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"Human Again" She could hear Nanami calling Wolf's name, and it was so very cold as the night began to fall...chill winds blew through the crags of the pass and cut to the very center of her being, as if her clothes were not there at all. She shivered, and ignored the cries. "WOLF!" Sunlight filtered in through the entrance to the cave and fell across Tomo where she lay beneath a pile of damp leaves, her body wrapped around the spear she had stolen, as if for warmth. It would be so easy not to wake up. If she stayed, here, beneath the leaves, in the cold, she'd freeze to death in a matter of hours. She would be awake one moment, and then she would slip the bonds of her life and just...just... Just be free. She had a hard time remembering what it is she was running from. She'd dreamed about Nanami, coming to rescue her, forgiving her for her trespasses, absolving her. She'd dreamed that they'd gone back to Kyaro together. Shaking herself, Tomo sat up, brushing leaves off her clothes and shaking off the spear. Tiny droplets of water were flung from the blade and shimmered in the morning light before striking the ground and dying. Shivering, she stood and walked slowly out of the cave, working the kinks and cramps out of her arms and legs. There was a frigid mountain stream nearby the cave she'd huddled in; Tomo slowly made her way over to it and, kneeling by the water, pulled off her tunic and the wrappings around her breasts. She shuddered just to touch them; they were filthy and caked with sweat. Bending over the water, she plunged the wrappings in and rubbed at them until the palms of her hands were raw with the effort. Tugging her tunic back on, she hung the wrappings over a tree branch and left them to dry before going back to examining herself in her water. The question was, how had Marco Atreides seen through Wolf? Wolf couldn't do a very good job of protecting Tomo if nobody was fooled. What if Jowy, or, even worse, Nanami had known? What if they'd only been humouring her the entire time? Maybe right now, Nanami and Jowy were back in Kyaro, sharing a laugh over stupid, mixed up Wolf. No, Nanami would never do that. stupid She tried to imagine how she'd looked with her breasts wrapped. Her hair was cropped very short, and very messily, but that only made her look more like a waif, not necessarily more feminine. She ran her hands down the front of her shirt and stared at her reflection, as if she would find some kind of answer there. It was her shoulders. That had to be it. They would need to be broader, or higher up, or something. She needed shoulder pads. Maybe she could also fill out her pants a little, too... Perverse Shoulders. Just shoulders. Wolf needed shoulders. Tomo shivered again, not from the cold. The problem, she discovered shortly after, was that shoulder pads were harder to contrive than the wrappings she wore to hide her breasts. She didn't have cloth that she could spare to make shoulder pads out of, not without ripping up clothes that she need. For the first time, she regretted that she'd returned Makoto's old clothes; at that moment, she'd rather have had some new clothes that she could rip up than a worthless spear. She could worry about that another time; she was a long way from civilization, and by the time she got to Greenhill she would've thought of something. That was her next problem...how could she get to Greenhill? Sitting down on a rock, Tomo pulled off her tunic again and set about replacing her wrappings while she tried to remember her father's geography lessons. She knew that the land on the other side of the pass from Kyaro belonged to Highland, and if she kept on heading west, she'd pass L'Renouille and eventually run into a checkpoint. Wincing a little as she tightened a knot, Tomo struggled to remember which of the City-States lay on the other side of the checkpoint. Was it Greenhill, or would she have to pass through Matilda, first? She couldn't remember if Matilda was on the eastern or western border of Greenhill. The problem was, she was stronger on her Toran or Grasslands geography than on the geography of the City-States; her father had taught her, and there just hadn't been enough interesting wars in Jowston for him to spend much time there. That was her father. If Geil Rugner, Barbarossa, the Karayans, or even Dayne Mott had marched through there, she knew it, but beyond that she had some trouble. If she crossed back past Kyaro, she was pretty confident of her way: back through North Sparrow Pass, then Muse, Two River, and Greenhill was the last stop, but that could take a very long time, depending on how far the war had spread. And, to be honest, she didn't want to go anywhere near Kyaro or Toto...not right now. So. Either way she would have to pass L'Renouille to get to Greenhill...that was fine. Maybe she didn't exactly pass for a boy, but she could certainly manage to pass for a Highlander, at least until she got to the checkpoint, and...whatever was on the other side. She was reasonably confident that it was Rockaxe. The wrappings were still chilly against her skin as she pulled her tunic back on, but she felt better as she looked at herself one last time in the water. Wolf, though he might not be perfect, stared back at her, and Wolf was stronger than Tomo, even with his flaws and his stupid, girlish shoulders. Kneeling, Wolf picked up his spear and headed down the path towards L'Renouille.
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