Of Wolf and Man - Chapter 3 - PG-13
Title: Of Wolf and Man
Author: Kavikalphawolf
Beta: None
Band/Pairing: None yet. (Will be ones in later chapters)
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: PG-13 (For this chapter)
Genre: Fantasy/Romance/Action
Warnings: None yet.
Disclaimer: Do not own these guys.
Summary: All Hiroto had ever known were the sights and sounds of his native lands, of the wild open that was his forest home. That was where he had been born, where he had been raised, and where he knew he belonged. However, when there came change in his lands, he did not flee from it like the rest of his pack, nor did he become aggressive, attacking the source of change like some. No, his curiosity would win over his heart and he would be compelled to seek it out, to try and understand it, and by doing so Hiroto will get more than he had ever bargained for.
Comment(s): Ah, this story is killing me. XD; I have no idea what the plotline is and that makes it hard for me to advance it. Forgive me, guys! ^^;
Previous Chapters: [1] [2]
Hiroto yawned widely from his place stretched out over one of the hospital couches, droopy eyes concentrating on Tora's pacing form. They were the only two people in the waiting room right now, with Tora in evident distress and Hiroto horribly tired.
That night they had returned with Saga had shown injuries far too severe to be treated with simple over-the-counter remedies, so Tora had insisted on bringing him to the nearest hospital. Hiroto, too curious for his own good, had wanted to see what a hospital looked like, and so after many minutes of explaining his shifting and showing it to Tora, Tora had finally agreed to take him with him. Only after dressing him in some (much too big) clothes, of course.
The hospital hadn't been nearly as interesting as Hiroto had hoped, and now he found himself falling asleep right where he lay. It was something Tora seemed very unable to do, and Hiroto was at a loss as to how to calm him.
"Do you trust them?" Hiroto asked, yawning again as he looked up at the large man making invisible tracks in the hospital tile from how much he'd paced that same one line.
Tora, startled at the sudden voice, jumped and then composed him, looking over at Hiroto with a raised brow. "Trust them?"
"The medicine men." As Hiroto had taken to calling the hospital staff. After all, wolves who made other wolves better in his pack were calling medicine wolves.
Tora's brows furrowed and he nodded slowly, as if unsure about his own answer. Though Hiroto guessed it had something to do with the answer being obvious.
"Then stop worrying. Saga made it this far. He's not going to die now. Your alpha is strong. Trust him to survive." Hiroto grumbled, turning his head away from Tora and looking at the back of the couch, arms curled up under his clothed chest. "Worrying only makes things worse."
"That's easy for you to say." Tora replied back in a sour tone, not at all pleased with the blunt way that Hiroto had spoken to him. However, he refrained from further comment and instead turned back in the direction that the nurses had taken Saga.
Hiroto ignored Tora's snappy response in favor of the warmth the couch provided and the dull smells and sounds of everything in this white-washed place. It was too clean, too perfect. Hiroto didn't like it. But even so it provided an excellent sense of safety and security, which was exactly what Hiroto needed to be able to sleep.
Everything around him dimmed and then became distant as he fell into a light, pleasant slumber on the nice couch. Tora's pacing only served to help push him off into dreamland because of the repetitive light tapping of his shoes on the tile below. It didn't worry him at all, and he certainly didn't hear it when he stopped.
Hiroto had only been asleep fifteen minutes when a hand was on his shoulder, pushing him out of dreamworld and into the real world again. Grouchy, Hiroto narrowed his eyes and turned to look at who had done it. It was Saga.
Blue eyes shot open and Hiroto jumped up, spinning around to where he was sitting on the couch instead of laying. "Saga!" Hiroto saw that Saga was seated in another wheeled contraption, but it wasn't nearly as large or menacing as the motorcycle was the night before. It's wheels were on either side instead of the front and the back, and it seemed to need no balancing maneuvers to be ridden on.
"I'm afraid I never asked your name." Saga chuckled despite how sick he appeared to be still. His face was pale and his foot and ankle had some kind of bandaging on it, but he seemed alright otherwise. It made Hiroto feel good and as though he really had saved this man's life.
"Hiroto."
