Wolf's Rain Fan Fiction ❯ Another Sort of Paradise ❯ Legends from the End of the World ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Such a cry, had it been heard, would have meant nothing to the new
couple, however, lost only to each other. Kiba's arm was around
his beloved, his eyes on her face, as she led them along; he only
looked up occasionally to make sure they were heading toward his
apartment. Mostly, he could imagine nothing but staring at her
beauty. There really was nothing else on earth.

Cheza was smiling, as she walked along, knew nothing but the
pleasure of his arm around her; that seemed a new joy, although the
sweetness of his presence was as old as her soul. She was looking
for something she wanted to show him, but he had no idea of it,
could see only her. Had she led them over a cliff, he would have
followed happily. Nothing mattered but that they were together at
last.

It was she who broke the silence finally, not that either of them had
minded it, but the sound of her voice alone could make Kiba happy.
She had already found an alley where the Flower of the Moon, the
one she raised particularly, grew, but now there was more to say.
"There's an old Native American tale of how this world began.
Have you heard it?" He shook his head, his gaze drinking her in;
she smiled, as she looked back to the street. "They say the old
world, the one before this one began, was created by wolves, and
the wolves made it a paradise. But they also created human beings,
who brought sorrow to the world, and who saw and felt only half
of what the wolves did. Then, one day, one of the wolves decided
that it wanted to try life as a human, and it changed and never went
back. When others followed its course, they became the nobles,
and they ruled over the world. And thus the world gave way to
chaos and decay."

He was listening to her, enraptured, was already moved by the tale-
-far more than he would have imagined. She went on. "The world
couldn't survive the humans who moved so far away from nature,
and the humans and nobles started to fear the nature they came
from. They began to destroy it, to ruin everything natural and
good. Eventually, the world started to die."

"What happened then?" He couldn't help but ask, knew nothing
but her now. The sound of her voice would define the rest of his
life.

She smiled at him, before looking back toward the street,
continuing her tale. "The world had to be reborn again. It needed
new wolves to make another paradise." Her smile shone at him,
living in his eyes, as her tale moved on. "So the earth chose four
wolves to make the journey, and they took with them the flower
maiden, who held the seeds of the new paradise."

Kiba was finding it hard to speak; he was moved and in love and
enraptured, but he did stop her here. "Is this world paradise?" He
couldn't see it himself. Perhaps it had given him this beautiful
woman, but there was too much in it which sounded like the
decayed world she had described.

She understood his objection but continued to smile, as she led him
into an alleyway; he looked around them for only a moment to be
certain they were safe. He already knew that he would protect her
with his life. A second later, she led him toward a flower. "The
earth's plan didn't work as it was supposed to. A noble came too,
believing that he could open paradise." She pointed at the small
bloom. "This is the paradise flower, the one which was created
when our world went wrong." Her finger moved around the black
stain around the flower's center. "All that is corrupt and selfish in
this world was brought into it by the fallen noble." She then
pointed to the white bloom which surrounded it. "And all that is
wild and loving was brought into it by the last wolf, the one who
loved the flower."

The amazement he felt for her showed in his eyes, as she turned to
him, her smile adoring. "That is what they say makes up human
nature. We are either wolf or noble." Her hand stroked over his
cheek, making him close his eyes in pleasure. Nothing on earth
should feel that good. "And it is also why the flower and the wolf
will always seek each other out."

*****************

It was something along these lines that Cher had just finished telling
to the men around her. They were all gathered in the diner the boys
had been heading toward before the day had taken such a strange
turn. Still, her own version wasn't met with the same sort of abject
joy as Cheza's version was. "What crap."

It was Tsume who had spoken, of course; he had seen way too
much of the world to believe optimistic nonsense like that. While
he could certainly see the more sexual connotations of this
woman's last explanation, the rest seemed like garbage. And, on
top of that, he wasn't really the "seeking the flower" type; he liked
more wolf in his women. Still, he never quite seemed to find it.
Either she was some pathetic little thing who *thought* herself to
be a wolf, or she just thought she could turn him into a flower all on
her own. It didn't work. He was never exactly the "settling down"
type.

All of this had him thinking, if only for a few seconds. While he
certainly couldn't be called the celibate that Kiba typically was, he
only got involved with women who weren't looking for any sort of
attachments. He wasn't the type to pretend that he would make
something permanent, and he wasn't looking to hurt someone who
was. To his mind, the men that did these things weren't looking for
"no strings attached"; they were just ignoring the ones that were
there. Personally, he liked a woman who was only looking for a
little mutual pleasure for awhile; if it turned into a long while, so be
it. But they were definitely pretty thin on the ground.

