Boy and Coyote (Kyo, please)

[Thomas Cosa]

Thomas followed after the wild trio, a small shiver of anticipation running up his spine. He had caught the small changes in the landscape, the hardier plants becoming softer, the grasses shrinking, leaving room for expansive trees arching their branches against a pretty blue sky. It was when Kyo paused, hesitant, that the animator realized something was odd. He opened his mouth, a wisp of warning escaping him, too late before Kyo bounded off, speeding deep within.

"Wait!" Thomas yelled, nerviously bouncing at the edge, something off. There was something, an energy, a force, that bite at him, stirred his stomach. He looked around, immediately aware of the vast openess. He couldn't place what he was feeling, but perhaps had he not been so distracted by all the new, he would remember the very familair feeling of dread. Having spent so many years on the isle of magic, the animator should have easily placed the feeling of exposed djed.

But he didn't -- and the fear of being alone, so far outside the city, outweighed any misgivings he had about folowing after the kelvic. So he ran. Fast.

The sudden wrongness exploded, bubbling his emotions, twisting his nerves and his stomach. He pushed through, his teeth clamped tight against whatever was happening against his body. He threw himself into the sprint, arms propelling his body, feet angrily kicking up dirt and young grass as he desperately maintained himself against the sudden unpleasantness to everything.

Passing closer, a wave of visions harrased him. His eyes closed, tightly, in an effort to not see -- had he his full capacity, he'd consider it blashphemy. They weren't guided by his gnosis, or his goddess, so could potentially be untrue. At the time, he only recognized the gesture the wildly sweeping hands for what they were, or rather who they belonged to, a practictioner. This caused great concern, he stopped, intent to return and leave the Kelvic -- instead, the sudden change in motion upturned his body, the young man tumbling after the border, a sudden blast of connection and energy hitting him warmly.

"Wh --? I...where?" Thomas stuttered, confused, a overwhelming sense of connection, unity, a sense of being completely connected to the world around him. Every sense exploded with new infomation, visions tinged with happiness, joy, chasing a boy with colored eyes that shimmered with changing shades and hues. Belonging. He knew the feeling, and immediately understood the Kelvic.

"Where are we, Kyo? Where is the boy now? Here?" Thomas asked, a hint of concern coloring his voice. Was the boy the practicioner he'd seen earlier?

[Kyo]

Kyo had not noticed before the wash of bad emotions that brushed his face when Thomas broke through to this place after him. He had been too caught up in it all, the energy like warmth in his fur but somehow coming from inside. Now, though, as he smiled at Thomas, he saw --and felt-- the confusion, something that was to Kyo a jumbling of string in his mind, and the strings were made of words... and the concern, when Thomas asked about this place and his boy. The concern was difficult for him to see in his mind, to picture, but eventually he thought of it as something odd, sharp and blunt, a strange rock that could poke from the belly or in the throat. The coyote-man immediately stopped smiling, feeling that if he'd been in coyote-form his ears would have pulled back, and wished Thomas would be happy, a wish that swept out of him like a wave of warmth.

"Where are we, Kyo?

To that question, the Kelvic could only shrug, though as he did he said, "Lake-place, don't worry. No... no bad, here?" He felt his own confusion at the question. He didn't know if there was no badness here, in this strange other place, but he didn't feel anything bad from around the area... there was a horse, maybe nearby, that he sensed might become angry should they themselves do something bad here, try to hurt this place, but if they were good the horse would not be a threat. He couldn't feel any other threats, other than that.

He was also a little confused by Thomas not knowing where he was. In his head Kyo thought of how his dogs and him had always skirted around this place, feeling the bad feelings coming in. But there had also been the feeling of knowing each others' minds when they got too close, of their heads opening like a flower to the sun. Now that he was here --though his dogs weren't here, out there at the edge of the place howling for him to come back-- and though he hadn't been to this place before, he felt he knew it. He knew the trees and the grass and the flowers and all the plants, all the animals, the horse and the goats and the fish in the underground lake at the center of it all, even the birds that landed only to take off into the sky and be gone again. How could Thomas not know this place? Could he not feel these things?