Seeing Tora standing behind Saga, Hiroto looked up at him, glancing his large form and the grip he had on the back of the device that Saga was sitting in. It clicked in his mind that he controlled the device. Did he control all mechanical devices?
Saga nodded his head at the answer of Hiroto's name. "Thank you for saving me, Hiroto. For saving all of us." Tora grunted behind him, and Hiroto guessed that he was agreeing with what Saga said. "You can stay as long as you need."
Hiroto was surprised that he was accepted into their pack so readily, but he didn't complain. He simply smiled.
"Thanks." He knew he was going to have to stay with them for the rest of his life, but he figured that qualified for "as long as you need". "I'll take you up on that offer."
Amused by his answer, Saga motioned Hiroto off the couch and to follow them as Tora pushed him towards the door. "I'll have Tora make room for you. You don't mind sharing a room, do you?" Hiroto hopped off the couch and walked beside them out the door and to the awaiting car in the parking lot.
Tora held back a snappish response, though Hiroto could see his lips twitch as if he was about to make one, eyes narrowing for a moment and then falling back into his normal scowl.
"No, I don't mind. I'm used to sharing a room." Though it was more like sharing an entire den with his entire pack, Hiroto decided not to elaborate. Making himself seem more human than wolf was probably in his best interest right now. Especially when he was going to be living with them.
"Good." Saga's response was brief since they were soon to arrive at the car, where Tora instantly went about helping him get situated inside of.
The car was something Hiroto couldn't get used to, however. He stared at the vehicle with a mild sense of panic and the need to attack, but that, of course, was born from the ride here. Tora hadn't exactly been a slow, or careful driver, and cutting corners quickly, and almost hitting other cars--of which the drivers blared their horns incessantly--wasn't exactly something that could put Hiroto at ease.
"What are you waiting for? Get in." Tora snapped as he passed Hiroto while circling the car to get in on the driver's side. "It's not going to kill you." Then he was opening the door and crawling in, Hiroto much more reluctant to do so.
It was only when Saga's soft voice coaxed him, did Hiroto finally open the back door and slide inside, much more trusting of the slender brunette than the tall, dark-haired menace named Tora. "Sorry." Hiroto mumbled, shaking just slightly as he gripped his seat, forgetting to put on his seatbelt as Tora had told him to do the first time he had rode in the car.
Saga shook his head at the apology, a light smile on his lips. "Don't worry." Those brown eyes were comforting as they met Hiroto's blue ones, and he found himself relaxing even when Tora started up the car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
The ride back home was rather pleasant, much more so than the ride to the hospital, and all of them received a warm welcome home when they walked through the old building's door. Hiroto was able to see now just how many of these humans made up Saga's pack, and vaguely he felt as though Saga must be a great person to yield such authority over all of these people. They seemed to trust him with their very lives, and Hiroto had to admit that he did too.
------------------------------------------------
That night yielded the first of many sleepless ones for Hiroto. Though granted a bed with a comfortable mattress and soft sheets, he remained laying in the floor in front of the only window in the room. He was dressed in looser clothing--noted in his mind as sleeping clothes, or pajamas as the humans called them--and sprawled out on his side, facing the wall below the window, no pillow under his head or blankets over his body. It was much unlike Tora who was asleep in his bed on the other side of the room, snoring lightly.
The wood of the floor was uncomfortable with its less than polished surface and smooth texture, much harder than the dirt floors of his previous home. But it was cooler here than in the bed, and right here he could listen to the vibrations that danced across the floor whenever someone walked. It made him feel secure in this otherwise foreign place.
Light blue eyes drew across the expanse of the room until Hiroto was all but laying on his back, eyes to the ceiling and then the window, the moonlight of a crescent moon reflecting off his pale orbs and causing the pupils to seem red. It wasn't unlike the flash of a camera to his night-seeing eyes.
"How do humans sleep here?" He spoke on a whisper as he crawled to his hands and knees and made his way the few inches to the window, still peering out into the world he had only just begun living in. There were cars and buildings and noisy dogs; Street lamps that diffused the natural glow of the moon above, and people--strangers--that walked up and down the road with no one to tell them to keep away from another's territory. How did they live like this?
