"Had he gone to the gym?"
"I don't think that Paul had. The gym clothes are still here.."
~
mindscape
"We won!, HAHAHA" Paul says as he starts to laugh in a victory like manner, dropping down onto the floor with his back against the ground. Arms exposed, raised onto the metaphorical direction of where sky supposedly is. A sweet taste of victory after all the exertion.
It had been a while since he had this feeling. "Ahh.." Although... he holds still some regrets. He drops his arms. Sighing; filled full of spiritual exhaustion.
It's a pity here his muscles can't get sore; it would be nice to lay down in a bathtub filled full of hot water. The experience of lying exhausted with the back submerged in hot water is a heavenly experience that most people miss by not exerting their whole body to training, all at once.
Meteo steps closer to the laying on the ground figure of Paul
"You are quite tall. Taller than I thought" Meteo interrupts the silence with his presence, mentioning his height when they met. Recalling the time they grabbed each other's hands in a handshake, Paul's form was no taller than his, at the time. "And what's this place?" Not hesitating to shoot a second question.
Shrugging off. "As if I knew". Moving his head to look at the young hare. "Call it mindscape or soul-scape. Can't make a definite answer"
"Def..i..nite?" His head lowered to the side, trying to comprehend the sentence - yet failing badly. "Huh." Now as he thinks, he neither knows what the mindscape is supposed to mean. "Wha?" Visible question mark above his head popping out.
Seeing a literal questioning marks appear above the visage of Meteo's head makes Paul flabbergasted. Blinking, questioning his sight. However, shrugging it as something you can do in a mindscape, instead of answering, he thinks of anvil falling from the sky, making a large dust cloud as it impacts the floor.
Success, surprisingly.
"Huh." Looks in a fascination as the anvil literally appears out of nowhere and falls onto the ground, making such cartoonish effects.
"Huh?" Meteo distracted looks at the place of impact. From the manifestation to the end result, he was following the anvil with his head. Paul chuckles as he sees Meteo's face. Now they both share the feeling of flabbergastion.
"Definite means certain.. Which also is an advanced word." Paul tries to recall all the child vocabulary which could explain the said word even simpler. "Eh, relevant not. Just think of it~... as something that you are sure about. Yeah!" After a pause. He pats himself. "That explains it well indeed." As he says that, he redirects his head to the direction of Meteo face.
"You talk funny" Meteo adds, shattering Paul's happy mood. Making him drop the smile.
"..." Rolling eyes.
"How do you do that with your eyes?"
"What? ..." Now he being the one confused. ".. Do what with my eyes?"
"The moving part, how do you do that"
"..." He looks at Meteo for a couple of seconds until Meteo himself starts to feel a bit awkward, himself.
"What, I wouldn't ask if I knew how to do the eye moving myself"
"..." He stands up, moves fast, squats and put two of his fingers on each of Meteo's eyelids. Opening them wide enough to see the pink underneath of lower lids, as well as the image of full eyeball. "Kid, eyes literally have muscles for it. Just because you don't need to use them to see everything around, doesn't mean you don't have them at all"
"Oh~." He doesn't react to the fact his eyelids are forced wide open. As a matter of fact, he holds them wide after Paul stops doing that himself. "Can you teach me to do that?" Being the curious kid he is, he asks.
"Okey." He answers with a mocking tone. "Teach me then how to wag the tail"
"But it's instinctive"
"Exactly"
"Oh. Now I see what you mean"
"Exactly." He snickers, repeating his last words. Sitting down, laying himself on the floor, outstretched like a star
...
...
"Wait. You didn't answer the- ..." Due to Paul knowing what Meteo is about to ask, he interrupts
"It's the same thing as when we spoke to each other. Just this time being inside your mind.. or soul. Hard to say.."
"Ah~!"
Chuckling. Moving his head back to look again into the void that is the sky
Lying next to Paul, there is silence between them two for a few seconds; Meteo now sees why Paul rests like this – It's relaxing.
"So how old are you, kid." Paul asks out of nowhere. "You look like a 4-year-old, move like 8, and punch like 20." He jokes
"I am not that old.. I am.. uh.." Counting on his fingers "Mom.. said.. I was born at 17'th of Quintember.."
"Quintember?" In his mind "Latin?". After thinking so, he starts to count in his mind "Un, duo, tres, quattour, quinque! Oh, he meant May". As his thoughts finalize, he continues to listen.
"... and it's Quattember... so.. Does this count as me being 2, or still I am 1?" He asks Paul.
"And how old exactly Ruby is?" Stupefied
"Oh, she had her birthday yesterday"
"..."
"What, why you are silent now?"
"First of all, I have to say I am sorry for what you had to go through... Understand, I would want to save your parents too, believe me. But unfortunately.. I couldn't interact with any of you then." Paul says, adding after the second. "It was quite fortunate that you could see me after gaining Migawari. But..." Sigh. "Your sister had it really tough - Having her birthday just yesterday"
The shaky intake of air comes from the direction of the Meteo resembling the noise of sniffing. I turn my head in his direction.
"I really want to cry... actually, I wanted to do so ever since I appeared here. So why no tears coming from my eyes.." His voice trembling. "My eyes itch, and it's really uncomfortable when tears are not going down my cheeks."
"... Do you want me to hug you?" Feeling pity for the kid.
He doesn't reply, instead Meteo gets into Paul's embrace. As his voice is trembling, pressing himself into my black fur, I gently pat his head.
"If family is what you lack, I can be your brother from now on."
