For Anu. Serena Reserve.

WORLDS WE HAVE NOT KNOWN

It had taken him one whole day and half of a second, but Hemming was certain that the final product made all the work worth it. Yesterday, he had smoothed thin pieces of wood, cut them to the right dimensions, and assembled the frame of his new toy. Before the day was out, he had weaved a light mat of spindly grasses. As the sun was setting, he used the drop spindle he had made the day before to spin some of his own fur, making a few scraps and then a strand that was long enough to be wrapped around a stick a few times and then reach up high into the sky.

Now, just as the sun was rising and finally starting to cast a yellow light instead of a pink one, the male was sitting crosslegged in the grass and putting all the pieces together. He tied the grass mat onto the wooden cross tightly at many points, and tied the end of the long strand of yarn into a notch he had made around the bottom of the frame. Also into the notch he secured a shorter piece of yarn, and tied a few leaves and pieces of grass into it. Hemming wasn't quite sure this part would hold up, but it wasn't really important that it did, anyways. It just added a little bit of flair.

At last, he was done. He picked the object up in his hands and flipped it around a few times. A bit heavy, but it would probably work. Maybe not all that well today, with the light winds, but surely he could launch it high enough with a bit of speed. It was crude, but it was good enough for his first try. With a bit of experimentation and some more work, he would eventually be able to make the perfect kite.

The moment of truth had come, as he stood up with the thing in his hands. Tying the end of its string to a smoothed stick, he exhaled and devised a plan. Run, throw, keep running, give it some slack. He repeated this a few times, without success, and was about to give up. Finally, his speed gave the kite enough to soar up to where the wind could pick it up. He clutched the stick tightly, panting and pretty much completely exhausted from his sprinting, as he watched his fragile toy be tossed about gently by the wind. If only something so grand could be experienced by a wolf!

WORLDS WE HAVE NOT KNOWN

The scene was rich with fantasy. Hemming pretended he was the kite, its long tail flipping in the wind, his arms stretched out wide to collect the air. The kite was tethered, though, to his own earthly hands. It would be be better to be a bird, with no link to the earth except to lay your eggs. The male was a baby bird, waiting to find his wings, waiting to see the world from high above. There was a tinge of sadness brought by knowing it was highly unlikely he'd ever be unsupported in the air like that, but it was a pleasant daydream he quite enjoyed entertaining. The pleasure he drew from watching the kite overhead certainly blanketed the little bit of remorse.

His mind up in the sky, the wolf didn't even notice the scent, struggling upwind, of someone he would consider a friend, and didn't hear her either. It was only because the kite jerked a little that he moved his eyes at all, and she just barely entered his peripheral vision. Slightly startled, Hemming almost let go of the kite's tenuous connection to the earth. Recovering and clutching the string-wrapped stick tightly, he grinned widely when he realized who his visitor was. "Anu!" he exclaimed. "What's up?" After a second of hesitation, he took advantage of the situation and added almost hysterically, "My kite, that's what! No, really, how are you?" He continued to grin. Was the kite what had drawn her toward him? It certainly would be an odd thing to see hovering in the sky.

It would be wonderful to see a kite that was painted in all sorts of colors take the sky, or perhaps a kite that looked like a bird or some other animal. One day he would try to make some paints from the plants around AniWaya and spend a day experimenting with colors. Hemming was a bit rusty on his botany, but Dawali had mentioned he was a healer, so it was likely he would at least have a hunch about what plants would make good dyes. That would all require quite a bit of work, and for now Hemming was quite happy to watch his rye and wood colored kite flicker against the blue sky.

-rolly-

WORLDS WE HAVE NOT KNOWN

The wild grin did not leave Hemming's face. He held the string tightly, feeling the kite tug as it was battered about in the wind, and let his eyes remain on Anu. "I'm quite wonderful, thanks!" The male's amber eyes had a twinkle to them as he glanced up at his creation, acknowledging it with glee. For his first try it wasn't bad; it caught the wind well enough to fly, and it hadn't yet been torn apart. Those were two important characteristics of a kite. The thing could be a little more elegant in its form, and it could probably be re-engineered to fly better, but for now he was happy.

