Flycatcher Downs today we live, today we breathe

She gave chase -- he had missed! But he smiled -- all the better -- and he took off after her with a shout of laughter. Life on the road - life alone - provided very little of this. This... freedom, this fun. His worries of food, and water, and buckling down to shelter from the cold, those all seemed to peel away, adrift on the wind that so graciously whipped across his face. And, if he pretended (which, he did), he could almost, almost believe he was back in Caper Meadow, and this stranger -- she became one of his sisters. Chise, perhaps. No, maybe Padavina. And he felt himself falling into the comfortable space of a brother again, with neither guilt, nor reason to change that.

When she stumbled, his brotherly instinct continued to kick in, and he gasped a little, even when his nose collided with her side and he found himself a spring ahead. "Are you o -- " but he had already hopped some paces away, the thrill of the chase still light on his toes. She hadn't fallen -- only stumbled -- and all the better he'd begun to run again, because one glance told him... this girl had more fire than what she'd first let on.

He jumped, his chest seized with a crashing wave of heat, and he tore off just as she peeled like a freaking hellion toward him. Oh no no no no NOPE!

The warmth of her breath on his heels became the full force of her body; he felt her weight fall against him and Kaito yelped and gasped and laughed all the same. He felt himself turning, staggering -- and honestly, probably could've fought to stay upright -- but where was the fun in that?

So he let himself fall, to follow through with what his companion had started anyway, and prepared for full impact with the ground. And all the while he figured, that maybe, just maybe, if his friend had given juuuust a little bit too much of her weight to tip him off scale, he'd "accidentally" drag her down with him.