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Somewhere in the vast Frontier, a wolf was howling at the moon.
A wolf howls for many different reasons. One of the main reasons was to let their family know where they were. That howl, that resonance of a ghost, is usually met with a handful more. Usually a lot further away than the first. But this one howled once, and nobody answered back. It was a rather sad sign. When a wolf howled and nobody answered on a full moon night, it may mean that the wolf had nobody left — or it may mean that the wolf was a person, once. And now it was in pain, alone, and hungry.
The howl struck fear into the hearts of many who heard it. But to a man like Yakumo, he felt a sudden wave of sadness as he heard the inexplicable sob in that echo.
“Poor thing,” he mumbled as he trotted alongside the cyborg horse. His paws left gentle imprints in the dirt, and his tail hung low. He looked especially forlorn tonight.
Beside him, the horse seemed indifferent. It was both flesh and mechanism, it didn't give a care. But the rider atop it looked down at him, dark eyes glinting beneath the brim of his hat, and his brow taut in confusion. “Poor thing?” He asked, voice a quiet murmur. “What, can you understand the howl?”
Yakumo hummed, continuing his leisurely trot. He had to go a bit quick to keep up with the long legs of the horse, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. “Yes and no. I can tell a good howl from a bad one. That one was a bad one.”
“Explain,” D replied.
The fox beside him sped up enough to hop onto a rock. Head perked upwards, Yakumo gestured with his snout up at the full moon. “Sounded painful,” he explained. “Probably a first turn.”
D led the horse smoothly past the fox. Yakumo took the chance to leap, landing on the horse’s iron flank. He weighed almost nothing to the cyborg horse, so it barely even reacted to the fox jumping on it. D wrinkled his nose for a moment, his gaze returning forward.
A moment later, he felt a hand brush his shoulder instead of a paw. When he next looked back, Yakumo was sitting behind him in the form of the man he'd met a few months ago. Squinted eyes peered back at him with slight confusion.
“We gonna investigate that, or no?” He pressed.
D gave a half-hearted shrug in return. “Mm. As long as it doesn't cross our path, I see no reason as to why we should meddle with a werewolf. It's in the woods. It's in its own territory.”
Yakumo sighed, leaning forward and putting his chin against D's broad back. He was tired, and admittedly bored, just riding through the forest with D on horseback. When he'd agreed to travel with the Dhampir, he was more thinking of the sword-fighting and girl-kissing — you know, the type of stuff heroes do — and not… the endless hours of just… moving.
He stuck out his bottom lip, staring up at the dark trees.
Whatever happened to the wolf, it didn't howl again. The two continued onwards through the woods, the woods that sang back to them in the form of crickets and owls. Clicks from creatures nobody could understand.
Yakumo had come to understand that D was almost never one for conversation. The Dhampir preferred to keep to himself. A strange, blank slate that had piqued Yakumo’s curiosity, a thing that seldom happens nowadays. As much as he appreciated silence, Yakumo's curiosity outweighed the yearning for calm.
He began to grin, fang peeking from his lip. “Say, D…”
“Hm?”
“I spy with my little eye something… black.”
D squinted against the darkness. Not because he couldn't see — he could actually see quite fine in pitch black — but because that seemed to come straight out of left field and it threw him off for a moment. Was Yakumo really trying to play a game with him?
D glanced down at his cyborg horse. Though decorated silver, the fur itself was black as night. “Is it my horse?”
“Nope,” Yakumo chuckled.
“The sky.”
“Wrong again!”
“Do shadows count?”
“Not this time, no.”
D pondered for a while. He kind of didn't want to play this game, he found it stupid and meaningless. But if Yakumo wanted entertainment, he'd oblige. Even if he seemed rather disinterested.
“I give up,” he sighed. “Tell me.”
He felt Yakumo’s hand on top of his head, tilting back his large traveler's hat. “You give up too easily, you oaf. I was going to say your hat.”
D scoffed softly. How original of his friend.
“It's your turn, now,” Yakumo whispered, his chin moving to D's shoulder. “Pick something for me to find.”
“Must I?” D murmured, but alas, when he looked back he was met with quite the pout from his foxish friend. So, with a sigh, he took a short glance around. Nothing really seemed to pop out at him, and he needed to pick something a bit more stationary.
Finally, he decided. “I spy with my little eye something… round.”
Yakumo perked up a little, taking a quick glance around. He seemed intent on searching, tapping black-stained fingers against his chin. “Ah, let's see here… a rock?”
“Nope,” D chuckled.
“You're right, that would've been too obvious. Uh. A firefly!”
