Cadence of the Spring

-Chapter Seven-

A/N: It's been a while, hasn't it? No, I haven't given up on CotS! I've just been very busy, and I had my first weekend off in a very long time recently, so I took the opportunity to write a particularly long chapter for you all. I hope it makes up for the very long gap between updates… Also, if you notice, all the symptoms of the drug mentioned are symptoms of the drug morphine. Please enjoy this chapter, and take it as my apology for being so goddamn late on the update…

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The wolf howls in the east. It glows with an eerie light, reds and blues and greens, its eyes a haunting yellow. And no matter where Alfred runs, its eyes follow him. He cannot escape it. Soon, he cannot see it anywhere but behind him, drawing close to his heels and nipping him sharply – so he runs faster, and his lungs are burning, and the only thing he can think as he tumbles over a rock is, 'I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead! Oh God – ' But he's not dead, so he glances up curiously, and sees those smart eyes above him.

"Stand, Great One."

Alfred does as he's told, asking in a quiet voice, "Great One?"

"Yes. You are who I am looking for – the last to join a dying race." The wolf looks him over, its eyes searching for something not seen on the surface. "You are not much yet, are you? From the way you run, I can tell that you are not in-tune with your inner freedom."

"Excuse me?" First, the wolf chases him! Now, it's telling him he can't run to save his life? Granted, he had let the wolf catch him, but…

"Touchy, are we not?" It growls a bit. "It seems as though you are not at peace with yourself quite yet. That is the reason for your nightmares, is it not?"

Alfred begins to step back into the darkness of the forest, before he hears the whispers of the night and knows it to be the crocotta, looking for a meal. In an instant, his body tenses up.

"Ah! Great One, why are you so afraid of the night-beast? He is nothing compared to what I once was." A nostalgic quality of voice mixes with its terse, male tone. "Then again, it was the beast that felled me."

"The crocotta killed you?" Alfred's curiosity has been piqued. "How'd it manage that?"

"If you are so eager to know, then follow me." The wolf turns, looking behind itself to fix Alfred with those sharp eyes. "And make sure to keep up, clumsy-Great One." It takes off at what seems to be an easy pace for itself, but Alfred must run to keep up with its leisurely gait through the woods. The two head towards a dark shadow in the distance. "When I was living, I was known as a Guardian. I raced with the winds to warn people of danger, and led so many lost in the woods to salvation in the village. None could beat me in a race, not even other beasts."

Alfred, between huffs of breath, asked, "You – were a – a beast?"

"Yes." It jumps over a log, laughing a bit as Alfred struggles to do the same. "Not all beasts are evil, as you will learn. Some are intelligent enough to speak, as I can. Others…others are quite stupid. Those are the ones that keep close to your village. Any beast like me would be found far away, near the mountains. There, the beasts are in less grotesque and purer forms, true to their original nature. I left that old home of mine to seek knowledge. None in my tribe were willing to communicate with humans. And so I left. Your Elder, Yao, taught me many things, and in return, I taught him how to make medicines. He told the villagers that I was a Spirit. I also warned him of the crocotta…the evil beast it is." There is deep hatred in his voice with the last sentence, and what he says next is pure revulsion. "I'd been returning from assistance in the east when it attacked me. The disgusting excuse for an intelligent beast ambushed me! It has no tact whatsoever."

"What – what happened – next," Alfred puffs, gladly slowing down to catch his breath as the wolf slows to an easy trot.

"What happened next? I waited for you. And as I expected, you are what is needed for these people."

Alfred stops to stare at this strange beast. "…What? These people's lives are fine! What else could they need but distance from those beasts?"

"That is why you are not quite the Great One yet. You fail to see their struggles aside from that. As your former city was ignorant, these people are also ignorant. What Yao has not seen is how he shelters them from the dangers outside. They cannot fathom an attack from the people who hate them so much. So what they do not see is naturally what will be their downfall. They forget as easily as the city-people do – we are all human, are we not?" The wolf slows to a complete halt, allowing Alfred to sit upon a log before it continues. "You know, the beast that set up that trap was a raccoon, at one point in its life."

