and suddenly feel the urge to throw back my head and bay farewell before it retreats with its cloak of stars and gives way to the sunrise. I would, but my howl would probably be pitiful, shallow imitation of the moon-worship partaken in by the others and I'd surely wake them with my caterwauling. Where is the Flower Maiden, Cheza? Kiba promised that she would guide us to this Rakuen place... Perhaps she is outside alone. The Journey has taken what feels like a thousand years, but Kiba assures us we will all get there in the end by whatever means necessary. I lie down and allow Hige to clutch me to his chest like a stuffed animal.

"Buru... Blue."

He whispers my name into my hair as my head nestles under his human jaw. However long it takes me to find Rakuen, at least I'll have this dolt with me.

My... It's been a long road to follow. We've been here, there and gone tomorrow, without saying a goodbye to yesterday. Sometimes I wonder if the memories I hold are still valid, or if my tears have deluded them.

Maybe this time tomorrow, the rain will cease to follow us, and the mist will clear, revealing a new today. Something somewhere keeps calling...

Am I going home...? Will I hear someone howling solace to the waning moon? Floating, Rakuen Paradise, what're they like?

Am I really alone, or is there someplace beyond the path of these heavy, aching feet. Still, the road keeps on telling me to go on.

Something is pulling me- and I feel the gravity of it all.

OWARI