Black Tattoo

Fera

I am relaxed which surprises me, I should be freaking out with anger in my eyes but I'm not. Sokaku is inspecting the ground but it's useless because he won't find anything. The body is gone as if it was never here, it disappeared. No tracks, no broken sticks not even the trail of blood that should have been there. Don't get me wrong there is still blood puddles where the body was just not the body.

I smile.

This may seem bad, we just lost the body that could have giving us a lot of hints and clues to where and who he was. If we had found out where he was from then maybe just maybe we could discover where the man pulling the strings is hiding. His lair. Yes, we just lost all that.

"Why are you smiling?" Sokaku asks. He's standing again, looking at me with curiosity while he's patting his black shirt.

"Do you know what this means?" I ask. He shakes his head. Of course he doesn't know. Why did I even ask?

I walk over to a puddle of blood. I'm looking for something hoping that it's still here. The blood looks a little dried up. I walk around the puddles.

I'm losing hope, fast.

"What are you looking for?" Sokaku asks but I don't answer. It is hard to explain if he doesn't see it with his own eyes.

I'm about to give up when I see a blue feather. It's as long as my hand. The dark blue feather of a beautiful bird, I bet. I was right! 

"Look at this! What do you think it is?" I ask happily. There is a huge smile on my face.

"Um...a feather?" He says. I sigh.

"This is a fera." I say. "When we die our body dissolve into dust and the only thing that remains is a fera. A fera is an object that holds our animal spirit after we die and it has the form of our animal."

I hand it to Sokaku. He lifts it to his eyes and inspects it. "It feels different than a normal feather." He says.

"That's because feras are the animal spirit we once had. It's full of power." I say.

He gives me back the fera and I accept it gladly, not that I don't trust Sokaku with it. But I feel safer if it's with me. 

"Come on, it's time to head back." I say.

We start to walk back to the cabin. 

"You wanted to come hear because of this... fera?" He asks. I keep looking forward even if he turns to look at me. 

"Yeah, I wanted to know if the man was one of us and if he was I wanted to be the one to grab his fera." I say.

"Is it really that important?" He asks with disbelieve. I stop and turn to look at him now. 

"It's more than just important! Feras are full of power and if that power were to be in the hands of the wrong person terrible things could happen." I say a bit louder.

I walk away from him and towards the tree next to me. I touch the tree with both my hands and look up at his leafs. "Besides, there's an animal spirit in there!"

"What happens to it?" Sokaku asks quietly.

"There is only one type of every fera in the world so eventually it will dissolve when the animal spirit finds a new person to unite with." I say. With one last glance at the leafs I start walking back towards the cabin. Sokaku walks next to me.

We can now see the cabin but before we walk out of the protection of the trees I stop and look at Sokaku. "I'm sorry if I overreacted and if I kin of screamed at you." I try to give him my biggest smile so he can forgive me. Instead he closes the distance between us, his face is barely a few inches between us. I just need to move a little bit if I want to kiss him.

"I'm the one who should be apologizing. It was wrong of me to underestimate the power of the fera." He says the last bit with sarcasm and smiles at me. I start to laugh and he joins me. I am forgiven, which makes me extremely happy.

We stay like that, so close to each other, even after we stop laughing. I am sure he can hear my heart beat and the thought of it is making my heart beat even faster. Most of the time I just stared at his dark eyes but not today, today I am only looking at his lips. I can't take my eyes off of them.

Not being able to stop myself I completely shorten the distance between us.

I kiss him.

But what really surprises me is that he kisses me back.