Eventually Hiroto crawled to his feet and stood feeling small in the large room he shared with Tora. It was around that time that the door to the room pushed open and Hiroto could see Saga's silhouette standing there, crutches holding him off his injured leg.
"Couldn't sleep?" He asked, unassuming. Just curious.
"How did you know?" Hiroto whispered in return, to which Saga merely gestured him out of the room. Perhaps to keep them from waking Tora. Regardless, Hiroto followed the gentle command, and was soon guided out of the building altogether.
Saga's pace was slow, his crutches making soft sounds on the floor, and then none on the grass. Hiroto was fairly sure that he shouldn't even have been up out of his wheelchair yet, but he wasn't going to be the one to tell Saga what to do. In his mind the other was alpha, and alpha always knew best.
"I know what it's like to be new in a strange place. It's only natural." Saga answered, leaning on his crutches for support when he finally came to a stop under the faint moonlight. Hiroto nodded his head and stopped beside Saga's taller form, looking over at him in wonderment.
It didn't make sense how someone who could have been so unsure of him before could accept him so fully now, without questions or curiosities, but Hiroto could only guess that it was the other man being thankful he had been saved and trusting the fates that he wasn't going to be hurt by the creature that had saved him.
The crescent moon shone above them, casting an almost unnatural light to the forest that rested on the backside of their building, the side opposite to the room Hiroto shared with Tora. It was almost as if...
Hiroto froze, his pale eyes glancing instantly to the wooded area to their left. That scent... he knew it. No, he more than knew it. It was someone from their pack. Those eyes widened and before he could comprehend what he was doing, Hiroto shed his human clothing and changed forms, surprising Saga, who barely had time to get out of the way of flying clothing.
"Hiroto what-"
Then the being emerged from the woods, ceasing Saga's wonders. The wolf that came forth was only slightly larger than Hiroto, its fur coal black on the top fading into lighter shades of grey and silver along its sides and face, even down onto its belly. And it's eyes... they were the same puppy blue as Hiroto's, its body type lanky and uncoordinated, same as Hiroto as well. It seemed the only thing separating them was the lack of brown on this new wolf and the slight height difference.
The new wolf was far from intimidating. It wasn't even curious. From the way its ears were back and its tail was tucked, Saga could only fathom it was afraid. It seemed Hiroto knew this too, for he didn't stay defensive for very long.
"What are you doing here, Shou?" Hiroto spoke low, his hackles standing up on end, as if he too was unsure of what was going on.
The new wolf, Shou, didn't seem to know what to make of this hostile greeting, and for a moment he stayed perfectly still and silent, but then ever so slowly he crawled his way over to Hiroto, belly fur almost skimming the ground with how low he was going, and tail tucked firmly between his back legs.
Hiroto stood rigid while Shou nudged up under his chin and licked, a show of submission and respect despite the situation. "I...I just wanted to see how you were. The pack thought you were killed, but... I didn't think so." He paused, waiting, and only gained the courage to speak again when Hiroto's posture relaxed slightly. "So when everyone went to sleep I went out looking for you... I saw you in the woods with humans last night, but I thought you'd be back. When you weren't I went out looking again... I didn't expect you to still be with the humans, though..."
Saga wasn't quite sure what to make of the scene before him, but he knew better than to butt in. Therefore he stayed silent, simply observing.
"Why are you with humans? Your father, he... he's worried sick about you." Shou straightened himself when he perceived that he was allowed to, Hiroto's pale eyes softening a little. The brown-furred wolf was relieved that it was only one that was here, and not more. Otherwise they may have been in real trouble.
Turning his head slightly to the side, Hiroto seemed almost sheepish at his packmate's words. "You know I can't go back. They'll smell the humans on me."
Shou's gaze was fearful and yet sympathetic as he gazed at Hiroto then. "You could just say they captured you. As the Alphas' son... it can be written off. Please, Hiroto, come back to the pack." The sleek grey wolf tilted his head downwards, his tail still tucked submissively despite being the larger of the two. Then he cast a glinting, blue-eyed glance towards Saga, who seemed quite curious of the exchange. "They... they know about you talking, don't they? That you're not a normal wolf?"