Hemming took his eyes off of the white female for a moment as he looked up to the kite again. "Yeah, I did. It's kind of crude, but hey, it flies!" His exhilaration had at least doubled now that he had someone to share it with, and he couldn't help but give her a turn with what was making him so excited. He held the piece of wood with the string wrapped around it out to Anu, and asked, "Want to hold it?" Hopefully she would find it just as magnificent as he did. The male didn't quite pick it up consciously, but he sensed a bit of glumness in her demeanour.

loveloveanu~

WORLDS WE HAVE NOT KNOWN

Anu was someone that Hemming quickly came to call a friend. Their first meeting was one that the male remembered with fondness, the memory not centered on the creature they had saved, but rather upon the effort and feeling that the female had poured into it. The expression on her face when they faced the possibility that the creature was already dead, and the eagerness and readiness with which she approached the task tugged at his heart. Yes, the female was a friend, one that the gray wolf hoped he would have for a very, very long time.

It was without hesitation that he handed the reins over to her, placing the wood in her hands with a smile and turning his gaze back up to the kite. It was one thing to be holding the thing to Earth, and it was another to watch it as it soared in the hands of someone else. The kite was free from the hands that had weaved it, moved on to someone else. Hemming could almost imagine the female being picked up and swept away with the breeze, his mind fabricating new realities as he watched her small figure maintain the kite's fragile connection to the earth.

AniWaya and its surrounding lands were magical enough, but now Hemming felt as if he had stepped completely into a fantasy world, an intrepid companion at his side.

Hemming's eyes followed the kite as it bobbed in the air, dipping and diving as it caught the wind in its woven sails. It was quite satisfying to watch it without holding it down oneself, being unable to anticipate the way it would dodge next by the vibrations in the string. He imagined a kite tied to each lonely tree, watching from above, and wondered how long a kite might stay up under such conditions. They would have to be relaunched each time there was a lull in the gusting of the wind, and would surely blow completely away in a storm. The male was too new to this place to be able to guess what the weather would be like, and anyway, the more he thought about it he became more certain that holding the kite would be more fun than watching it as it floated, tethered to a tree. Held by a sentient, mobile being gave it a much more dynamic character, and the act of holding it lifted the spirits. And of course, watching someone's spirits be lifted did wonders to lift one's own.

The excitement in the female's voice was almost palpable, and it spread to the gray wolf as he looked back down to meet her eyes. In response to her question, he merely smiled and gazed for a few moments. His amber eyes moved from her face and followed the string upwards to the kite. The wolf took a few steps forwards, to get a different view of the kite, and lifted a hand to shield his eyes as he stared into the bright sky. "Around," he replied at length, his smile still broad.

The wind started to pick up, twisting the kite back and forth as it struggled to keep upright and angled in the wrong direction. Hemming grinned as the thing faced its first real challenge, knowing that it was his design and construction that would determine whether or not his creation could survive the buffeting winds. Rather than twisting fatally and falling to the ground, though, the kite started to lift higher, moving yards forward at a time as it was carried along. His attention had drifted far away from the earth for the moment, his gaze fixed solely on the kite and his thoughts all but free of earthly things. In the back of his mind, the climb of the kite suggested to him that Anu had noticed the few meters of string that was still wrapped around the stick. She was an expert pilot!

After a few moments the nagging irregularity of the kite's flight was reason enough for him to look down at the female. He barely had time to register the shocked look on her face, his eyes darting back and forth from the fluffy end of the string that was drifting back to earth and the kite drifting higher and higher into the sky. His eyes were wide, brows peeled back into his forehead, and a grin was just starting to form. Without taking the time to figure out what had just happened, which certainly didn't matter at the moment, he cried out, "Ha! It's free! Come on, Anu!" He reached out a hand to beckon to her, and started running, following the path of the kite's shadow.

