Chimera Fields a body moving through space

"You love that," she waves her hand towards the wilderness, "more than me. And you'll love it more than our kids."

"Honest, Molls. I'll stop. I promise. I'm gettin' older anyway. You been wantin' a little girl your whole life, right?"

"It'll only be worse if you lie, Nine."

A long pause. A deep sigh.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

---

An infinity of stars over pockmarked ground-- a night that thrums with hidden life and heat as a wolf blasts by, cut to his target, a hare, whose heartbeat can be heard even above its rapid-fire footsteps, tap-tap-tap. 

With every stride, he eats up the space between him and that bobbing white tail, pistons thrusting and engine worked to full throttle. His hands grip the ground. This is what it feels like to be alive. Sharks die if they stand still because the only way they know how to breathe is by moving. 

The hare stumbles and its momentum throws it forward, skidding-- "Gotcha, you bastard." He catches it by its nape and gives it an aggressive shake. The simple motion reduces some of its vertebrae down to dust. He listens to its heart slow, stutter, and then stop altogether. We see Nine Lives, a silhouette, hunched over a nighttime meal as he turns to hear something, or someone, in the dark.

The night is hot and the air is heavy, and Yosemite feels himself at the beginning of one of his father's stories. The kind that start off: There was once a stranger in a strange land, and then he stumbles over the next words, and he knows true uncertainty for what might be the first time in his young life.

He is thirty-two days gone from the land of his birth, and many, many miles past the hunting grounds, the rendezvous, the pearly lake, the den — past everything he once knew.

There was once a stranger in a strange land, he thinks, sent from home to seek his fortune. One lonely night, he was walking along a starlit field.

It doesn't seem like a very good story. He is tired and hungry, and panting through an unfamiliar anxiety: That he is alone. That he is, perhaps, the last wolf on earth. That he might return home and find his family gone. That he might walk for eons and never meet another living soul.

Movement up ahead captures his attention. The thud of heavy paws, a voice: Gotcha, you bastard. Yosemite's heartbeat stutters in his chest, and he picks up the pace and crests the next gentle hill to spot his salvation: Another living wolf, pale and ghostly in the night and staring straight into his soul.

Yosemite stares back for a moment before his gaze catches on the rabbit, and a nervous, ravenous whine slips through his teeth. He bares them in a submissive smile, dropping to his belly and offering a whistling yawn as he crawls forward, tail-tip fluttering whiplike across the grass. He is sure he does not have to tell the other man he is hungry; he reeks of it, and of the general malaise of a lone and untried youth.

Whatever image that popped up in your head when you thought of salvation-- well, it wouldn't be Nine Lives. In God's dictionary of all living things, his entry would end with a footnote of see also: asshole. 

The scene was very much reminiscent of a raccoon just about to smother itself in the contents of some poor urban household's trash, except whoever was behind the flashlight was someone even more pathetic than him. Anything more depressing than a vacuum-sealed economy class dish was a vacuum-sealed economy class dish that had to be shared.

Oi. Stop grovelin', will ya? C'mere. Nine huffs, his voice heavy with the implication of hurry up before I change my mind. So what'll it be? Legs or arms? Myself, I enjoy the thigh meat. It's softer. He wipes the drool from his mouth, twitching with impatience.

What he feels under the stranger's hellish gaze is complicated, and he is not quite bright enough not to call it salvation. He was afraid, but he'd been afraid for some time, now, and hunger had begun to trump fear sometime in the past four days. And perhaps the other was just as hungry as he, but anything different seemed new and impressive to the youth.

He still could not fathom, some days, that there were wolves out here living all on their own, without the aid of his venerable sire and dam. If they could do it, he could do it to. And here was a wolf, he thought, who was doing it. Maybe later, when he was thinking less with his belly and more with his mind, he would consider the idea that he was not doing it very well.

At the moment, however, he was the kindest and saintliest wolf Yosemite had ever met; at his word, the boy gave another sharp whine of thanks and came forward, still lowly, but not quite belly-crawling anymore. He was afraid of the stranger but he was too hungry to care, and so he came within easy reach of the other man's jaws only to flounder, for a moment, over the very simple question.

"Legs?" he said. The stranger had told him to pick — "No! I mean — arms. Please."

He flashed another quick look at the older man before darting his gaze elsewhere, fighting the urge to make a grab for the rabbit and run. If he had seen the elder's slight limp, he might even have tried it.

With about as much grace as a claw machine, Nine tore the furry hot pocket hare into two and tossed its upper body over to Yosemite. And with about as much fervor as a poor college student, he dove in. It was, in essence, the bachelor meal, complete with a dirt garnish.

He sat back, his stomach half-full, and belched. Sparing a baleful, are you happy now stare at the back of Yosemite's neck, he shifted his position from one foot to the other.

