竜頭虎尾; dragon's head, tiger's tail

ACT I: 中部日本; CENTRAL JAPAN

Rin found the deer in a small clearing, draped over a rock.

Its neck and legs were snapped to awkward angles — probably from the great height it must have been dropped from. The torso was ripped open, twisted strands of tissues dangled from the exposed rib cages. The flesh around the tear was jagged and unclean. Coyotes and buzzards had devoured its innards, but ants and pill-bugs were still plucking at the softer tissues — the eyeballs, the mouth, the brain spilling from the doe's cracked skull.

Sun had bleached the surrounding soil a dark, sticky crimson. The doe's glazed, horizontal pupil stared upward, unblinking, mocking Rin as he approached.

The swathes of insects paused when Rin leaned down and nosed at the teeth marks, sniffing for a thread of familiar pheromone in this weeks-old corpse, despite knowing he'd inevitably come up empty. The faint buzz of insects dissecting the deer's remains pressed around him.

The ants scurried across the carcass. One of the larger soldiers clicked its mandibles up at him.

"A dragon—" It rasped, awe creeping into its voice. "Oh, we cannot believe it. We thought you existed in fairy tales."

Tail slashing, he lowered his chin to level a glare at the lowly insects. "Did a red dragon pass by here?"

The carpenter ants chittered, their antennas and full gasters raised, some circling between his feet. "The spider spoke of a creature with four horns and a mane like fire. But we dared not believe dragons still walked the earth. We hadn't believed it until now."

Rin straightened, towering over them. He raised his chin, whiskers flicking as he glanced skyward. The grass crinkled under his talons. "Where did it head?"

"We do not know."

"This corpse was already torn apart by the time our scouts found it."

"The world moves too fast for us. We had yet paused to mourn our sisters after the war," The bugs said.

"You two must be the last of your kind."

There was a pity in their collective voice — a finality in their statement — that twisted Rin's mouth into a sardonic sneer.

Floating up into the air, he glanced at the rolling hills, shimmering gold and amber in a breeze. His teal scales shone silver in the light.

"Yes," He said to no one at all, the words bitter in his mouth. "I supposed we are."

/

Rin followed the migratory birds southwest until they arrived at a lake.

He picked an overhang overlooking the glimmering water. It was one of the many small cliffs dotted about, distinguished by its barren rock foundation and a thin layer of moss crawling up its flanks. Above him, the weight of an early snowfall embroiled within the grey clouds, pressing down on his shoulders — the sharp spike in the temperature drop hitting the back of his throat tasted like pines and needles.

Stretching his neck, he closed his eyes and pulled in a lungful of air.

Sae's scent extended westward, at least as of two months ago. The trail grew fainter and fainter as the autumn rains ebbed toward the end — the light showers replaced by dry, gloomy overcasts. The dampness lingering in the atmosphere sponged up the remaining remnants his brother left behind — not that there were many in the first place — and whatever scraps that retained a little of his smell were muddled by scavengers and the elements.

Like water, the harder Rin chased after the ghost of Sae's presence, the quicker Sae seemingly slipped through Rin's fingers. A foolish, stubborn part in Rin wanted to catch his brother no matter what, even if it killed him. After all, he had always been good at defying the odds. Whether it was crossing the highest mountain or the deepest sea by himself dead in the winter, he refused to lose his brother's traces. Not after tracking Sae for so long.