But that was not right. Because even as Kyo wondered if Thomas could feel them, he knew that the young man could. Because he could feel Thomas in his mind, a part of his mind, like all the rest.

Where is the boy now? Here?"

At the last question, Kyo shook his head, filling up with a sense of longing and sadness. "No here," he muttered out, "boy don't stay." But now, with the words, would come a sense of lost, making it clear that the boy hadn't left Kyo. That he was just gone. There was a flicker of an image, another following right after, then again: the first a cold cold snowy place where the sky was always white with clouds, the ground white with snow and ice, everything white, and it was there that they had lived together with the other people and their animals; the second an image of traveling, a big wagon-thing carrying people and things, and his boy had been up ahead while Kyo stayed back and played with the other dogs; the third and the wagon-thing was on fire, smoke in the sky and burning in the nose and eyes, and running to get away from the shouting and loud noises and the fighting of Kyo's people with the new ones that had come to attack.

After that he had been lost. And his boy had been lost. And he didn't know where his boy must be. Maybe in the cold cold snowy place he remembered from when he was a pup. Maybe somewhere else. All he knew was he was looking for his boy, had been looking for a long long time, but had never found him. And his boy was not here.

After the memories had gone through his mind --transferring to Thomas as they could only in this place-- the coyote-man would step a little closer and ask, "Thomas... Thomas good?" He was wondering if Thomas would be okay, now. Not confused or having those bad feelings like he had before. "Thomas, don't worry."

[Thomas Cosa]

The flotsam of worry that colored him seemed to waver in front of Kyo's wish; Thomas was distracted by the selflessness of the kelvic's desire. He tried a small smile, a simple gesture to put the creature at ease -- although, given how easily they now seemed to understand each other, he doubted it would fool the kelvic. Still, he tried, a slight acknowledgement of Kyo's kindness.

Thoms laughed, tickled by the idea of kindness for kindness sake. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he would have ever considered such a thing. The brief brake in his guard, and everything flooded in -- an intimate familiarity with every nook, every creature, the fish, the goats, even the grass seemed to express itself (so much so that Thomas moved uncomfortably off the fallen blades under him, searching for a bare patch instead). His wall of supersition, built by years of Sahova, cracked, a flash of trust finding it's way to Kyo.

"It's an oasis, Kyo. Oh-ay-sis," he said, sounding the word out, syllable by syllable. "A paradise amidst a sea of savannah," Thomas smiled, the mage in him coming out, the wisps of an experiment building in his mind. He wondered how long it would take the Kelvic to learn to speak common, at least at an communicative level. Or at least, in a way where Kyo could form a sentence or two. "And you don't know if it has a name? Have you shown anyone else?" He asked, a hint of paranoia shown only by a rise in tone. Thomas had already recognized this place as mage-made, the thrill of extra energy, the almost overwhelming sense of connection, he doubted very much this place was natural.

He wondered how his magic would be effected -- wherever they where, it energized him, revitualized his being. There was an ever growing desire to cast, to see; the sudden understanding would no doubt allow him a better grasp with his magic. True, it made auristics almost redundant, but it would give him a better sense of the emotions -- their colors, tastes, and textures.

As Kyo talked about the boy he'd lost, Thomas was hit by memories flooded with a happy nostagia, although Kyo's saddness weighed at their joy. There would be no surprise from Thomas, at the last memory, just a deep pity - something that surprised even him. Pity hadn't been allowed on Sahova, it would have killed him. No one pitied him, no one had cared when they pushed him away -- no one could survive the Citadel like that.

"I'm sorry," He whispered, wondering how Kyo had survived the rave. He was almost certain the boy hadn't. Thomas looked over at the lake, knowing, incredibly, each and every fish in it's depths, their hunger, the wetness of the world they knew; how was it not overwhelming him? What magic had created this place?

