Decisions, Desert and Wolf

Morning sunlight filtered through the trees as Joash stirred.

The grass beneath him was warm - partly from the rising sun, but mostly from his own lingering heat. A gentle breeze drifted over him, tickling bare skin. It took a moment for his thoughts to catch up with his senses, and when they did, he realized there were more than three.

Foebe’s tail lay across his legs, flopping contentedly, and her thigh was still hooked over his from the night before.

She was awake.

Smiling.

Her head was propped up in her hands as she gazed down at him, completely unconcerned with the fact that she hadn’t bothered putting any clothes back on. When she noticed his eyes opening, her tail thumped a little harder.

“Good morning, love.”

He smiled up at her.

“Good morning, honey.”

Instead of moving away, she simply lowered herself again, curling into his side and tucking herself neatly into his arm. She pressed against him with a satisfied sigh.

He chuckled softly.

“Shouldn’t we be going?”

She sighed in response.

“Yeah… but let me have this first…”

“I mean, I’m not complaining.”

She giggled and nudged her head into the dip of his shoulder until they were touching, both of them staring up at the scattered clouds drifting lazily overhead.

“Love?” she said after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what this means?”

He wanted to look at her, but he didn’t move.

“Know what what means?”

She giggled again.

“What we did last night. Do you know what it means?”

His heart thumped.

“Children?”

She laughed.

“Maybe. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

She went quiet for a moment.

“You remember how I told you my mother died at the same time as my father,” she continued, “even though she wasn’t injured?”

“Yeah?”

“Well… now we have that bond too.”

His breath caught.

“But… I don’t feel any different.”

She murmured something about feeling very different under her breath before speaking clearly again.

“You’re not supposed to. That’s just how my species works.”

She nestled closer into him. At this point, the only way she could get any closer would have been to climb on top of him… or something else entirely.

“So,” she said softly, “when one of us dies, the other will follow instantly.”

That sent a chill through him.

“Just… gone?”

She nodded.

“Yeah.”

He swallowed.

“But… do we go to an afterlife together, at least?”

“I don’t know.”

The fear lingered in his chest, heavy and uncomfortable. But she was smiling. Peaceful. Happy. And for her sake, he let the question rest.

After a moment, she spoke again - quieter this time.

“Joash?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve decided.”

“Decided what?”

She pulled her head back so he could turn and look her properly in the eyes.

“When we have kids,” she said, steady and certain, “we’re not going to tell them everything.”

He listened.

“We won’t tell them about fading. We won’t tell them about the marriage ritual. And we won’t tell them they’re part of a dying generation.”

She edged closer again, foreheads nearly touching.

“Instead, we let them live normally. We let them be happy. And when they start to fade… we introduce the truth slowly. Gently.”

They kissed - soft, unhurried, full of shared resolve.

He smiled.

“Okay.”

They kissed again, still bare beneath the steadily rising sun as its light slipped through the leaves above them.

Neko-chan tore across the great desert, kicking up sand and dust in her wake.

The land was perfectly flat, but the loose, powdery ground kept her from reaching her true top speed. Even so, she was fast enough that the world blurred at the edges. Joash didn’t mind. The slight reduction meant they could still shout to one another without losing their words to the wind.

“How far are we now?” he called.

Foebe laughed.

“You keep asking, and I keep saying I don’t know! Neko-chan’s too fast for me to predict!”

He grinned.

“You seemed pretty confident earlier.”

“I forgot about the desert!” she shouted back. “I don’t know if we’ve gained ground or lost it!”

“Where’s the border, then?”

She shrugged. He couldn’t see it, but with her arms wrapped around his waist, he felt the movement easily.

“Ahead.”

“No signs of crossing it?”

“The desert ends.”

He squinted into the hazy distance. The heat distorted everything, turning the horizon into a shimmering smear of nothing.

“How big is this desert?”

“About a five-day walk,” she replied. “Not sure how wide it is at the point we entered, though.”

At Neko-chan’s normal pace, that would have been roughly two and a half hours of running. They’d already been going for about that long. Joash wondered if sailors ever felt like this - surrounded by the same endless blue in every direction, nothing to anchor their sense of progress.

Neko-chan, at least, seemed confident. And even if she wasn’t, Joash was fairly sure they weren’t going in circles.

Then he saw it.

Not the edge of the desert - something else entirely.

A jagged grey shape jutted from the sand in the distance.

He pointed.

“What’s that?”

It felt like spotting a lighthouse through fog at sea - a sudden reference point, something solid. But even at a glance, Joash could tell something was wrong about it.

Foebe noticed too.

“I’m not sure. Hold on.”

Neko-chan slowed, sand spraying as she dug in her claws, coming to an elegant stop before trotting closer. As they approached, Joash’s eyes widened.

It was a metal panel.

Probably aluminum. Torn from something larger and driven deep into the ground, half-buried and weather-beaten. The surface was scoured by wind and sand, old enough that the desert had begun to claim it. He found himself wondering how far down it went.

Foebe, meanwhile, was staring.

“What’s that?”

He had a choice.

He could lie. Deflect. Pretend ignorance.

But she was his wife.

“It’s a metal panel.”

She blinked.

“What’s a metal panel?”

“They don’t exist here?”

She shook her head.

He exhaled slowly.

“It’s from my old world.”

Her ears twitched.

“Your old world?” she repeated. “But then… how is it here?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t know. But it looks like it’s been here for a long time.”

She studied it a moment longer, then nodded.

“Let’s come back someday and dig it up.”

She squeezed him around the waist.

“If we frame it right, it can be an adventure.”

He glanced back at her.

“You can just… choose your own adventures?”

She giggled.

“Of course you can. That’s how you find jobs. I think what you mean is creating your own adventures. And yes, if you find something worth being paid for, like excavating an ancient relic, it counts.”

She nuzzled into his back.

“But for those kinds, you only get paid on completion. Nothing upfront.”

He chuckled.

“I suppose money isn’t really a problem for us.”

She smiled.

“Exactly.”

He nodded.

“Alright then. I’ll look forward to it.”

“Me too.”

She whistled sharply, and Neko-chan surged back into motion, her passing marked by a towering cloud of dust.

Three minutes later, the desert would end, and they would cross into the country of Koekoe.