“Those aren't round.”
“Their asses are. Kind of.”
“You mean… their abdomen? Those aren't completely round, either. Those are somewhat oblong.”
“Hmph. You're oblong.”
D stared straight ahead, tightly pursing his lips to keep in the laugh that tried to bubble out of his throat. That was a new one, he's never been called oblong before. Then again, Yakumo had once called a man a, quote unquote, “gobsmacking piss vortex” , and D wasn't sure he'd ever hear something more bizarre than that.
He glanced back once more, his dark hair brushing over his back. “Have you given up yet?”
“No!” Yakumo announced, and thus set his hands on D's shoulder. He tried to stand up while still on the flank of the horse to look around better, which began to startle the poor cyborg.
D was quick to grab him and yank him back down, the humor in his eyes fading slightly. “It's either you walk or you sit, Yakumo. I don't want you falling off.”
Yakumo pouted, but it went unseen by the Dhampir. “Oh, now you're not letting me look around. Fine then. I give up. What's this mysterious, round thing?”
D let a pause hang. And then, rather smugly, he pointed upwards. “The moon.”
Yakumo frowned. His squinted eyes followed D's finger, all the way up to the full moon. It was a cloudless night, so it was visible in all of its pure splendor. The white light bathing the dark world, and oh, the majesty. Still, Yakumo looked upon it with a sort of frustration and dissatisfaction.
“You cheat,” he boldly stated.
D simply shrugged in return. “I picked an object. If you don't like it, don't play.”
Yakumo leaned backwards with a rather dramatic groan, stretching out his legs. D almost leaned from bearing Yakumo's dead weight due to the hands on his shoulders, but he didn't give the man that satisfaction. But then, that weight left him, and for a moment he grew anxious that Yakumo might have fallen off of the horse. Yet when he looked beside him, there was once again a disgruntled looking fox trotting alongside the horse.
D watched idly. He'd certainly heard of kitsune before, but like many legendary creatures, they had become rather scarce. There was still so little they knew about each other. He observed Yakumo's quick little strides, the light tapping of his paws on the ground. He thought about asking him something.
And then, the woods came alive again. There was another howl, this time much further away. It sounded a bit weaker. Yakumo's dark ears twitched upwards and his head lifted towards the direction of the sound. Expressive as he was, it was harder to read on the snout of a fox.
D kept quietly watching from the corner of his eye. “Bad howl?”
“Bad howl,” Yakumo confirmed. “Poor thing can't find its family.”
The Dhampir's lip slightly twitched. He waited a moment, pondered his question. Then he dared ask it.
“Foxes are related to wolves, correct?”
Yakumo's eyes widened incredulously. He glanced up at D with a frown. “What? I mean, yeah. Foxes are, like, their cousins. Why?”
D shrugged. “I was just thinking. You are like a werewolf with the luxury of the freedom to change. To retain your thoughts and morals. Do you pity your cousins?”
Yakumo was quiet for a moment.
He looked back forward and his ears folded backwards against his skull. He seemed to ponder for quite some time, paws lightly treading over little twigs that didn't even snap beneath his pads. “I've never really thought about it,” he admitted. “I never considered myself kin to werewolves.”
“Never?” D whispered. This conversation rang familiar in his heart.
Yakumo seemed to sense this. He let out a laugh only a fox could. Loud and chittery, grating to the ears. “Never. You must feel the same, correct? You're a Dhampir who hunts Vampires. You're technically hunting your cousin species.”
D sighed. His eyes drifted back forward as they both began to turn, following an already paved trail. “I have my reasons. But I'd like to know yours.”
“Ooh, mysterious!” Yakumo chortled with a small hop. “Well, I'll tell you my reasons. I've never actually met a werewolf, so I don't really have an opinion on it.”
“And you've been alive for how long?”
“Mm… about five hundred years at this point,” Yakumo mused. “Believe it or not, I have never seen a man twist himself into a wolf before. Then again, is it really that strange? You went so long without seeing a kitsune, yet here we are.”
D couldn't help his laugh this time. “Touché. You always have a quip ready, don't you?”
A smile curled along Yakumo's snout, delightfully sinister.
He seemed to have a little more pep in his step. He was close to frolicking now, darting about in front of the horse and jumping off of rocks. D watched with quiet amusement. He thought foxes were graceful, for a scavenger beast. Yakumo was just silly. To think, if he made it five hundred more years, he may become one of those beautiful and dangerous nine tailed kitsune they talk about in legends.
That thought made him call out again. “Say, when are you going to let me see the rest of your tails?”