Thomas smiled at Kyo's question, "You mean if I'm alright?" He corrected, knowing his meaning by the grace of the oasis, "Asking if I'm good...," he laughed, a brisk and cold sound, "That's a very different question, Kyo. A much harder question to answer," a brief flash of a cold island, a sense of dread and desire, a promise of anything washing off the animator. "But I'm alright now. I feel...happier than I've been in a while, Kyo. And safer."

The mage feel back against the softness of the grass, just allowing everything to come in - the weight of himself, the lushness of the grass against his skin, the warmth of the sun against a snake's skin. There was too much of everything, and still it hadn't overcome him.

"How did you find this place? Do you know what happened here to make it like it is now?" He wasn't really expecting an answer to the second question, but he figured he should ask.

[Kyo]

At first it seemed Thomas was hiding something, or he was hiding from something? Kyo didn't know, he just knew that the smile was not a smile. But soon enough that got better; there was a rush of feeling that he thought was coming from the young man, and then a sort of acceptance. Kyo himself smiled then, though it soon would be gone.

But not yet. Now Kyo just took a few steps to the side, turning to look at the green of this place that Thomas had called oasis. He tried the word obediently, sounding it out as his companion has, "Oh-ay-sis," before shortening it all together, a strange sound that he didn't think that he'd heard before and one that he found he liked, "Oasis." He did the same with the other word that Thomas used and that he didn't recognize, "Par-ah-dize? Paradise." But still it was easy to understand what this paradise meant, a word that the coyote-part of his mind pictured like bright lights
--like stars but better and warmer-- and the feel of the bond, that closeness. At the questions, Kyo shook his head, then said, "Don't know name. Don't know... place. No-- no anyone else."

He knew when Thomas' mind went to other places, and he didn't understand most of the things he thought of, ideas that the coyote-man had never seen before, not in his coyote-mind, not even in the part of him that he thought of as human. Something having to do with this place and how it affected... something, but that something was vague to the coyote, and so he didn't try to pry into it as he might have a rabbit's nest.

Then a feeling swept through him, coming from Thomas, and Kyo jolted as if he'd been struck. The feeling came on the back of two little words, "I'm sorry," and that in itself was not bad. But it brought with it something else, another vague idea that came into his mind and was gone.

Just the brush of that something, that awful-bad idea, was enough to set his heart to pounding so hard it was like he'd been chased by a wolf, and his stomach curled inside him as if he'd been hit. He let out a low groan, panting, and shook his head, trying to get rid of it, whatever it was, the same way he might shake off mud or water. Because it was too terrible. Just too terrible. A feeling rose in his chest and he realized it was the human-form feeling of a howl, a scream. Kyo simply panted harder, and took to the ground, rolling onto his back and covering his eyes with his hands like that might help.

As he lay, a new image came to his mind from Thomas, that of some strange place not like any he had seen before, and with it came a flash of feelings. The sense of something that might be --promise-- he clung to, because it made him feel better... like he would find his boy. He would find him. He wondered if his boy might be at that strange island-place that Thomas had thought of. He wondered how he might get there to find out, how far he would have to run or swim.

Thomas' happiness and feeling of safety helped too, and finally he was able to swallow past that horrible feeling in his chest. He nearly gasped with relief, letting it warm him like the sun. He didn't know the answer to Thomas' next questions, but that didn't matter. As always, he would try his best. His very best. "Find place... come for oasis, for paradise-place." His response might help Thomas understand that Kyo's working vocabulary leaned heavily on the words that people who spoke with him chose to use. "No brave, no come..." He searched for the sound of the word that would mean before, so that Thomas would know he hadn't actually been in this place before now, but he couldn't find it. "No know what happened here."

But that wasn't quite right. As soon as Thomas asked about the place, the other creatures here involuntarily gave response, most strongly from the horse. Kyo felt their reaction pass through him, and he got a sense of something BIG, some BIG thing that had happened at this place, and a feeling of shaking ground like the world had shivered, and bright white light. But nothing more than that, a confusion of images, memories that had been buried in the land, in the things now living here, like bones.