"…Are you watching me every second of the day?" Alfred feels chills run down his spine.

"From the time you leave that house in the morning to the time you enter it, and between that, when you are dreaming. I would never interfere with your personal life. Now then – that beast was once a raccoon. This is the only reason for its ability to set up a trap. There are more pressing matters to focus on."

"Such as?"

The wolf pauses for a moment before asking, in a very serious tone, "Do I have your complete, undivided attention? I will only say this once."

"Yeah, you do," once again, Alfred is curious as to what this strange beast will tell him.

"Every morning, you must stand and let the air dance around you. Inhale it. Feel it. And when you know it well enough, like your own heart and soul, as if you were once with it and know its beautiful melody, dance with it. Run with it. Be one with it! Never let that feeling go. You will find me there, with the wind, should you ever need guidance. I will no longer enter your dreams – it is far too energy-consuming, and I do love to run." It sighs, before turning away. "And as a final mention of what is to come – there will be signs. Look towards the east, Great One, and expect what you'll find there: pain. This will not be the last time I speak to you, I am sure, but it will be the last time I speak to you in a long while. Enjoy your happiness while it lasts, because the suffering will hit you hard and fast."

And it dashes off into the woods soundlessly, making no noise and showing no signs of it having ever been in front of him, except for the haunting memory of those golden eyes and the glowing colors of its wraithlike body.

As with such a dream, one would expect to awaken suddenly. Alfred woke so suddenly from his dreams so often since taking up his life in the village that he had come to expect it. But this…this was different. He didn't know why, but something was wrong. Arthur, as usual, had left the bedroom; his side folded neatly, everything intact, the way he always leaves it. With no signs of wrinkle, or tear, or him having ever fallen asleep there the night before, so sweetly pressed against Alfred's body.

"Arthur?" The call was tentative, worrisome. He felt, from his skin to the marrow of his bones, that something was very, very wrong.

Then there was a shout from downstairs. Arthur's voice mangled into one high groan of pain and nothing else—sheer hurt, sheer need, sheer weakness. The sound itself caused Alfred's eyes to go unusually wide. To hear a man he knew to be strong for most of the years he knew him was quite a shock.

The second time he heard a similar scream, Alfred jumped from bed and bounded down the stairs, finding Arthur at the bottom, crumpled into a little ball on the floor. One hand held the left side of his lower back, the other attempting to pull the rest of the body towards the door. "Arthur!" Alfred was at his side immediately, placing his hand on the other man's arm. Of its own volition, his hand shook Arthur's arm to get his attention. "Arthur, what's wrong?"

"M-My side," Arthur's breathing is only slightly labored from the pain. He's screaming again seconds later, so much so that Alfred winces from the intensity. "My side – my side, i-it hurts so much—! A-Alfred, ah! A-Alfred…" The free hand he hadn't been using darted out to clutch at Alfred's night shirt with a powerful grip, screaming again, refusing to let go, and slowly moving closer at Alfred's urging.

"What kind of pain?" He's asking anything to get Arthur talking – he doesn't want the man to stop, for fear of what might happen if he does.

Arthur seems to take some time to consider this, because there's a moment of silence in which Alfred (now lifting Arthur from the floor with an arm around his chest) can only hear Arthur breathing. "C-constant. Ah! V-very sharp, and – and centers in the left flank!" He heard the man groan as the pain became not unbearable, but very hard to ignore, and his frustration at this was let out in a scream of pain mixed with dissatisfaction.

He'd just held him for a little while longer. Alfred hadn't been sure of what to do. When the green-eyed man coughed up foul-smelling bile onto both his shirt and the floor, however, Alfred was sure this wasn't something he could just wait out and try to comfort Arthur with. Arthur had done it very suddenly, and with no warning – but for some reason or another, as Arthur vomited once more (this time onto the floor), he seemed to forget his pain. Perhaps it was the furious working of his esophagus, or the burn as the contents of his stomach, acid and all were emptied onto the floor twice more. Despite such a liquid being warm, it held no comfort of the hearth, with its bad smell and even worse taste.