Chuckling. Raising his head to meet mine. "I have this strange feeling that you are older than my mom. But sure"
"Ah let's not talk about age. I may had been in my 20's but I am getting shorter and shorter. I won't be surprised if in few days we'll be sharing the same height." Smiling due the irony. "I probably will be dropping my name too. It doesn't have any weight to it anymore, anyway"
Giggling. "So, are we going to give each other nicknames then?"
"Sure. That will make things easier. What would you want to call me then?"
"Hmmm.. Well, it must do something with black colour."
"I see we share the same sense of naming then." Cackling. "Then may it be me who give ideas. After all I have much more of a gallery of words within my inventory"
"I may not understand what you just said, but I know what you mean by it. I think.. So sure!"
"Then what about I call you Aki, and you me Shokui. Aki means red, Shokui means Star, not literally, but if you stretch the terminology, it basically does mean that. And if that's combined, we get your name, which, from the side of your parents, I am guessing was a pun for the falling star – the Meteorite"
"Huh, Meteo.. Ryu.. I see what you done there" Chuckling.
"Do you like it?"
"I like it, mi'i ani'i Shoku'i~"
"Happy to hear that"
None of them realize they are not speaking the same language.
~
[3 days later]
Quattember 6'th 1668; Thursday.
Meteo's finger twitches, returning partially back into the consciousness, enough to realize air is hitting the fur and not feeling the uncomfortableness that comes from waking up dirty after days of non-movement.
His eyelids twitch, opening wide with hesitant pace. Light consumes his vision, failing to blind him due to his specie not having the adjustory time needed for different light intensities. Vision immediately loads the picture of the surrounding,
His body wrapped in multiple places in a bandage that looks as if someone had poorly torn off from the parts of clothes. Wherever the fabric touched, the cloth that made it's presence was soaked with old blood.
Silence.
Stare down.
Joy.
His eyes being open had been caught by Rubi'i's direct sight. Clearly, most of her entertainment these days had been staring at my body, constantly. She may not have a degree in medicine; however, her intuition says that if she drops her sight of him, something bad may happen, and she doesn't want that to ever happen.
So, here's now this current predicament of the pair of eyes meeting each other in direct contact.
She clearly has the face of someone who was just shaken awake. Reason unknown, maybe it even being his own slight idle movement of waking up, and her being on edge for a couple of days.
- Elle'e? - being the first thing said before the eruption.
Rubi'i squeezes the hell out of me by simply hugging. The force as if planned to either return me back to the world of unconsciousness, or the world of death.
"Brother, y-You.. You finally awake." Her dried eyes from crying hours long, being dampened yet again by her tears
"Alright, alright." Poking her harshly to stop the hug. "Fine.. Stop. Air. You're killing me.."
When last thing is spoken, she panic-ally jerks off of me. Now her tears being fueled by thinking she harmed him by coincidence."I-I.. I.. I'm. I am sorry" Seeing the expression, my hand unconsciously lay on her head, patting her.
"No no. It's... fine. No need to worry." As I say that, she surprisingly calms down due to both my touch and words. As I move, I pull myself into the sitting position, my legs squeezed in between of hers. Our height differences yet not being that much of a differentiation. "How long was I sleeping? Ugh." I hold the temple as sudden dizziness from days of not eating, hits.
- 3 nights.. - she answers
- Three?? - I yelp myself into focus from the sudden surprise
- You have no clue how much I was worrying about you, ani'i. I.. I am happy you're finally awake
"What about brother Hee?" I ask, but after doing so, her memories of passing out return to her. Her slowed up tears turn into sobs.
"Brother.. Hee. He's." Sniffle. "He won't. He won't be waking up as you do..."
- Can I see him?
"Must you have?" She asks full of sadness
"Yeah..." I stand as I help myself by gripping the bark of the tree. Slowly standing up, his body aching from the soreness. Shokui had never gotten drunk even though he drunk quite a bit of liquor in his past life whenever there was an event. However, he can compare it to the feeling of having symptoms of a hangover. Though the reason why still deludes him.
Meteo stands up and sluggishly follow Ruby, being guided by her hand. After a few minutes of following, not going into the meadow but still being inside of the forest.
I see and immediately puke.
Hee was clearly taken by Ruby here, the trail of the relocation of his body still quite fresh from the behind of the corpse. Or.. What was left of it. It had gouged out eyes, cut of horns, being pale, dried up as if something sucked all of his blood, with the large chunks of the fur having resemblance to being skinned off.
"W.. What happened to him. Who is so.." Hyperventilating. " Who is so cruel to dishonour the corpse like this" His voice shaking. Even Shokui being pale, and he often salivates whenever he sees blood and meat, being the meat lover himself, the same way horn hares are. But this. "What kind of monster.."
Meteo's eyes unconsciously morph into the Migawari pattern.
Ruby also seeing my broken expression, starts to sob herself. The amount of puking she went through when she saw him in this state was horrible. She couldn't eat anything past these 3 days.
Previously, a single soul vortex pattern being turned into 2. Now on a single eye start to morph a third, the pattern on the second eye also following up not so long behind. It instinctively flickers up, showing its ability on the body, being able to see surrounding heat. Hee having none.
Meteo would had pass out now if it wasn't for the presence of Shokui switching with him. Aki is now lying in the corner of the mind, crying. Considering himself the reason why Hee ended up like this.
Shokui trying to be the one to protect Aki's mind from shattering completely by being there with him.
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Aki – Akai 赤 - Japanese word for colour Red
Shokui – Shoku 蝕 - Japanese word for Eclipse
Mi'i - in local language meaning "Mine" or "My", which is derivative of the word Pri'i - which translates to "I"
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