Under the Suna Moon [Salzem][No Kill, Private]

Ayame sat in the training grounds alone in the late night's breeze, Nita nestled in her bed back at the hotel fast asleep. Aya had left the hotel that night for many reasons, the main two being that she needed to be outside to think, and the second being that if she were to start crying again, she didn't want anyone to witness her weakness.

Now, she was propped up against a giant rock, tracing figures into the sand softly. It was so short ago that she had broken down in front of Yen, and now that she had slept twice since, the frustration had left while the soft pain of loss continued to trickle from her throat down to her heart.

Had she really loved Oro? or had it been an illusion; a platonic infatuation? It happened with Mason and Kyori, both of them Uchihas, then Orokana...

Whatever it had been, it had no reason to exist now and rightfully so; She had made him so uncomfortable that he pushed her away, so far that she could no longer meet his eye nor converse as old friends.

What still lingered? Did she care that much about him? Was it that he showed her his past and she understood? That she did not judge him?

Why the hell did she or even should she care; Why couldn't she shake it off and return to normal.

And why did it hurt so damned much?

Ayame could feel tears creeping up on her again, but she pushed them back growing angry with herself. She had been feeling this way when she had met Kyson yesterday, and it felt even worse today.

Her Jaw clenched as she sideswiped her abstract patterns she traced in the sand, destroying them, with her arm.  Why did she have to be so weak?

If she were honest, being able to block out her emotions was not one of her abilities when she wasn't in a threatening situation, and she certainly was not being able to put them to good use like others she knew.  She felt like such a crybaby as she held it all in.

Ayame's stomach dropped and growled at her for not feeling like eating most of that day.  It kept flipping over and turning in knots as she mentally beat herself up over seemingly nothing, blaming herself for literally everything that had recently gone wrong that she had been involved with, even if she hadn't caused it or done anything to cause it. It was just who she was. If things didn't turn out she just assumed she didn't do enough or personally caused it, even if she hadn't.

The frail genin longed for the crickets and fireflies of home that made her feel so safe before all of this happened. But now? Now she was alone, caressed by the cool desert air as the moonlight kissed her face in a silence so deafening that not even the hissing of the moving sand under the wind could distract her from.

WC: 538

(Wow, depressing, but Character development is likely needed XD)

(Timeline wise for our stories, Before our 1x1 (Little-bear Vs. Big Bad Wolf) but after the 2v2 with Kyson and Queen)

Salzem wandered through Suna's darkened streets, the only source of light seeming only to come from the moon high above, and the occasional lamps down below. It was one of those nights were sleep wasn't doing the lycanthrope any good. In fact, he couldn't have caught a snooze that night if he had a net. So, with not a wink of exhaustion in his eyes, he set out to wander the streets, a perfect time to clear his head. For some time, all his did was wander, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his eyes seeming to glow in the dark, and the ninja simply thinking. It wasn't about any particular thing, in fact, it was more or less nothing he was thinking about... He just let his brain work in his skull, analyzing each foot-fall, each rustle of a dune of sand, each beam of light that shined down upon this half of the world... Meanwhile, his body just went wherever there was path, seeming to be as carefree as he pleased, not exactly happy, but not brooding either... And then... eventually, his enhanced ears picked it up... Sniffling, sobbing, even the drops of tears as they impacted with the shifty earth below and it was coming from right in front of him... From the training grounds.

No matter how much Salzem tried to avoid it, he always seemed to come back to the training grounds. it was as if by some sort of magical force that the lycanthrope kept being pulled back here, each excuse being different from the last. With his curiosity easily getting the better of him, the sanguine-eyed ninja made sped up his walk a tad as he passed that accursed door-way that led to the grounds, his foot-steps muffled by the sand, negating any chance of audible detection. With each step, the sound of the crying got more intense, more frequent and soon, he was able to pick up a specific direction as well as a gender... A girl was out here all alone...? Sure, it was Sunagakure where crime here was actually quite low and call him a chauvinist, but it wasn't exactly the safest place or time to be alone out there...