"Nn," Arthur made some strange sound, cheek pressed against Alfred's shoulder (and, incidentally, the spot of vomit that would soon become a stain), and began to scream again moments later. With no time to grab anything or clean the floor, Alfred swung Arthur over his shoulder, and carried him through the doorway, rushing towards the hospital, allowing the sudden whipping winds to guide him there, even after their roar was drowned out by the screams of the man on his shoulder. Halfway through the quiet, waking town, Arthur moaned and emptied his stomach for a second time. Alfred was only aware of this due to the retching sound and the warmth that covered his back immediately afterward. "Alfred…"

"What is it, Arthur?" When Arthur did not respond, Alfred allowed himself to continue, never slowing in his race to the hospital. He was close, thankfully, and that was possibly the only reason he bothered to talk further. "Don't talk if you feel like you're going to be sick again."

"Where are you taking me?" His voice sounded nearly like a complaint, between his clenched teeth and winces – Alfred could tell Arthur was trying his hardest to make no more sound, though he would voice it anyhow. And Alfred couldn't blame him. If that was his only outlet, so be it!

"The hospital," he answered, said building now in sight. He didn't slow down – in fact, he sped up, rushing for the doors with one hand holding Arthur securely against his body. Looking back at the situation, he would most likely regret the way in which he'd held the Survivor. If all of his pain was originating from his lower back, then no doubt the fact that he was constantly jostled and slightly bent over Alfred's shoulder only made what was wrong with him worse! But he'd gotten him there. That was the most important thing at that moment.

He could think about it later. Alfred knew he'd have plenty of time to think once he was within the walls of that building. It was a breeding ground for negative thoughts and emotions, and you practically choked on the 'What Ifs' and 'Whys' and 'Is This My Faults' once inside. Shaking negative thoughts about hospitals aside, Alfred opened the same door to that same hospital for the third time since his stay in the village. By now, he was sure; most of the staff knew his name and face.

Considering the condition of the man on his back, who, as if on cue, began to retch the rest of what little he had left in his stomach onto the hospital floor and writhe in agony thereafter, it didn't take long for Arthur to be removed from his care and placed in a room to be properly treated. Feliks pulled him aside, mindful of the vomit still clinging to Alfred's shirt, and spoke with him. "Well, he looks like, really bad. I think he'll have to stay overnight, but—"

"What are they doing about his pain?" Alfred was only concerned with the fact that he could hear Arthur's hurt from down the hall.

"You've, like, heard of that morphine stuff, right?"

Alfred nodded. The one time he needed to be taken to the hospital, they gave him something with that name. "We used that back in the city, I think."

"Yeah. Well, we've got something that's just as effective. He'll react to it the same as morphine, so like, don't be surprised if he acts a little strange, m'kay?" Feliks flashes him a smile and does a strange little toss with his hair. His nose, upon detecting the foul and dissatisfying stench of vomit on Alfred's shirt, scrunches up. "Ew. I think you won't want to visit Arthur until the drug starts kicking in, so why not go home and get cleaned up? Change, wash yourself…you know, just a suggestion."

"I think I'll go ahead and do that," and Alfred had to laugh a bit, because really, how could he not laugh at the whole damned situation?

"Good. Now take your time—Arthur will probably be out for an hour or two at least. Pain takes a lot out on the body, and the drugs do make you sleepy." Feliks smiles at Alfred once more before walking down the hall.