Bad idea.

Shi-IT, he crescendoed. In his pain, he had somehow managed to add another syllable onto the expletive-- a feat he might've found impressive if it wasn't for the pain in his bad leg. God was stabbing that bone with a fireplace poker, laughing, why are you stabbing yourself? Huh? Why're you stabbing yourself? Shitshitshitshit that hurts like a-- like a shit. Classic Nine. So very eloquent. Any and all resentfulness that he'd previously felt was now replaced by a bull in a china shop, trampling all over his poor sensory neurons.

By the time half the hare was tossed in his direction, Yosemite was shaking from hunger and anticipation. He fell on it with a shrill cry of relief, crunching down on bone and sinew alike in his quest to fill his empty, aching belly. Even a good bit of the fur went down his greedy gullet, and for a good minute, everything that was not his small and sad but life-giving meal blinked out of existence.

So he was startled when the other wolf spoke again, his voice much closer than Yosemite had been expecting, and far louder than he was prepared for either way. The boy scrambled away with a yowl that was one part warning and two parts fearful scream.

Bewildered (and a good ten feet away) Yosemite watched the male as he was beset upon by some invisible foe. It took him a few seconds with his brain moving like it was swiming through quicksand to understand that it was the pain of a previous injury ailing him.

"Are you alright?" the boy asked, creeping closer once more, now that he was not so afraid of being attacked. It was hard to care what happened to perfect strangers when he was dealing with his own woes, but he felt two things now for the stranger: Gratefulness, of course, for the meal he had been given, but also a more selfish interest in his survival.

After all, he had already been persuaded to share one meal. Perhaps he would be just as kind in the future.

Through the fuzz of pain he sees Yosemite scrabbling away and he's conscious enough to think resentfully, Why's he so scared for? I'm the one with the goddamn broken leg. For a while, that's the only coherent thought in his head and he clings to it as his mind bucks and weaves.

He stares at him as if they're both underwater and shouts back through gritted teeth, Do... I... look alright?

After he stands there for what seems like a minute, cradling his leg, he finally has the nerve to set it back down on the ground again and he's not sure if he believes himself when he says, simply, Christ. That could've been worse. But it comes out as a question, not a statement.

I broke it a while ago. I was doing fine since-- I think it didn't heal right. Chewing on the inside of his mouth and feeling the hare gristle stuck between his teeth, he waits for the pain to subside. It'd went from dynamite proportions to a throbbing ache and now a dull heat like an epicentre of some self-contained earthquake.

The thing was that the male had looked alright, and Yosemite still couldn't see what was wrong with him. But he could see what his answer was supposed to be, so he responded with a small, slightly petulant, "I guess not."

But the male seemed to pull himself back together soon enough, and announced that it could've been worse — which was, frankly, a little horrifying. Just before he'd worked up the nerve to ask what exactly had happened, his question was answered — and Yosemite was even more horrified. "My uncle Enoch broke his leg," he blurted, and then caught himself before he told the rest of his story: the pain was so great he never recovered, and Yosemite's father was forced to kill him to end his suffering.

So Yosemite was duly impressed; his savior was hobbled, but also aparently the toughest bastard he'd ever met. Probably in existence.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked, eager to ingratiate himself and to repay the debt he'd just taken on. "I know some plants that might help — not forever, but for a few hours, at least."

sorry for the wait!

The kid mentions something about his Uncle Enoch and his mind goes crazy at that, chases that unfinished sentence like a mad dog-- what happened to him? What did your Uncle Enoch do? And when no answer comes, he puts his head in his hands, exasperated and still in pain and now left on a cliffhanger with nowhere to go like a car in a police chase run up against a chainlink fence, sirens flashing and wailing...

Is there anything I can do?

He looks back up. You'd do that for me? In anybody else's mouth those words would've been duly impressed, but Nine was Nine, and everything he said came out half-done and drenched in cynicism, bog beasts surfacing from Irony Lake.

How could I trust ya? Some small part of him is enjoying the situation, straight out of a movie where a rough-around-the-edges hellion is having a dinner conversation with a boy in a restaurant that desperately wants to be urban. He leans forwards. Wait. What's your name, kid? 

The man had seemed less scary when he was focused inward, cringing in pain and seeming to disregard Yosemite's presence. When his dual-toned eyes were back on Yosemite's face, however, the young male found himself struggling to draw breath. He scrunched down a fraction, trying to make his presence less offensive, and gave a few quick sweeps of his tail to imply that yes, he would do that for the stranger. It was only fair, wasn't it?