If they didn't, we would have given it away by this point. Hiroto shook that thought away. Shou didn't deserve his irritation, especially when it was aimed at himself and not the other.
"Yeah... my human form too." He stood tall, posture much more dominant than his fellow wolf's even though the exchange was casual in nature. "They accept me for it. I volunteered the information to help them. They needed me to save them."
Silence fell between the pair, and Hiroto detected the sound of howls far in the distance, signaling that it was time for Shou to leave. The pack was gathering and looking for everyone before they would inevitably head to sleep. Both Hiroto and Shou glanced off in the distance, and the young brown wolf felt a pang of sadness hit him in the chest.
"Take care of them, Shou, and don't tell them where I am. The last thing I need is them sniffing around here."
Shou nodded his grey-furred head, and turned to look back at his friend. "I really wish you would come back with me..." When Hiroto didn't reply, Shou gave him one last pleading glance before giving up and turning towards the forest. "May the ancestors guide your path." And then he was gone, sprinting into the night towards the howls. Hiroto nearly had to force himself to stay put and not run after him. It was instinct.
Saga had been watching the grey wolf as he ran off, so as he finally turned his attention back to Hiroto it was to see his human form picking up and sliding back on his clothing. "You're free to go back to them." Saga spoke softly, reading the sadness within those bright blue orbs as they turned to look back at him.
"No. Something is telling me to stay here." Hiroto offered him a small smile, "And if it's one thing father always told me to value over the pack it's instinct. It doesn't betray you."
Nodding, Saga fell silent as his gaze drifted to the woods once more. He couldn't understand the logic of beings such as Hiroto, and he supposed he never would. Despite his human appearance the youth was wild at heart, and humans were genuinely domesticated, as far removed from the wild as a creature could be.
"Let's go back inside?" Hiroto's voice was gentle, not commanding. He still believed that Saga was his leader now, and he would listen to his words as if they were set in stone.
Understanding, Saga nodded and using his crutches made his way back indoors, Hiroto right at his heels and glancing back self-consciously into the woods one time before the door shut behind his slender frame. He'd never be able to face his father, or his pack after this, and he could only hope that they would all understand.
Author: Kavikalphawolf
Beta: None
Band/Pairing: None yet. (Will be ones in later chapters)
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: PG-13 (For this chapter)
Genre: Fantasy/Romance/Action
Warnings: None yet.
Disclaimer: Do not own these guys.
Summary: All Hiroto had ever known were the sights and sounds of his native lands, of the wild open that was his forest home. That was where he had been born, where he had been raised, and where he knew he belonged. However, when there came change in his lands, he did not flee from it like the rest of his pack, nor did he become aggressive, attacking the source of change like some. No, his curiosity would win over his heart and he would be compelled to seek it out, to try and understand it, and by doing so Hiroto will get more than he had ever bargained for.
Comment(s): Ah, this story is killing me. XD; I have no idea what the plotline is and that makes it hard for me to advance it. Forgive me, guys! ^^;
Previous Chapters: [1] [2]
Hiroto yawned widely from his place stretched out over one of the hospital couches, droopy eyes concentrating on Tora's pacing form. They were the only two people in the waiting room right now, with Tora in evident distress and Hiroto horribly tired.
That night they had returned with Saga had shown injuries far too severe to be treated with simple over-the-counter remedies, so Tora had insisted on bringing him to the nearest hospital. Hiroto, too curious for his own good, had wanted to see what a hospital looked like, and so after many minutes of explaining his shifting and showing it to Tora, Tora had finally agreed to take him with him. Only after dressing him in some (much too big) clothes, of course.
The hospital hadn't been nearly as interesting as Hiroto had hoped, and now he found himself falling asleep right where he lay. It was something Tora seemed very unable to do, and Hiroto was at a loss as to how to calm him.
"Do you trust them?" Hiroto asked, yawning again as he looked up at the large man making invisible tracks in the hospital tile from how much he'd paced that same one line.
Tora, startled at the sudden voice, jumped and then composed him, looking over at Hiroto with a raised brow. "Trust them?"
"The medicine men." As Hiroto had taken to calling the hospital staff. After all, wolves who made other wolves better in his pack were calling medicine wolves.