[Thomas Cosa]

The world wasn't a safe place. Thomas recongized this as a truth, something to be remembered always, and to warn against. Never leave civilization. A code he'd practiced most of his life, a rule most followed -- something they had too, to survive.

But he was safe here. Kyo was safe, the dogs were safe, the oasis was safe. He knew this; everything was connect, there was no doubt in his mind he would feel any sort of aggresion, any threat long before it became a serious danger. There was too much pease here, too much tranquility for anything to go wrong. Still, he hadn't relaxed completely, this place had been obviously born of magic, which made it's existence suspicious.

He flinched as he caught Kyo's anxiousness, but a swell of his own anxiety overtook the coyote's as he became all too aware of the Kelvic's drive to find his boy, even if it meant traveling to Sahova.

"You can't go there, Kyo. You won't survive it," Thomas answered, his memories spilling into there connection. Cages, dark and full. A heavy weight of constant suspicion, of anger, of frustration. Fear always, permeating the cinder block walls. Creatures and monster and undead things walking, hunting. Death. "Please, promise me. You won't go," he asked, a heavy sense of command coloring his tone. He wasn't asking, not really, but he knew he couldn't control the kelvic. Thomas could only hope he would listen. "If your boy's there..." He paused, a brief bloom of certainty catching his mood, "He isn't the same as he was. He won't be the same boy you knew."

And that was that, as far as the animator was concerned. He wouldn't entertain any more conversation on Sahova, a wall of finality making itself obvious within their connection. There was no need for it, as far as Thomas saw.

He opened his mouth, a whisp of sound catching his tongue, his intention to change topics; they found themselves in such a pleasant place, why the need for such unpleasant conversation as the past? But it seemed not only could the place and it's inhabitants hear his questions, feel his emotions - but apparently understand, and even could respond as well.

The horse, he wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew the horse gave his the strongest response. Something big, something massive had happened and completely changed the landscape and make up of this place. Thomas felt the tremors of what happened, an earthquake, a flash of blazing light, hot and bright. And a stream of images, a crippled old man, a release of what seemed like reimancy -- bright and fluorescents streams of something covering the area.

"Kyo," Thomas paused, still digesting the images, "Do you know what magic is? Djed? Do you know that word?"

Things were about to get very interesting.

[Kyo]

It was so hard. So very very hard. Kyo wanted to listen to Thomas, he wanted to make him happy. He wanted, very badly, to make that promise that the other had demanded. And yet...

His boy. If his boy was there, how could he leave him? He couldn't. Through their minds, the coyote-man felt the shared images of that terrible terrible place, the echoes of fear and sadness and being stuck. More than the rest, the image of the cages made him shiver like a winter-cold wind had brushed up his spine. If he'd been in coyote-form, all of his fur would have stood on end.

The thought of being in that place --in one of those cages-- made him scared, very scared, and he gazed up at the blue sky with his heart starting to pound in his chest again, palms feeling slick... but the thought of his boy being there, alone and afraid and maybe hurt and maybe being hurt was even worse. Much much worse. If his boy was there Kyo would go there right now. If it wasn't safe he would leave his dogs here and go by himself so they wouldn't be hurt. But he had to find his boy, no matter if he had to look everywhere. Even on the bad island.

The coyote-man ached to ask where this place was and how far away, but he sensed that Thomas would not say. And at this, at being unable to promise something that the human wanted, Kyo felt a vague shame, like he wasn't being good enough. "Can't," was all he could say, unhappy because of it.

Soon there was something new to think about, and reluctantly the coyote-man pushed the thoughts of his boy away so he could look at these new ones. At the new word 'djed' --a strange one that reminded him of mist-- he shook his head. The other word 'magic' he thought he had heard before. But he didn't really know that one, either. "No know magic," he said aloud. "No know djed." As a feeling of anticipation --or something like it-- came to him from Thomas, Kyo sat up from where he'd been laying and tilted his head. Curiosity flowed from him like waves of heat.