So Alfred walks home. He walks through the doorway, stepping past the remnants of an Arthur he'd never seen with his hand held fast around his nose, travels up the stairs, and finds himself a new pair of clothes, a bucket, and a terrycloth towel. Then, he finds himself on the bank of a creek, stripping bare with the forest as a witness, wading in waist-deep, allowing the cool water to numb him. He washes himself and his old clothes as slowly as he pleases, and when he's finished getting clean, he takes up the terrycloth towel and dries himself as slowly as he wants to. Dressing himself in his new, just as simple and quite similar in style clothes, he hangs the clothes that no longer reek, but are dripping wet, on tree branches.

He fills the bucket with water and returns home. The remnants of not-Arthur seem to fade well enough with the help of the towel, but the stench fills his nostrils and his senses, and he's not wiping that memory clean from his mind like he intended, and damn it, if only—Alfred's arm moves of its own accord, and he barely seems to make his mind connect what he sees together at the broken ends. There's useless water on the floor, and the bucket sports a wonderful dent. With a great sigh, Alfred ignores the scent to the best of his ability and finds it much easier to clean up the messes around the house.

What should he do about that smell, though? He couldn't very well leave it for Arthur. No doubt he'd complain, and Alfred didn't want that after the incident that very morning. He hunts around for something, anything, really, to rid the home of the smell. Eventually Alfred finds a small bundle of incense and thanks his lucky stars, snuffing the rich, natural scent of the brown sticks into his memory. He places a few around the house and lights them, watching the one near the staircase burn itself down to non-existence. And once the home smells of Arthur's favorite incense?

Alfred sleeps. He gives himself just an hour on his internal alarm clock, just an hour to close his eyes and rest…really, he should have slept a bit longer, he knew. Stress was never good on the body, but…he was concerned, and he wouldn't leave Arthur alone at that hospital for long. Once the colors of the aurora in the mid-day sky mixed and faded, leaving him in the same room he'd fallen asleep in, Alfred rubbed the dream from the inside of his eyelids out, and stood, leaving the empty home.

His walk there was pleasant, when he didn't think of Arthur's screams of pain, or the way he—no, never mind. He wouldn't go there, no, never, never, never! And like that, Alfred was thinking of the forest in the different seasons.

How, in the spring, the leaves are green and vibrant, but the dead remains of the leaves from the year before are still sullying the ground, a constant reminder of cold and pain…and imminent change. In the summer, the leaves are all bright and happy, and seem to have forgotten their initial suffering. The dead leaves aren't there anymore. They can't hurt them with their summoning of old memories. In fall, the air cools, and their fun is over. Death is coming. They need to hide, so they change their appearance, turn shades of yellow, orange, red…brown. And they fall to the earth in an act of desperation. But the ground freezes over, and they die in the winter. The only thing to survive are the trees, who sleep, weeping while they do so…and spring comes again, and they're alive, so alive! And it feels so good, that they're going to forget!

Alfred shakes his head. Everything seems to be ignorant these days.

When he steps back into the hospital, Feliks leads him off with a cheerful smile. "It feels nice to be clean again, right?."

Alfred doesn't know how to answer. So he doesn't.

It doesn't take long to find Arthur's room in such a small building. Feliks opens the door and gestures him in. "If he's still sleeping, then you can like, go home for a bit, if you want."

He takes a peek inside the room before stepping into the doorway. Arthur lays on his back, eyes shut peacefully, changed into fresh clothes, with no signs of his dire pain from this morning's dilemma. "I think I'll just wait for him to wake up."

"Well, like I said," Feliks reiterates what he'd said earlier, and of course, Alfred doesn't find it very important. As long as Arthur is awake, he doesn't care. "If he acts funny, then you know it's the drugs. I'll be in to check on you guys in a bit." The nurse leaves to attend to other important matters, so Alfred walks fully into the room, shutting the door behind him for privacy.