Tora's brows furrowed and he nodded slowly, as if unsure about his own answer. Though Hiroto guessed it had something to do with the answer being obvious.
"Then stop worrying. Saga made it this far. He's not going to die now. Your alpha is strong. Trust him to survive." Hiroto grumbled, turning his head away from Tora and looking at the back of the couch, arms curled up under his clothed chest. "Worrying only makes things worse."
"That's easy for you to say." Tora replied back in a sour tone, not at all pleased with the blunt way that Hiroto had spoken to him. However, he refrained from further comment and instead turned back in the direction that the nurses had taken Saga.
Hiroto ignored Tora's snappy response in favor of the warmth the couch provided and the dull smells and sounds of everything in this white-washed place. It was too clean, too perfect. Hiroto didn't like it. But even so it provided an excellent sense of safety and security, which was exactly what Hiroto needed to be able to sleep.
Everything around him dimmed and then became distant as he fell into a light, pleasant slumber on the nice couch. Tora's pacing only served to help push him off into dreamland because of the repetitive light tapping of his shoes on the tile below. It didn't worry him at all, and he certainly didn't hear it when he stopped.
Hiroto had only been asleep fifteen minutes when a hand was on his shoulder, pushing him out of dreamworld and into the real world again. Grouchy, Hiroto narrowed his eyes and turned to look at who had done it. It was Saga.
Blue eyes shot open and Hiroto jumped up, spinning around to where he was sitting on the couch instead of laying. "Saga!" Hiroto saw that Saga was seated in another wheeled contraption, but it wasn't nearly as large or menacing as the motorcycle was the night before. It's wheels were on either side instead of the front and the back, and it seemed to need no balancing maneuvers to be ridden on.
"I'm afraid I never asked your name." Saga chuckled despite how sick he appeared to be still. His face was pale and his foot and ankle had some kind of bandaging on it, but he seemed alright otherwise. It made Hiroto feel good and as though he really had saved this man's life.
"Hiroto."
Seeing Tora standing behind Saga, Hiroto looked up at him, glancing his large form and the grip he had on the back of the device that Saga was sitting in. It clicked in his mind that he controlled the device. Did he control all mechanical devices?
Saga nodded his head at the answer of Hiroto's name. "Thank you for saving me, Hiroto. For saving all of us." Tora grunted behind him, and Hiroto guessed that he was agreeing with what Saga said. "You can stay as long as you need."
Hiroto was surprised that he was accepted into their pack so readily, but he didn't complain. He simply smiled.
"Thanks." He knew he was going to have to stay with them for the rest of his life, but he figured that qualified for "as long as you need". "I'll take you up on that offer."
Amused by his answer, Saga motioned Hiroto off the couch and to follow them as Tora pushed him towards the door. "I'll have Tora make room for you. You don't mind sharing a room, do you?" Hiroto hopped off the couch and walked beside them out the door and to the awaiting car in the parking lot.
Tora held back a snappish response, though Hiroto could see his lips twitch as if he was about to make one, eyes narrowing for a moment and then falling back into his normal scowl.
"No, I don't mind. I'm used to sharing a room." Though it was more like sharing an entire den with his entire pack, Hiroto decided not to elaborate. Making himself seem more human than wolf was probably in his best interest right now. Especially when he was going to be living with them.
"Good." Saga's response was brief since they were soon to arrive at the car, where Tora instantly went about helping him get situated inside of.
The car was something Hiroto couldn't get used to, however. He stared at the vehicle with a mild sense of panic and the need to attack, but that, of course, was born from the ride here. Tora hadn't exactly been a slow, or careful driver, and cutting corners quickly, and almost hitting other cars--of which the drivers blared their horns incessantly--wasn't exactly something that could put Hiroto at ease.
"What are you waiting for? Get in." Tora snapped as he passed Hiroto while circling the car to get in on the driver's side. "It's not going to kill you." Then he was opening the door and crawling in, Hiroto much more reluctant to do so.
It was only when Saga's soft voice coaxed him, did Hiroto finally open the back door and slide inside, much more trusting of the slender brunette than the tall, dark-haired menace named Tora. "Sorry." Hiroto mumbled, shaking just slightly as he gripped his seat, forgetting to put on his seatbelt as Tora had told him to do the first time he had rode in the car.
