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12

Layla felt her own smile die on her face, withering away like a rose in winter, and she realised that sadness could be just as contagious as happiness. It spread from person to person, just like happiness did, and, just like happiness, it eventually became a fundamental part of who you were.

She could feel it creeping into her heart, and the longer she looked at his sad face, the deeper it wormed its way into her very Soul. It just... it...

No! Screw that!

Layla gave her head an angry shake and imagined herself putting her foot down with an authoritative thump.

Why should he be the only one not smiling? And why should he spread that unhappiness to her!? No! She refused! The whole world might be going to hell in a handbasket, but that was no reason to be mopey!

Well, actually, it kind of was, but that didn't mean she had to like it. Or put up with it, for that matter.

She tossed her handful of scraps into the garbage and hopped up next to him, folding her dress beneath her bum as she did so. "Hi there."

Danado immediately folded his stubby fingers into loose fists and leaned away slightly, looking at her with a slight frown on his face. "Hello," he said, looking like he wanted nothing more than to jump down from the table and go hide in a dark corner somewhere. He probably would have, were it not for his toes.

Layla stuck out her hand, smiling broadly. "My name is Layla. 'Course, Father already introduced us, but I thought I'd come over anyway, make a proper job of it."

He glanced down at her hand, but didn't offer his own. He simply nodded his head, said, "Danado," and went back to staring out the window, somehow looking even more uncomfortable than before.

Layla dropped her hand, embarrassed. Of course he wouldn't want to shake hands. His were all bandaged and hurt. She wouldn't have squeezed, of course, but now that she thought about it, she actually had no idea how it felt to have the tips of your fingers cut off. The worst pain she had ever suffered was after a bout of roughhousing with her sister back when they were still cubs and she had fallen down the stairs, skinning both knees and cutting her scalp. Mother had fixed her up with only three stitches, and she and Kiana had gone right back to playing that very same day, although now with a newfound respect for bannisters. Layla had never even broken a bone before. Hell, she'd never even been stung by a bee before! What did she know of real pain, or how to fix it? Was she being a fool for even trying? Did she even have any right to try and force a smile on someone who clearly didn't want to?

Gaaargh! She wanted to make him feel better, but she didn't know how!

"Does... does it hurt?" she asked, feeling like the biggest idiot of all time.

Danado shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes."

"Oh."

An awkward silence descended upon them, and Layla swung her legs back and forth, trying to think of something to say while Mother and Hezzi argued about him being out of bed.

"Um... see anything interesting out there?"

Danado shook his head.

"Ah." Oh gods, this is horrible! Abort! Abort! Just say you still have work to do and get the hell out! "I... um..."

But she couldn't do it. She couldn't just leave this Wolf here to suffer in silence. Mother could patch up his fingers and toes to the best of her ability, give him medicine to make the pain go away, but no amount of bandages or bottles of tonic could change the look in those eyes. She once again felt an almost overwhelming urge to just hug him and tell him everything would be okay, but that was bound to end even worse than the handshake debacle. She could imagine him going stiff as a board, and then blandly asking her to please let go.

"Can I get you anything?" she ventured.

Danado didn't say anything.

"You must be hungry after all the... well, you know. Would you like something to eat? Some eggs? Toast? Maybe some meat? It's no trouble, really."

He still didn't say anything.

"What about some tea? No? Water, maybe? Anything at all?"

Danado just kept staring out the window, not making a sound. She wracked her brain, feeling every second of silence drawing out between them like the edge of a knife. His indifference to her presence made it even worse, like she was sitting here all by herself, trying to strike up a conversation with empty air. "Um... is there anything at all that I can -"

"You and your sister seem to get along well," he said suddenly, catching her off guard.

"Excuse me?"

"You two are sisters, right?" He motioned towards the living room with his head, and Layla leaned back a little to peek inside. Kiana was standing by the roaring fireplace, dropping needles into a big pewter pot of boiling water. Her hair was starting to get frizzy from all the steam.

"Yes, that's my sister, Kiana," she said. "Two years older than me."

"Do you have any other family?"

"No, it's just me and my sister. And Ma and Fa, of course. That's only four Foxes, but it can get quite rowdy around here sometimes."

Danado nodded and went back to staring out the window.

Oh gods, did I talk too much? Did I not talk enough? Does he want me to shut up and go away? But then why ask about my family? Does he want me to stick around? What?

"What about you? Do you still have family back where... um... " The question was already out of her mouth by the time she realised what a monumental cock-up she was making.

He shook his head. "No. It was just me and my sister."

"I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

He shrugged. Stared out the window. Didn't say anything.

Oh, you are making a fine mess of things, you know that?

Shush! I know!