Taking a look around the bland, white room, he sees a countertop, a bed occupied by his sleeping companion, a chair near it – set out just for him, no doubt – and a skinny window that shows a sparse amount of trees, and other buildings in the small, quiet town. Alfred takes his seat and watches Arthur for signs of life. He watches Arthur's chest rise and fall in a gentle rhythm. If he were to hold his hand close to those slightly-parted lips, no doubt he could feel the life leave and re-enter Arthur's body, pushing oxygen all around the blood, preserving every organ necessary to maintain existence in this world. Alfred holds his hand out for just a second, and indeed, the breath beats against his palm in a steady stream. This thought comforts him, cradles him in security. Though he knew Arthur wouldn't die, he still felt it necessary to check.

If he gets close enough, he can hear Arthur's heart beat, pulsing under the ribcage, even with the rise and fall of the other man's chest. When he takes a hold of the hand he's touched many times by now, Arthur's warmth is shared with his own. Now that he has assured himself that Arthur is alive, and he has Arthur's hand in his own, he pulls the chair closer to the bed, making himself as comfortable as possible, and watches Arthur's serene, dreaming face. Beneath those eyelids, he is sure, plays memories, or perhaps colors, or maybe even fantasies he'd never be able to experience, and Alfred would never know unless he asked. All he is sure of is the fact that Arthur is safe. Arthur no longer hurts, and he is certain, from the untroubled expression of the sleeping man, that he is not experiencing some form of nightmare.

It's enough for him, just sitting there, watching Arthur sleep. He could watch that man sleep as long as he needed to – there was something strange about it. Just watching Arthur's sleeping body lulled him to a docile state of spirit, where he was no longer excited, depressed, or any kind of emotion, unless you considered the resounding warmth coursing through his body as one. It was rare for Alfred to see Arthur asleep. Normally it would be the other way around; he could almost imagine Arthur waking to Alfred, smiling a very small smile that can be so easily overlooked on the normally-terse expression of the older man's face, and how he might brush a few strands of hair from his face and crawl carefully out of bed, as to not disturb the sleeping other next to him. Even imagining this filled him with more warmth than before. Was it something about seeing Arthur being tender and gentle that brought him to feel this way? He wasn't sure.

There was, perhaps, an hour or so before anything particularly eventful happened in that room. Arthur's eyelids stayed shut, but his lips would move, and if Alfred held his ear directly over them, he could make out the murmurs of dreams slipped out though them. "Young Autumn…russet…windy loops…forests…bare-foot Dance…" This piques Alfred's curiosity enough where he decides that he must ask Arthur about it when he wakes.

And then, as if suddenly aware of the light from the window shining down on his eyes, Arthur's eyes flutter open in a sluggish manner, as if still groggy, though he had been sleeping the past few hours with no signs of waking. Alfred holds his breath – holding Arthur's hand a little tighter – as those familiar green eyes fix on his own. The forest's treetops reaching up to touch the sky. The smile Arthur gives him is not the very small, nearly-unnoticeable one he was used to, but a very wide near-grin. "Good afternoon, Alfred."

"Arthur," Alfred responds, unsure of what he should say, knows that he must respond in one way or another. He notices how Arthur's pupils are rather large despite the light shining on them, and finds this as odd as the smile he was just given.

"How long have I been asleep for, d'you think?" The older man turns his head about casually to observe the room, taking note of everything, before turning back to look at Alfred with the same half-grin. Alfred feels Arthur twist his hand about in his own so that he is grasping Alfred's tightly, pats it with his other in an affectionate way. He hasn't blinked for a minute or so and just continues to stare into Alfred's eyes, as if fascinated.

"Three to four hours, at the least," Alfred says, staring back at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Is something…wrong?"

"Oh, no. Nothing. Nothing at all! No worries, love." Arthur's head tilts slightly to the side, leaning forward at the same time, and Alfred is, at the same time, weirded out by the sudden term of endearment rather than his name. "This thought just occurred to me now. May I ask you this? When you watch the sky, do you feel like you're looking up at your own eyes?"

Alfred leans back in his chair, bites his lip. What kind of question was that? Should he even answer? But Arthur was staring at him, looking hopeful…so he couldn't just ignore the question. Alfred sighs, and begins to answer as best as he can without disappointing the other man on the bed. "I never really thought of it that way. It would be a little unnerving to try and think about it that way though, right?"