[Thomas Cosa]

The bubbling of a spell in his stomach tickled him, teasing the lines of his mouth into a loud smile. He breathed, feeling the magic bubble and bubble, rising from him, spreading, tingling along his being. He breathed again, the hint of something building against his skin, a small force caged inside, burning to be controled. He leaned his head back, his eyes wide open, mimcking the open skies; he released his breath, the spell forced through his eyes.

"This," Thomas started, "Is magic, Kyo. His smile caught on his voice, the general peace of this place, the wonder of Kyo's gentleness, mixing with the electric spark of casting -- he was happy, euphoric; he was laughing. Kyo's aura caught his interest, the strange mutability, it had a certain duality -- like something had been meshed against something to create who he was today. Perhaps another mark of being Kelvic, he wondered, perhaps --

"What?" Thomas mumbled, catching the sight of his own aura, or rather, something attached to it. Strings, or threads, incandescent-like, a small rumble of electricty. Magic, or at least a spark of something magical. It was originally one that caught his interest, a small white-blue thread that caught his finger, linking it to a single blad of long grass -- but then he caught more. Thousands more spiraled from him, or caught on him, connecting him to everything, seemingly, in the oasis. "But...but how?" he asked to no one, struck dumb by heavy curiosity.

"Kyo, do you see this? This is...," he paused, a thinking frown marring his face as he realized one of the string connected him with the coyote, "That's why we're connected. I wonder if it will last when we leave."

This whole place was a mystery. One that needed to be thought about, to be experimented, to find and ferret out it's secrets, it's origins. And he wanted to be the one to figure it out all. A sudden protectiveness bloomed from him, wavering out; he was surprised to see the strings mirrored the changes in his own aura, becoming like protective stone, hard and marbled.

"Kyo, you can't tell anyone else about this place. Not until we figure out what happened here." Thomas said, looking up at the Kelvic, only to bring his magical attentions to the stings that attached him to the world around him.

[Kyo]

"This is magic, Kyo."

At first the coyote-man didn't notice anything, and he titled his head the other way, smiling only because it made him happy that Thomas smiled. But then he felt it. Or, no... that was Thomas. Thomas was feeling something.

It was... not like anything the coyote had known in all his life, and he tried to make sense of what it was. Like a burning, but not --like bubbling-hot
water?-- and he felt what Thomas felt in his eyes, and could see what he himself looked like when Thomas looked at him. He didn't know if he had ever seen himself before, and he was somewhat surprised by how big he was-- not too long ago he had still felt a pup, and he still was that way sometimes.

What else surprised him was that he was more than that, though. Like... like he didn't know what it was. Thomas knew what it was, and it was over Kyo, or it surrounded him, and he blinked and swiped a hand at the empty air around him, like he would touch that which Thomas had shown him. But the air was like always. His fingers passed through nothing.

Not long after Thomas' laugh --something that made Kyo wish he had a tail to wag-- another flicker of that... of that --magic? djed?-- went through their connection, and Kyo looked up from trying to figure out how to see what Thomas saw. The other young man looked surprised, Kyo felt it as much as he read it on Thomas' face, and through the link the coyote-man saw the sparkling spiderweb. Again he looked down, at the place that the string should have been, stretching from Thomas to him, but there was nothing there.

Confusion filtered in and he brushed at his bare chest where the spiderweb should have ended, but again felt nothing. "Thomas~?" he asked, questioning, not knowing what was happening. "Thomas, what? Can't... can't see." He didn't know how it was that Thomas might see something that wasn't there. Or that Kyo couldn't see something that was. Again he touched lightly on those two new words --magic, djed-- and his human-mind considered them like a pup investigates a new scent or sound or taste, but the words themselves meant little to him. They were just empty shapes in the mind or the mouth.

At the sweep of protectiveness, the feeling of wanting to know more about this place, and Thomas' words, Kyo simply nodded, saying, "Yes." He was glad that he was able to answer well this time to this promise, since he hadn't the last time. Though he didn't know why Thomas would not want to be near to more people, or bring more people here so that they might be connected, all with one another. And he didn't know how more people being here would make this place any less of what it was, or... or make it any less of what Thomas wanted from it. Perhaps what the human wanted was to claim it as his own? His place, for his use.