Then do something about it!

I'm trying!

She started to reach for his shoulder, but it somehow ended up with her fiddling with her hair and then putting it back in her lap.

Oh, you are just the worst at this...

Layla twiddled her thumbs and looked out the window, seeing nothing but a heap of snow and part of their neighbour's fence. Maybe she should just cut her losses and retreat for now, because she sure as hell wasn't going to get him to smile like this.

She thought about it, about just excusing herself and going off to help Kiana, but even as the thought worked its way through her head, she knew she wouldn't. She couldn't. Leaving him like this, staring out the window like some soulless doll, just felt wrong. Worse than wrong. It felt rotten.

"Danado? I think -"

"You don't have to keep me company, if that's what you're trying to do."

"Excuse me?"

"You're trying to cheer me up. I'd prefer you didn't. I don't mean to sound rude after all the help you've given us, but..." The silence dragged on for such a long time that Layla wondered if he meant to finish his thought at all, but then he did, and the words that came out of his mouth were as baffling as they were heart-breaking. "I don't think I_should_ be cheered. Looking back, all I see is grief. Looking forward, all I see is doom for you and your people. I appreciate what you're trying to do for me, sitting here, talking to me, trying to make me feel welcome, but... every good thing you're trying to make me feel, is a good thing Lana will never get to feel for herself, and that makes it feel wrong. What right do I have to feel welcome when my sister never set foot in this valley? What right do I have to feel anything other than pain when she can't feel anything at all?"

Layla could barely breathe. She, who had never seen any real pain up close before, was watching it unfurl within arm's reach, and it was terrifying. Ander, with his bleeding and broken body, was the only thing that came close, but even that was fundamentally different to what she was witnessing right now, in her very own home, mere inches away. Ander had been on the verge of death, but he had smiled for them, he had smiled so beautifully because, even through the pain, he had been happy. He had been happy to be with those he loved, and that was a beautiful thing, even a joyous thing, but this... this was the exact opposite. Ander had been dying in body but living in spirit. Danado was living in body, but dying in spirit. It was like biting into an apple with a crisp, red skin, only to find that its flesh was dead and rotten on the inside. Was it already too late for him? Was he already dead and gone? Was this an empty husk talking to her right now, just a ghost who still had the bad fortune to be tied to a living body?

No...

If he really was dead on the inside, he wouldn't have such sad eyes, he wouldn't have such lonely eyes. The dead are incapable of feeling any such things.

Maybe... Maybe he wasn't pushing her away. Maybe he was crying for help?

"Danado..." She reached out, and this time she did not back down. She touched his shoulder, and it was not the cold, hard, bony feeling of a corpse, but the warm, soft sensation of any other shoulder, as she knew it would be. "I did not know your sister, but if she's anything like mine, I know she wouldn't want you to be sad forever. She'd want you to be happy, because brothers and sisters love each other. Isn't that so?"

"You mean like you love your sister?"

"Y-Yes...?" There was something ominous about the way he said that, something she didn't like at all.

He turned his head to look at her, and now his eyes didn't seem sad or lonely at all. They seemed dead, in every sense of the word. "If you love your sister so very much, do you really think you'd be able to force yourself to be happy when she dies, just because you believe she would have wanted it that way?"

"I... I don't know if -"

"No? Well, that's too bad, because you might find out very soon."

Layla's heart stopped dead in her chest. It suddenly felt like she had stuck her hand into a nest full of venomous snakes, their fangs dripping with poison. She was too terrified to pull back, or even move a muscle out of fear that the tiniest movement would incite them to strike. She was frozen in place, forced to endure the touch of their scaly bellies slithering over her arm, their forked tongues flicking over her fingers.

"It's not just your sister. It's your mother, your father, everyone you know and love. Even you."

This wasn't just her imagination running away from her. She really was looking death in the eye. Everything else, all her carefree excitement, all her fawning over the lovely smiles...

Mother and Hezzi were arguing so happily, with Renna trying her best to placate them while Taberah watched on, shaking her head. It felt so right, but... was that the real fantasy? Was that just the shiny red skin of the apple? This creature she was touching right now, was this the flesh beneath - the flesh of reality?

"What do you think Nilia and the others are talking about right now, hm? Do you think they're preparing a cute little welcoming party for all the Wolves? No. They're talking about war, Layla. Nothing else. Just war. There will be blood, and lots of it. If you can trick yourself into not thinking about it, if you can force yourself to smile even when everyone you know and love might be erased before your very eyes... I envy you. I truly do. But don't try and smear that dream off on me when I can't see it for myself. Don't try to cheer me up. Don't offer me food and drink. Don't try to make me smile. Whether I look forward or back, whether it be out of grief for the past or fear for the future, everything you're trying to do only feels like an attack to me. This is not the time to be happy and this is not the time to smile. There are only two things we get to feel right now, only two, and those two things are either hope or despair. Anything else is a lie. If you can feel hope, that's great, that's wonderful, feel free to feel all the hope your fragile little heart can handle, but for those of us who can't, for those of us who only feel despair, leave us the hell alone."