W-what d-do you mean? he asked, stricken by the man's next question. Instead of answering, the man fired another one back at him, and Yosemite was further flustered as he hurried to provide an answer: Y-yo-yo-s-s —

The male gave an all-over shudder and took a deep breath. J-jojo, he answer quite meekly, settling for his childhood nickname, since Yosemite was proving too much of a mouthful for his very frayed nerves. He gave another nervous but friendly wiggle of his tail, and took a creeping step toward the stranger. W-what's your name? he asked, his tone evening out as he grew a little more confident in the older male's presence.

Once the hare taste had faded from his mouth, a much stronger smell overrode it. It stunk of anxiety and fear, and it was emanating from Jojo so thickly that it should've been as opaque as steam from a nuclear reactor.

He licks down his rough edges for now. It didn't seem right to terrorise a kid who seemed to constantly be on the verge of an anxiety attack. Nine was an asshole, but he wasn't a sadist (admittedly, not a very high standard to have).

I'm Nine, he says, in a voice that almost passes for calming. How'd ya end up here? He swallows. Jojo?

The way he saw it, either Jojo had incredible luck or there really was a god out there looking out for everybody, because he was one of the only wolves Nine had ever seen that had managed to starve in summertime. Life was strange.

Nine seemed like a very strange name to Yosemite, who did know how to count, thank you very much. There was only one of Nine, as far as he could see, but he knew better than to say so after the male had been so kind. Well — he had been generous, at least.

"I, uh. I walked," he replied, giving a tiny whisk of his tail. That seemed rather obvious, on second thought, so he thought about what Nine might really be asking him and went on, "My mom said I should see more of the world. So I came down this way — and it's been really hard. I thought I was a pretty good hunter, but maybe not so much by myself. Mostly I've been eating carrion, but then a couple weeks ago I ate something really bad and I couldn't keep anything down for — for a long time. And then when I stopped being sick and dizzy I was really weak — "

His voice cracked on the last word, and he was beginning to speak so fast that his syllables were all running together. He could feel the stutter coming back on, so he shut his mouth and breathed through his nose. "But you know how to do stuff, right?" he asked the older man, his tail shimmying once more. "Maybe I can just stick with you, and I promise I can be helpful, I'm justreally bad a-alone. And I know about plants. A-a little. Enough for that," here, he peered around Nine at his hind leg.

Jojo kicks off his story with a lackluster beginning like a sprinter missing his starting pistol cue and Nine is about to rescind any trace of empathy he'd felt for him, but the plot thickens-- he can't help but cock an ear.

The empathy floods back in at his next words. It's a story that's been told and experienced thousands of times before: a scrappy youth plunging into the wilderness with bright eyes and skyscraping hopes, only to come out the other end defeated and terrifyingly aware of his own shortcomings.

Right, kid, he says, sounding almost irritated. Nine was a spectacular failure at showing compassion. Jojo.

You can stick with me, but... he draws himself up, looking down through hooded eyes, ...I'll get the softer grass to sleep on. Deal?

Truth was, Nine needed company just as much as he did. Aside from his bad leg, he could always use an anchor to keep him from spiraling too far, too fast (that was Kincaid to him, in a way), though this kid seemed less of an anchor than a small paperweight. Not that he'd ever admit this, not even after the heat death of the universe.

It was almost too easy, in the end. Yosemite hung his head, sensitive to the rather uninviting tone that was being taken with him, and prepared to be chased off once more. But then, almost in the next breath, his death sentence was turned around, and it turned out the man was willing to take him on, his disdain for Yosemite aside.

"Of course!" the boy cheered, springing up and dancing in a quick circle, only to feel his stomach churn. He lurched to a hault and convulsed, briefly, but managed to keep his supper down. "I'm not sick!" he assured the older man with a frantic wag of his tail, "I think I just ate too fast. But you can have all the soft grass and all the good parts of whatever we find and I'll — " He wasn't sure what else to say. Do a silly dance whenever you're bored? Lay down rose petals before you? He wasn't sure Nine would appreciate the offer.

"I'll be really good," he finished lamely, speaking over the suspicious gurgle of his belly.

tysm for the thread! Maybe we can have another one set after this?

Almost satisfied with himself, Nine can't help but smile at Yosemite's theatrics, and the smile grows even wider as he belches, queasy and mortified.

Any other reasonable person would be starting to feel the first throes of apprehension, maybe even regret. It was possibly a good thing for Yosemite that Nine was a wilful stranger to any kind of introspection. Alright, alright kid, he waves him off, though he's pleased at being treated like a demigod.

But if you do anything stupid and get us killed, I swear I'll track you down in whatever afterlife there is and never let you forget it. 

With that, Nine and Yosemite became a pair. No trumpets, no brassy fanfare-- just the sounds of poor digestion and the frenetic tap-tap-tap of his foot against the dirt.

Fitting.