His mind was caught in all of these mental wanderings, his gaze
moving over to the child he was raising. It was because of one of
these relationships that he had ended up with Toboe--the nickname
given to him because the boy had had a hell of a howl in those days.
Oh, the kid wasn't his son--had been about two when he had first
met him--but he had the sort of needy look which just tore out your
heart, whether you wanted to admit such an organ existed or not.
The kid's grandmother had just died then, and his mother was
singularly incapable of raising a child. He had been with her for a
few months, before she told him that she wanted to leave; it had
been clear that she hadn't wanted to take her son with him. So,
without much of a fuss, he had become the child's guardian. But it
would always take an absolute emergency for him to put into words
how much his adoptive son had come to mean to him.

All of these musings went by quickly, all of them unsaid--no reason
to share them with the couple near him, or much of anyone else; his
words turned back to the woman's story. "If this is paradise, then
hell must be a really interesting place." She just gave a small laugh,
nodding in agreement.

They were quiet for a few moments after this, Cher herself
uncertain why she had told such a story. Still, it was one her
daughter had held onto for a very long time--the girl having been
told it when she was about four. The old Indian who had passed it
onto her had smiled at the end of his tale, telling her, "Someday, the
chosen wolf will come for you, my flower." She had expected her
daughter to start wailing in terror. Instead, the girl had just smiled
her beatific smile and said, "This one knows." But she still hadn't a
clue why the story had made Cheza so happy.

The silence they were in was broken by the waitress bringing a
bowl of milk for the kitten; the young kid everyone referred to as
"Toboe" smiled up at her. "Thanks, Blue."

She didn't return the look, though, her own serious, her gaze
circling. "Look, if Pops comes out, hide the kitten. He'll have a fit
if he sees it on one of his tables." The boy just nodded, and the girl
disappeared again. The sigh Higae gave in her wake was audible.

Tsume rolled his eyes at this, returning the conversation to more
sensible ground. "Look, I get that you're her parents, but Cheza
doesn't look like either of you." It wasn't a polite comment, but he
wasn't known for those. He was just waiting for his answer.

Fortunately, Cher wasn't easily offended, smiling quietly. "She's
not my biological daughter. I adopted her when she was three."

She was about to stop there but decided against it. These boys
were the friends of her daughter's one and only boyfriend--however
odd the relationship was proving to be. Given the looks the new
couple had been exchanging, as well, she anticipated a lot of deep
gazes but very little conversation between them. She might as well
give these boys something to pass along.

She did, then, her voice, as always, quiet and pleasant, her eyes
rather soft with the memories. "Cheza was blind in her childhood;
she was brought in after . . ." She sighed, the pleasant look having
faded. "She had been kidnapped, a few times, actually, by some of
her relatives." Her gaze returned to their shocked eyes, as she
explained. "She was the subject of a vicious custody suit between
them." Her look fell. "She . . . had some money left to her by her
parents." Her sigh at the thought was quiet. To some people,
money was everything--even admission to paradise.

Tsume was glowering by this point, mistaking her intentions. "If
you think that Kiba is just after her money . . .!"

There was only a shake of her head, her gaze resuming--taking a
second to cut off Hubb's anticipated response before continuing.
"I've heard about him, his artwork. I don't think he'd need her
money." Her eyes moved further away, her voice lowering.
"Besides that look he gave her . . ."

This memory left all of them silent. They had already established
the fact that neither Kiba nor Cheza had any history of this sort of
behavior--and certainly not of this sort of enraptured interest. They
let it drop, then, Cher continuing. "Anyway, I worked with her for
months, trying to find some answer, some cure." She was smiling
to herself. "I did, finally." She didn't mention the various
surgeries, not wanting to go into detail. "But, by that point, I'd
been around Cheza so much . . ." Her words drifted off into a sigh.
"She was such a sweet-tempered little girl." She shrugged, looking
back to them. "I guess my maternal instincts just took over."

"So the courts just let you have her?" It was Higae who questioned
this time. He had spent a hell of a lot of his life in the same
orphanage as Tsume and Kiba--even if he were a latecomer
compared to them--and he knew for a fact that, just because a kid
wanted to live with someone didn't mean it was going to happen.