Kiana might die? Mother might die? Father might die? Ander and Hezzi and little Renna might die? Everyone might die?

Everyone will die.

NO!

She had listened to their tale. That Nilia Wolfess wasn't very good at telling stories (her delivery was bland and lifeless, more like a step-by-step instruction manual than an actual story), but she had hung onto her every word. She had felt scared when she learned that all that trouble might spill over the mountain, but it was a fake kind of fear, the kind of fear you felt while huddled around a roaring camp fire, listening to ghost stories. It didn't seem real. And even if it was real, it still wasn't a problem because everything would just magically work out in the end. And why? Because everything had worked out so wonderfully before, of course. That meant that all the problems would obviously just fix themselves, right? Everything would work out because that's the way it's always been and it was impossible for that to change, right? Her whole life she had been safe, so she would continue to be safe. Her whole life she had been happy, so she would continue to be happy. Her whole life she had smiled, so she would continue to smile, because that's how the world worked, right?

RIGHT!?

She had been more than naïve. She had been blind. Her whole life, she had gone around with scales over her eyes, and all it took was for one Wolf to come and rip them away and show her how scary, how terrible this world could really be, this world she had simply assumed was full of butterflies and rainbows and sunshine and nothing else. To him, she must seem less than a child. She must seem like a newborn.

"I'm sorry I said those things," Danado said. "But I'd just like to be left alone. Please..."

Stop touching him. He's rotten on the inside. Pull your hand away before it spreads to you. He's practically begging you to leave him alone, so why not grant his wish? If he wants to be alone so bad, let him be!

But...

Layla felt that deep sting in her eyes and throat, that sting that warned of coming tears.

Why would he wish to be alone when it was loneliness causing him to be so sad?

"Danado..." She gripped his shoulder even harder.

"What?"

She took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and gave him the biggest, broadest, happiest smile of her life. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she swooped in and gave him a great big hug, wrapping her arms around him nice and tight so he couldn't squirm away. It went pretty much as she had predicted. He went rigid as a board, then leaned back so far they both nearly toppled right off the table.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Giving you a hug, silly!

"Why!?"

"Because you desperately need one!"

"Please let go of me."

She shook her head, feeling the rough, scratchy texture of his unwashed fur rubbing against her cheek. "Nope."

"Seriously, let go of me."

"Nope. Not until you smile."

He tried to pry her fingers loose, an impossible task with his hands all bandaged up like that, and she squeezed even tighter in retaliation, letting him know that it was useless, that she would by the gods give him a hug whether he wanted one or not.

Mother did not seem all too impressed with the sudden turn of events. "Excuse me, but what are you doing with my patient?"

"Treating his psychological wounds, dear Mother!" Layla said, all while Danado squirmed inside her grip, claiming she was attacking him.

"Fine, but no roughhousing, and be careful with his bandages!" Mother admonished with a wave of her finger, and then went right back to scolding Hezzi, who still refused to go back to bed.

Layla looked up at Danado's face, and although it was a bit funny, she found his perplexed face infinitely more handsome than his depressed one. "Say, where are you and your friends going to stay tonight?"

The corner of his mouth turned up, going from perplexion to outright flabbergastation. Not quite a smile yet, but it was a good start.

Taberah put her hands on Renna's shoulders. "We haven't thought that far ahead yet," she said. "It was such a struggle just to get here. I suppose we can make camp in a field somewhere."

Layla turned her head as far as she could without breaking her shackle-like embrace. "What? Out there in the snow? Unacceptable! Right, Mother?"

Mother planted her hands on her hips, a stance Layla had come to think of as her 'over my dead body' pose. "After all the trouble I went through to put gods know how many stiches into you Wolves, I am not letting you sleep outside, in the snow, in the damp and the cold! I am in no mood to treat six cases of frostbite next morn on top of everything else!" She reached up and scratched her chin, deep in thought. "We've got a spare bed here, but that still leaves five... What about Ander's place?"

"That little bachelor's cabin of his? Do you want everyone to sleep on the floor?"

"Well it's a damn sight better than outside."

"I've got a better idea." She looked up at Danado, who had given up trying to break free, and was staring down at her like some strange new creature he had never seen before. She smiled and said, "What was that you were saying about a cute little welcoming party for all the Wolves?"