Arthur nods his head, smile widening into a full grin. Alfred cannot deny that he feels lucky to see Arthur smiling at him like that – when these drugs wear off, he knows that the smile will be gone, and will be replaced with one he's much more familiar with. "Ah, it would, wouldn't it? That's precisely why I asked, you know."

The door opens, and Feliks steps into the room with a very cheerful greeting, "Hello, you two! It's like, so good to see you awake, Arthur!"

"Hello, Feliks," Arthur replies with his drug-induced half-grin, and looks at him with yet another curious expression. "Now that you're here, I can ask you a question as well. Do you know exactly what happened to me this morning?"

"Well, since you, like, brought it up, I may as well explain and stuff. We couldn't quite figure out what had happened, so we talked with the Elder about it, and he said that it sounded like classic symptoms of a kidney stone. A kidney stone is pretty much, like, a tiny little thing that forms in your kidneys and causes a ton of pain until you pass it. Seeing as the drugs should be entirely out of your system soon, are you feeling any pain?"

Arthur shakes his head in the negative. "None at all."

"Alright, then. Just, like, come with me and we'll run a quick urine test. If everything seems pretty normal, you can go ahead and leave with Alfred." Feliks waits for Arthur to hop out of the bed and step into the hallway before turning back to address Alfred. "This will just take a sec. Wait here." The two left him alone in that room for a total of five minutes, which he spent with one hand on the spot Arthur had just occupied, his eyes focused on the bright light from the small window, giving him just a tiny glimpse of the outside world.

When they return to the room, Arthur grins at Alfred. "We can go home now," he says, with undertones of laughter in his voice. "Feliks tells me to take the day off tomorrow. I haven't had a day off in a long time! I wonder if Kiku will be okay without me…"

"Good," and Alfred grins back at him, trying not to think about how unsettling it actually was to see Arthur like this. "And I'm sure Kiku can manage without you. Don't worry too much about it."

The two pass Feliks as they move out into the hallway. "He should be back to normal in, like, a few hours," he hears Feliks whisper, and gives the helpful nurse an appreciative smile before turning down the hall and walking through the doors with Arthur.

Their walk home is mostly silent, with Arthur staring at the sky (still grinning), and Alfred being thankful that his companion is, for the most part, back to normal. Alfred looks over at Arthur to find him totally engrossed with the sky, and takes his time to notice that Arthur's cheeks are slightly flushed – more noticeable in the outside light, as compared to his pale skin. His hair, he notices as well, looks a little messier than usual. Had Arthur not had the time to comb it in the morning, before he'd gotten sick? Alfred shakes his head, for he knows it hardly matters.

Once inside, Arthur takes immediate notice of the dented bucket, which Alfred had forgotten to put away, but seemed to care little about it, as he walks past it with no other indication of being irritated, and begins to head up the stairs. Halfway up, he turns and waits for Alfred expectantly. Alfred shuts the front door behind him, locks it, and follows Arthur up the steps into their room. Arthur takes his shoes off and crawls on top of the mattress immediately, resting his head on his pillow and yawning.

"Tired?" Alfred asks, his hand poised on the doorknob, body halfway out the door.

"Mhm," Arthur, with his eyes already shut and his hands folded across his stomach, nods. His eyes flash open, green brightening (or was it just Alfred's imagination?). "You're not staying?"

"I was going to go downstairs and write a bit," Alfred answers, brows furrowed, just as Arthur's own are. "Why?"

"Well," Arthur begins, looking him directly in the eye. "I was hoping you'd stay up here with me. It feels like it's been forever since we've actually spent time together, besides sleeping in the same bed."

Alfred laughs at that comment. "Arthur, it has been forever."

"That gives you all the more reason to stay up here, now doesn't it?"