Yakumo's ears perked up, and he suddenly glanced back with a bristled tail and a lopsided sort of smile. “When you learn how to shapeshift into a bat!”
D made a mental note to take that as a personal challenge.
Though he wanted to continue down the trail (and presumably continue the banter as well), he was forced to stop his horse when Yakumo began to slow down. The little fox was sniffing about, ears perked forward. D stared down at him with a blank look, the only shift in his expression being a raise of his brow.
“What is it?” He asked quietly.
Yakumo took a few more sniffs of the air, and then his tail lifted along with his sly grin. “Oh, I think there's a spring nearby! Can we go visit it?”
D's face fell. “I don't like water.”
“Too bad, you smell like dirt. We're going to the spring.”
Before D could argue, Yakumo was dashing off of the trail and into the woods. The Dhampir watched him go, nose wrinkling with displeasure. He had half a mind to just keep going and leave Yakumo behind, but that wouldn't bode well on his conscience. So he dismounted his horse and took it by the reins, stroking it on the nose before gently leading it into the thick woods. Yakumo was difficult to track for the untrained man, but D found it easy to follow the scent of citrus and the imprints of paws in the dirt.
Lo and behold, he began to smell fresh water in the air, and he could hear some splashing from not too far away. His horse whinnied softly, interested in the smells as well, so he let it lead. Winding through the trees, he was met with the sight of a little clearing. In the middle of the dandelion-strewn grass patch was a tiny spring among the rocks, even with a little waterfall.
He let the reins of his horse go and watched it wander over to take a well deserved drink. As he drew closer, his eyes drifted to the shape in the water.
Yakumo was human again, and currently was only a head in the water. Or, well, half a head. All D could see were his eyes, nose, and the only dry portion of his red hair. He looked pretty content.
D raised a brow. “Are you drowning?”
“Blrb,” Yakumo responded, since his mouth was underwater.
D nodded along, pretending he understood. “Interesting. You enjoy your soak.”
As the Dhampir was turning away to find a place to sit down, he heard a splash behind him and a loud gasp. He shut his eyes tight in an exasperated sort of grimace.
“Where are you going!? Didn't I just say you smelled like dirt?” Yakumo shouted. “Get in here!”
D was only walking away faster. “I don't like water.”
Yakumo climbed out from the spring, his clothes still sticking to his body, aside from the bandages he had taken off earlier. “You said that already, and I don't care! Get back here!”
“Well, I care, and I'm not going to join you,” D stated simply. He kept speeding up his steps into an odd sort of speedwalk.
And then Yakumo suddenly was behind him and grabbing him by the back of his cape. D let out a strangled noise as he was yanked backwards towards the water, much to the amusement of the kitsune. And alas, he was tilting, and his hat got flung into the air as he fell into the water with a great splash. Even his horse seemed amused, stamping it's hoof and whinnying loudly at him.
Yakumo sat up, chittering with wild laughter. His red hair was stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck, and now his clothes were all heavy and wet, but he was more preoccupied with the fall of D.
“Ah, I've never heard you make that kind of sound before!” He squealed. “That was hilarious!”
D said nothing, as he was laying face down in the water. Because of his cape and the darkness of his hair, he sort of just looked like a black blob. Occasionally he'd bob up and down a little. He seemed pretty motionless.
Yakumo stood up and waded over, the water drifting past his waist. “Oh, no, you got a little wet. Ha! Big baby. Come on.”
D didn't move. Yakumo stared down at him quizzically.
“D?”
Nothing.
“... Hellooo?”
After about a minute of silence and absolutely no motion whatsoever, the air bubbles stopped popping near D's head. The Dhampir began to sink a little.
Yakumo's heart dropped, and he let out a little scream. “D! WHAUGH!”
He dove forward and grabbed the Dhampir, beginning to drag him back to the shore. He was definitely panicking, but he had to admit, drowning in a spring sounded like a hilarious way to go. He pushed those dark thoughts away as he shoved D back into the grass, where the Dhampir landed with a wet splat.
Just as Yakumo tried climbing over to try and do some mouth to mouth, D abruptly sat up like nothing had happened. He calmly leaned over to wring out his hair, not even sparing Yakumo a glance.
The kitsune stared back in a slight daze, mouth parted.
D cracked open one eye when he noticed the staring. “What?”
Yakumo closed his mouth with a clack of teeth. He didn't know whether to be amused or disappointed that D would pull something like that. “Drama queen.”
And then Yakumo grabbed D by the belt, and abruptly yanked him back into the water.