Saga shook his head at the apology, a light smile on his lips. "Don't worry." Those brown eyes were comforting as they met Hiroto's blue ones, and he found himself relaxing even when Tora started up the car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
The ride back home was rather pleasant, much more so than the ride to the hospital, and all of them received a warm welcome home when they walked through the old building's door. Hiroto was able to see now just how many of these humans made up Saga's pack, and vaguely he felt as though Saga must be a great person to yield such authority over all of these people. They seemed to trust him with their very lives, and Hiroto had to admit that he did too.
------------------------------------------------
That night yielded the first of many sleepless ones for Hiroto. Though granted a bed with a comfortable mattress and soft sheets, he remained laying in the floor in front of the only window in the room. He was dressed in looser clothing--noted in his mind as sleeping clothes, or pajamas as the humans called them--and sprawled out on his side, facing the wall below the window, no pillow under his head or blankets over his body. It was much unlike Tora who was asleep in his bed on the other side of the room, snoring lightly.
The wood of the floor was uncomfortable with its less than polished surface and smooth texture, much harder than the dirt floors of his previous home. But it was cooler here than in the bed, and right here he could listen to the vibrations that danced across the floor whenever someone walked. It made him feel secure in this otherwise foreign place.
Light blue eyes drew across the expanse of the room until Hiroto was all but laying on his back, eyes to the ceiling and then the window, the moonlight of a crescent moon reflecting off his pale orbs and causing the pupils to seem red. It wasn't unlike the flash of a camera to his night-seeing eyes.
"How do humans sleep here?" He spoke on a whisper as he crawled to his hands and knees and made his way the few inches to the window, still peering out into the world he had only just begun living in. There were cars and buildings and noisy dogs; Street lamps that diffused the natural glow of the moon above, and people--strangers--that walked up and down the road with no one to tell them to keep away from another's territory. How did they live like this?
Eventually Hiroto crawled to his feet and stood feeling small in the large room he shared with Tora. It was around that time that the door to the room pushed open and Hiroto could see Saga's silhouette standing there, crutches holding him off his injured leg.
"Couldn't sleep?" He asked, unassuming. Just curious.
"How did you know?" Hiroto whispered in return, to which Saga merely gestured him out of the room. Perhaps to keep them from waking Tora. Regardless, Hiroto followed the gentle command, and was soon guided out of the building altogether.
Saga's pace was slow, his crutches making soft sounds on the floor, and then none on the grass. Hiroto was fairly sure that he shouldn't even have been up out of his wheelchair yet, but he wasn't going to be the one to tell Saga what to do. In his mind the other was alpha, and alpha always knew best.
"I know what it's like to be new in a strange place. It's only natural." Saga answered, leaning on his crutches for support when he finally came to a stop under the faint moonlight. Hiroto nodded his head and stopped beside Saga's taller form, looking over at him in wonderment.
It didn't make sense how someone who could have been so unsure of him before could accept him so fully now, without questions or curiosities, but Hiroto could only guess that it was the other man being thankful he had been saved and trusting the fates that he wasn't going to be hurt by the creature that had saved him.
The crescent moon shone above them, casting an almost unnatural light to the forest that rested on the backside of their building, the side opposite to the room Hiroto shared with Tora. It was almost as if...
Hiroto froze, his pale eyes glancing instantly to the wooded area to their left. That scent... he knew it. No, he more than knew it. It was someone from their pack. Those eyes widened and before he could comprehend what he was doing, Hiroto shed his human clothing and changed forms, surprising Saga, who barely had time to get out of the way of flying clothing.
"Hiroto what-"
Then the being emerged from the woods, ceasing Saga's wonders. The wolf that came forth was only slightly larger than Hiroto, its fur coal black on the top fading into lighter shades of grey and silver along its sides and face, even down onto its belly. And it's eyes... they were the same puppy blue as Hiroto's, its body type lanky and uncoordinated, same as Hiroto as well. It seemed the only thing separating them was the lack of brown on this new wolf and the slight height difference.