His arms flowing out behind him, he felt almost as free as the kite must have. Buoyant chuckles escaped from the male's mouth, and his feet landed in an almost haphazard manner as he flew, serpentine, through the tall grasses.

Hemming had a frame that, if it were more practiced, would be made for running. His thin body and long legs made it easy to leap through the tall grass, the wind not catching him the way it might catch a larger wolf. It wasn't something he did that often, though, and his untrained muscles let his feet fall clumsily on the ground. Anu passed him quickly, predicting the path of the kite as it teetered high above the ground. Ultimately, it would be the flimsy tail that Hemming had added as an afterthought that would be its downfall.

Without consciously thinking about it, Hemming was constantly personifying the kite. Like himself, the thing had freed itself from the grasp of what was holding it down, and, like the kite, he had overlooked a little aspect of himself and been snagged. Though, despite all this, if it was sturdy enough, the kite would fly again, and modifications could be made to avoid another crash. Perhaps it was more important to learn from one's mistakes than to avoid making them in the first place. What sacrifice should be made, then: the freedom of not being bound by the string, or the security of being held from disaster?

The tail of the kite, like Anu had predicted, became caught in a high leafy branch on the tree. Prevented from flying the way it had been but still propelled by its forward velocity, the contraption arched downwards, eventually hitting a close by branch and settling there. The male followed the white female as she continued to run toward the tree, feeling the joy of running and of companionship, but feeling just a little sad that the kite had come down out of the sky. Their meeting had turned into a rescue mission, once again.

The male arrived near the base of the tree shortly after Anu did, panting a little but exhilarated by the freedom of the kite. He stood close to where she did, eyes fixed on the trapped creature and trying to figure out how one might climb up to free it. The first branch was quite high off the ground, but after that they seemed close enough to climb to safely. It was the highest branches, closest to the kite, that the male was most worried about; they were more limber and he wouldn't trust their strength.

Anu offered her service and Hemming nodded in return, grinning and still catching his breath. Moving forwards and placing a hand on the trunk while he looked up, he turned his head back to her and said, "Do you want a boost?" The male had climbed a few trees in his day, but he always found that getting onto that high first branch was the hardest. Having relatively weak arms, he wasn't able to pull himself up, and his usual method was a rather awkward squirmish up the trunk. It would have been nice to have a boost when he was out there, all alone.

Though this wasn't a life or death situation, and Hemming could fairly easily make another kite, the world seemed to react now in the same way that it had when the two wolves had rescued the jellyfish. The sky tucked around them and the kite, making it seem as if that was all that existed. The light wind that rustled the fresh green leaves of the tree was the only cargo from an outside world.

Feeling the female's hands on his shoulders and hearing her vocal signal, Hemming bent his legs, leaning down to grab Anu just below her knees. With all the strength he could muster, he heaved her upwards. She was small and light, but his thin body still had a bit of trouble. The branch should be around her torso now, though, and Hemming hoped that it would be easy for her to swing a leg onto it. Having found a good balance, he loosened his grasp around her calves, pressing his elbows into his hips to help support them. He would have to do something about his scrawny arms. Years of being a bookworm wasn't any help.

Hemming was relieved when the female had made it onto the branch, not just due to the short-lived physical strain he had been under, but because he was a little worried that he wouldn't be able to get her up there. He took a step back once she was, looking up to the tree to try to figure out what path she should take to retrieve the kite. Planning a strategy was a lot easier for him than physical tasks, and the smile on Anu's face was reflected on Hemming's.

Tilting his head to show that he was thinking about her question, he considered the two closest branches and which one might be better to stand on. Done deliberating, he replied, "It's just a bit to the right. This branch right here," he reached straight up and pointed towards a fairly close branch, "might be a good starting point." The male grinned some more, enjoying this exercise just about as much as he had enjoyed flying the kite in the first place.