[Thomas Cosa]

Thomas saw the brown-red confusion rust the silver magic of the incandescent strings, the Kelvic's surprise weighing heavy on the delicate connection, a sparkle of movement. The aura mimicked the changes in the strings, his own mind processing the spell, the weave of this place catching his understanding before spreading the information around freely.

"It's an aura, the thing around you," Thomas explained, pushing forth what he was seeing through the connection. "An aura. Like, everything that makes you Kyo, shown in color, felt in texture. It's you expressed in a way I can sense it, you understand?" The animator was unsure, that was obvious, the slight shiver of the weave marking his awkwardness. He'd never been a teacher, least of all of magic, but he wanted Kyo to understand. "And you can't see because you can't cast the spell. You can't use auristics -- the name of the magic, Kyo -- because you haven't learned how." Thomas paused, wondering if the kelvic could even comprehend the basics of djed let alone managing a simple spell.

"Auristics is how I see the strings, how I feel the connection -- although, we were well aware of it's existence before, I can really feel the magic in it now," he smiled, his finger skimming the electric current, alive, of the weave around them. "I only wish there was someone here who knew about it, who could explain --."

The oasis again seemed all to eager to answer. Flashes of someone, something, popped through the place's consciouness, a wisp of a man, old and crippled. See through. A ghost?

"Kyo, did you see that? Him? Have you seen him before? Could we find him?"

[Kyo]

"Auristics," Kyo murmured, tasting the word. "Auristics."

This was certainly a strange place to be, and he got the sense through their connection that the strangeness had to do with the spiderwebs stringing them together, though like Thomas he didn't know how or why.

The strangeness was even greater because he felt he didn't understand... and at the same time he did. Anytime he felt confusion he also felt Thomas' certainty. Or maybe it wasn't certainty, for Thomas did not seem to know if he was using the right words, something Kyo definitely understood. But there was a sort of... knowing-ness to Thomas about what he said. About the magic, the auristics, the spell. Even if Kyo did not know what these things were, Thomas did. And that helped Kyo to know.

It was a weird way to learn something. Like listening to an echo and trying to realize the full sound.

He got enough of what Thomas said to mostly string it together, though the idea that he might be seen as a not-normal rainbow --an aura as Thomas had called it?-- which surrounded him without being there unless detected by magic, spell... that was hard to take in. He didn't know how what he was might be outside of him, in the air. He couldn't feel this aura; it was not something that felt a part of him like his sense of touch or smell or sight.

What he did feel was his own doubt towards his ability to understand reflected by Thomas, and it reminded him of his boy, and when he had tried to teach Kyo to read and write and speak well-- both in that one way and in the other, the one he used now. There was a flash-memory of him chewing on a book as a pup --though in child-form, not pup-form-- and his boy's face trying to be angry but laughing at the same time.

Now at least he wanted to learn. The only reason he had tried back then was because his boy had wanted it. Now Kyo wanted to understand for himself... though he also wanted to make Thomas happy.

Another memory went through him then, though it wasn't from him or Thomas but from the whole of this place, all of it together like one mind. It was of an old, old man like a withered and bent tree. Kyo felt his brow pull down and he sniffed the air, trying to find the man's scent... it would be sick, he had looked sick... but he didn't smell anything like that. "See him, yes," Kyo confirmed, nodding yes when Thomas asked, but then he shook his head. "No know him, no. Find him..."

The oasis-place flickered again at the words, but this time it was a confusion of images that gave no true direction, or all directions at once. Kyo shook his head and tried again. "Find him." But the place was not saying. Or it was saying too much. The coyote-man looked to Thomas, perplexed, and then stood. "We find him. Others..." By others he meant the rest of the oasis. "Oasis-others no good help for find." He set to sniffing again, but he didn't catch any of the usual scents he would have expected from what he'd seen in the image. He usually searched by scent more than sight, but it didn't seem he could do that this time. So he started walking instead, panning his head back and forth to look as he did, though he glanced back to see if Thomas was coming or not.