How could he argue with that? "If you put it that way, then I guess I'd have to, wouldn't I?" He takes his shoes off and lies down on top of the mattress in his own spot, arms folded across his stomach, and glances over at Arthur.

For a while, Arthur just watches him, looking only into his eyes. As soon as this has satisfied him, Arthur moves as close as he can get to Alfred, rests his head upon the Slayer's chest, and wraps his arms around the other's middle, still smiling. "You're very warm, you know."

"And you're a little out of it," Alfred responds, smiling down at Arthur's scalp. He lets one of his hands wander through the soft, flaxen hair of the other.

"I knew that already, though. Sometimes things look strange when my eyes are open," Arthur just seems to babble now, trying to lull himself into sleep. "So I think I'm just going to close them until all the abnormalities disappear."

"If that's how you want to handle it, then so be it."

Arthur laughs a bit. "It is how I'm going to handle it." He stops talking for a long while – long enough that Alfred is almost sure that he's fallen asleep – but speaks up one more time before falling entirely silent and going back to the level of sleep he was at just moments ago. "It's a lot easier to fall asleep when you're next to me. I don't know why, but…there was always something about you that I never quite understood, up until now."

"What do you mean by that, Arthur?" He never got a response. Arthur had drifted away, and he wouldn't talk to him again for another hour or two. By that time, he was sure; Arthur would never let down enough walls to mention it again.

Alfred lays in silence, with the golden light streaming into the room, stroking Arthur's hair for an hour or so. He's only thinking of what Arthur has been saying, trying to process the information in his mind, like putting together the hardest puzzle ever presented to him. If he tries hard enough, he can almost bridge the words together with the meanings; yet the meanings are never fully processed. He just seems to be thinking, thinking, thinking, never absorbing the full meaning of what he's just thought up. Pointless words running rampant through the brain, running, running like the wolf in the winds – all the colors, made of tendrils of something nameless and unidentifiable, swirling, running, dancing a bare-foot Dance – and he can't make sense of a lick of it. It's only when he's forced awake that he realizes he'd closed his eyes and daydreamed.

Arthur was prodding at Alfred's side, hovering over him. "Hey. Wake up, Alfred."

"I wasn't sleeping," he protests, eyes opened to Arthur's face. Arthur's pupils seem to have shrank, and, for the most part, are back to normal. There is no flush to his cheeks, no straight stare into his eyes with minimal blinking, no grinning.

"And I'm sure you weren't. That's exactly why your eyes were closed." Arthur rolls his eyes, though he ruins his façade with a yawn and a stretch of his limbs. "It looks like the sun is setting." He moves off of the bed, onto the floor, and over to the window, looking at the orange-tinted outside world.

Alfred follows him over, wrapping his arms around Arthur's shoulders while he looks out the window. While Arthur is looking out at the forest and the setting sun, Alfred is watching Arthur's reflection in the window. "How are you feeling?"

"A little off; kind of spacey. It's a very curious feeling – I'm not sure whether I like it or hate it." Arthur sighs, leaning his head back to rest it upon Alfred's shoulder.

"No pain?" Alfred presses his forehead against Arthur's temple.

"No – no pain. You don't have to worry about me, Alfred," Arthur says, as he slips out of Alfred's grasp and heads for the door. "I'd like to watch the sun set. Would you come with me?" Alfred follows him out the door, down the stairs, and out into the forest. Not knowing where they're headed, Alfred sticks close to Arthur's side, watching him with curiosity evident in his eyes. Arthur looks over at him with a smirk. "Is there something on your mind? You keep staring."

"Actually," Alfred begins, grinning at him a bit, "I heard you saying something in the hospital, and I wanted to know what it was."

Arthur takes his time to think this over. "Did I…was I awake when I said it?"

"No," and Alfred continues with a bit of embarrassment, "You were sleeping, actually."

"Well, then I'm not sure what you're referring to." They walk up a hill, where the sun is visible over the low-elevated trees.