Geez, this was getting embarrassing. Cher's blush was utterly
endearing to Hubb and bemusing to the other three. "I offered to
let her relatives have her money, so long as I could raise her." Her
shrug was almost shy. "I guess it was the right thing to say."

This was as far as this particular conversation was going to go--at
least as far as Hubb was concerned; he hated seeing her share that
sweet look with anyone but him. Besides, he didn't want to tell
them everything--about how he had met his wife by getting himself
shot by someone he was arresting, about how Cheza shared her
adoptive mother's name and not his, although he had officially
adopted her as well. While he saw nothing criminal in at least one
of these kids, he wasn't willing to open up his whole soul and
background to them. There were just some directions he didn't
want the conversation to take.

He was the one to shift it, then, looking at Kiba's "business
manager." He had already made the man give his social security
number so that he could pull up everything on him, was waiting for
a call back from his friend--but, whatever his daughter's happiness
this afternoon, he still wasn't comfortable with what was happening
here. "So, how did you and 'Kiba' meet?" They were a weird-ass
bunch of names, but he hadn't gotten as far as inquiring about
them.

This elicited a snort from Tsume, whose generally confrontational
manner wasn't being aided any by the day's events. "He beat up
one of my friends who got a little too close, and we got into a
fight." Still, once he had gotten the reaction he was waiting for, he
relented--not really wanting to make life hard for his friend, as
generally pissed off as he was with his weird behavior today.
"Relax, he was seven at the time. He never gets into fights
anymore, unless there's someone he needs to protect."

This wasn't exactly the sort of news which was going to make
Cheza's parents happy, but the ensuing debate was broken off by
the ringing of Hubb's cell phone. He answered it, listening to his
friend's information on these boys with a sigh. It was pretty much
as Tsume had presented it. Kiba was clean. His one run-in with the
law had been when he saved some girl from being attacked--and the
guys who were attacking her had records so long that he had been
officially thanked by the police for helping to catch them; Hubb's
eyes narrowed. As far as Tsume went, however . . .

He hung up the phone, his eyebrows raised at the man. "Two
counts of petty larceny as a juvenile and three plea bargains for
disturbing the peace after fights in bars."

Cher looked slightly frantic, truly worried for the first time that day.
"You mean that boy who left with Cheza is . . ."

"No, I mean him," Hubb pointed at Tsume. He looked bemused.
"Why did Kiba hire you as his business manager again?"

No offense was taken by this list of charges. If anything, the white-
haired man looked proud. "'Cause he's a dreamer." He shook his
head. "You can't get money through dreams."

This pronouncement did nothing to encourage either of the worried
parents, but none of it seemed to reflect too badly on Cheza's new
partner--unless it was on his taste in friends. They looked Tsume
over for a second but said nothing. They might have their doubts,
but there didn't seem to be anything to worry over too much.
While he was gruff with the child who seemed to be his son, there
was a love there. Besides, Hubb hadn't looked into the legality of
his parenthood or guardianship too closely. If he did, he might find
out that it wasn't all that legal--and that would mean that he would
have to do something about it. He had already learned that Kiba
had grown up in an orphanage; his gaze looked over the innocent
young kid who was playing with his new kitten. There was no
reason that this child should have to suffer the same fate.

This thought left them all with little to say--the couple and the
threesome mismatched, to say the least. Still, Cher's mind couldn't
help but be preoccupied by one question. "But why did the two of
them . . .?"

The men around her understood, but it was the boy who answered,
his eyes typically wide. He kinda hoped Tsume wouldn't be too
angry with him for this--his guardian wasn't much on talking about
feelings--but he supposed he should share it, anyway. "He said he
would know her, when he saw her." They looked at him agog,
forcing him to try to clarify the clearer part of his statement.
"Uncle Kiba, that is."

They were all staring at him. Tsume's words were gruff, but his
look was quiet. "When the hell did he discuss this with you?"

Toboe didn't answer completely, trying to explain. "I asked him
once why he didn't have a girlfriend, and he said it was because he
was waiting for someone. When I asked him who it was, he said he
didn't know; he had never met her, but he would know her, when
he saw her." The boy shrugged at the astonished faces around him.
"He just said that they were meant to be together."

This little pronouncement left all of them dumbfounded. Only
Hubb managed to find something to say. "Hell of a way to choose
a wife." But that was all they were left with, in the end.