The new wolf was far from intimidating. It wasn't even curious. From the way its ears were back and its tail was tucked, Saga could only fathom it was afraid. It seemed Hiroto knew this too, for he didn't stay defensive for very long.
"What are you doing here, Shou?" Hiroto spoke low, his hackles standing up on end, as if he too was unsure of what was going on.
The new wolf, Shou, didn't seem to know what to make of this hostile greeting, and for a moment he stayed perfectly still and silent, but then ever so slowly he crawled his way over to Hiroto, belly fur almost skimming the ground with how low he was going, and tail tucked firmly between his back legs.
Hiroto stood rigid while Shou nudged up under his chin and licked, a show of submission and respect despite the situation. "I...I just wanted to see how you were. The pack thought you were killed, but... I didn't think so." He paused, waiting, and only gained the courage to speak again when Hiroto's posture relaxed slightly. "So when everyone went to sleep I went out looking for you... I saw you in the woods with humans last night, but I thought you'd be back. When you weren't I went out looking again... I didn't expect you to still be with the humans, though..."
Saga wasn't quite sure what to make of the scene before him, but he knew better than to butt in. Therefore he stayed silent, simply observing.
"Why are you with humans? Your father, he... he's worried sick about you." Shou straightened himself when he perceived that he was allowed to, Hiroto's pale eyes softening a little. The brown-furred wolf was relieved that it was only one that was here, and not more. Otherwise they may have been in real trouble.
Turning his head slightly to the side, Hiroto seemed almost sheepish at his packmate's words. "You know I can't go back. They'll smell the humans on me."
Shou's gaze was fearful and yet sympathetic as he gazed at Hiroto then. "You could just say they captured you. As the Alphas' son... it can be written off. Please, Hiroto, come back to the pack." The sleek grey wolf tilted his head downwards, his tail still tucked submissively despite being the larger of the two. Then he cast a glinting, blue-eyed glance towards Saga, who seemed quite curious of the exchange. "They... they know about you talking, don't they? That you're not a normal wolf?"
If they didn't, we would have given it away by this point. Hiroto shook that thought away. Shou didn't deserve his irritation, especially when it was aimed at himself and not the other.
"Yeah... my human form too." He stood tall, posture much more dominant than his fellow wolf's even though the exchange was casual in nature. "They accept me for it. I volunteered the information to help them. They needed me to save them."
Silence fell between the pair, and Hiroto detected the sound of howls far in the distance, signaling that it was time for Shou to leave. The pack was gathering and looking for everyone before they would inevitably head to sleep. Both Hiroto and Shou glanced off in the distance, and the young brown wolf felt a pang of sadness hit him in the chest.
"Take care of them, Shou, and don't tell them where I am. The last thing I need is them sniffing around here."
Shou nodded his grey-furred head, and turned to look back at his friend. "I really wish you would come back with me..." When Hiroto didn't reply, Shou gave him one last pleading glance before giving up and turning towards the forest. "May the ancestors guide your path." And then he was gone, sprinting into the night towards the howls. Hiroto nearly had to force himself to stay put and not run after him. It was instinct.
Saga had been watching the grey wolf as he ran off, so as he finally turned his attention back to Hiroto it was to see his human form picking up and sliding back on his clothing. "You're free to go back to them." Saga spoke softly, reading the sadness within those bright blue orbs as they turned to look back at him.
"No. Something is telling me to stay here." Hiroto offered him a small smile, "And if it's one thing father always told me to value over the pack it's instinct. It doesn't betray you."
Nodding, Saga fell silent as his gaze drifted to the woods once more. He couldn't understand the logic of beings such as Hiroto, and he supposed he never would. Despite his human appearance the youth was wild at heart, and humans were genuinely domesticated, as far removed from the wild as a creature could be.
"Let's go back inside?" Hiroto's voice was gentle, not commanding. He still believed that Saga was his leader now, and he would listen to his words as if they were set in stone.
Understanding, Saga nodded and using his crutches made his way back indoors, Hiroto right at his heels and glancing back self-consciously into the woods one time before the door shut behind his slender frame. He'd never be able to face his father, or his pack after this, and he could only hope that they would all understand.