Alfred tries to forget about it when Arthur says that. He should have figured that he wouldn't remember it at all. The two lapse into a comfortable silence while the sun sets, watching the golden-orange light turn the sky a beautifully violent red. So far away from town, they do not hear the news of the body being uncovered on the left-side path to town square. Some poor, unfortunate soul who'd ventured too far away from town and been attacked by a beast – now no more than bones with sparse amounts of flesh still clinging to the calcium. They would hear, oh yes, they would hear. And this would lead Alfred to his suspicion, following the words of the wolf in his dreams.

He holds Arthur's hand, kissing the back of it. Arthur returns the grip as well, and lets their lips mingle well into the night, even after they've returned to their home. Eventually it isn't just lips that touch lips, but lips that meet every inch of skin, every sensitive area, and cause sounds to erupt suddenly from their throats.

What else they are not aware of, however, are the invaders in the night. How the Commander and his mostly-willing forces slip in, quietly, and break into the solitary home of a solitary person, knocking them out, bounding their arms and legs tight. And Toris looks on with horror at what he can't stop, taking pity upon the blond he's forced to carry, fearful of what may befall him.

Toris sits alone, in the night, next to the still-unconscious man, and begins to question himself as the others sleep inside their tents. Next to him sleeps Ivan, and on his other side, his newest guilt, but he whispers only to himself. "Why do you keep doing this, Toris? Why are you letting this happen? And now you have this captive to worry about…"

"Are you still awake, Toris?" Ivan's eyes are upon him, and it occurs to him that, perhaps, he hadn't been asleep yet.

"U-uhm, yes. I just…I just thought I heard something, that's all."

Ivan laughs, as if amused by Toris' inability to lie. Toris wouldn't be surprised if that was why he had. "I'll let you lie to me this time…only because I am so very fond of you. Now what is it that is bothering you?" Ivan is probing him, he knows, with those cold violet eyes. Toris shivers, and quite fearful of the answer, asks a question off the top of his head.

"Well, I was just wondering…why did we take a captive if you just want to burn the village down anyway?" Toris glances at said captive once he is mentioned.

"It's very simple. If I don't have to kill all these people just yet, then I won't. All I need is a little chat with their Elder, you see," Ivan pauses, as if to let this part sink in, "and, depending on how things go, I will kill every last one of them. The captive is just here as a cushion. It gives more…incentive…for the Elder to speak with me."

"D-do you…do you know the Elder, sir?" Toris' eyes are wide when Ivan turns his head stubbornly, eyes narrowed, as if fighting back some strange kind of pain.

"I did, quite a long time ago. I'm much older than you seem to remember me often saying, Toris."

"So you – you don't really want to kill these people, do you?" For some reason, there is a bubble of hope rising in Toris' chest, making him hopeful that, maybe for once, Ivan won't hurt anyone in his insane quest for whatever it is he's searching for.

"I never said that, Toris." And that bubble pops, leaving him empty and at a lower level of feeling bad than where he was when they began. "I would kill them if I got the chance. But that's not what I'm here for, so I cannot unless my main objective fails. The Elder is what I'm here for."

"S-So you lied to the Governor?" Why does he feel so appalled that Ivan would pull such a trick? It shouldn't surprise him.

"Of course! The man is so easily manipulated. It's a little sad, actually." Ivan turns onto his side, facing away from Toris. "Now I think you should get to sleep, Toris. Tomorrow is the start of many options. It may be a new beginning for the Elder or an end for everyone. Either way, I think you'll need your energy."

"Yes, sir." Toris grudgingly lays himself down, facing in the direction of their captive. Looking upon his face and finding something strange, he grasps the feeling, marveling at how reposed it makes him feel. With his eyes shut, he sorts through his options and decides. No harm will befall this man. No harm shall befall him, if it's the last thing Toris does, because Toris is sick of this. He's sick of Ivan, and the cold, and being forced to do the most immoral things. And if it's necessary, Toris will lay his life on the line to end it all.

It's only a matter of time.