Creeping up behind a large boulder in the center of the grounds, he could tell the sobbing was coming directly from the other side. Letting out a sigh, the lycanthrope would walk around the stone's edge, and squatting down beside the girl... who happened to be Ayame... from that 2 verses 2 fight from a few days ago. She looked like someone had just killed her pet or, rather, ate it alive right in front of her while the laughed and cracked jokes. She looked as if she just found out that someone close to her had died... brutally. Not being ESPECIALLY comfortable with being in such a... delicate role, Salzem awkwardly wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders, this hopefully not being the first hint of his presence there.

"'Sup, Ayame?" He asked, giving her a side-hug that defined awkward. "Why all the tears?" He tried to sound all laid-back, calm, perhaps even joking, but there was a very clear edge of concern. "Do you want to talk?"

Ayame suddenly picked up on breathing as the tears crept down her face. She hadn't been crying loudly, in fact, the only sounds she really made were sniffling and heavier, shaky breathing. But when she heard someone there she froze using the palms of her hands to wipe the tears from her face.

This had all been very confusing to her and she didn't want anyone to know why she was out there. She heard a sigh as she stood up and turned around to face the boy, taking a step back from the boulder.

She looked him up and down, not able to recognize him at first, and then the pieces clicked together. It was the wolf-boy she had teamed with the other day. Her first instinct was that maybe the moon had drawn him out tonight, just having passed its fullest point this month three days ago. It was now waning.

When he reached out to hug her, she backed away from the boy. She had only seen him once, and he was going to grab her? This late at night? Even if his intentions had been a hug, she didn't want to chance it.

Ayame's eyes glistened in the moonlight reflecting their innocence in the brightness.

"If you need the training grounds, I'll leave" she sighed softly awaiting his response.

WC: 229
TWC: 767

Salzem let his arms fall to his side, actually kind of relieved she didn't accept his offer. Even though her active sobbing has ceased, the remnants of what once was still lay plastered across her flushed cheeks and red-ringed eyes not to mention the salty scent of tears still fresh upon her face. Salzem only smiled kindly at her offer, but not acceptingly. He didn't want her to leave if she wanted to stay, though he feared that his mere being here was what was putting her off from sticking around... The lycanthrope casually stuffed his hands into his jacket-pockets and looked around across the night sky as if the stars were holding his attention when, in fact, he was just trying to avoid those innocent eyes of hers... ones that would suck in any and all who dared enter it's almighty grasp.

"No, no... Its nothing like that." Salzem assured her, shaking his head. "I'm not here to train, especially out at night... It's freezing out here..." As if to emphasize his point, the lycanthrope shuddered as a cruel whisp of air blasted over the desert, containing none of the heat it once held during the day. Deserts had certain difficulties when it came trapping the heat of the day and storing it... There was simply nothing to catch it... No trees to feed off it's light, no sticky dirt to absorb it into it's darker colors, no water to hold its warmth... just sand and a lot of nightly chill.

"Whatever you're out here for must be very important, huh? I mean... if you brave this madness, well... It makes you a tougher ninja than me." Salzem again smiled, friendly, inviting, but nothing to extreme in either direction. "My name is Salzem, in case you forgot." Pulling one of his hands out of his jacket pockets, the lycanthrope extended to towards the girl slowly, akin to how a trapper might extend a hand of friendship to his prey in order to lead it into a false sense of security WITH THE BIG EXCEPTION that Salzem was offering... genuine security...? He didn't know... bottom line was that he was trying to make a friend.

Ayame watched his movements and focused on the intent of his voice, how it flowed through the cold of the desert, which didn't seem to bother Ayame much. Sure, she had goosebumps and she wasn't really dressed for the cool temperatures, but to be able to have some privacy.... it was well worth it.

"I'm Ayame," she said softly. "We didn't really get to talk much the other day." she speculated gripping his hand gently for a timid shake.

She remembered the grotesque wolf-like appearance of the boy in battle quite suddenly. It had shocked her before... what he was, that is, and how easily his peaked teeth could find her throat and...

Well, it wasn't exactly a pleasant thought.

Ayame pulled her hand away quite suddenly, very shy.

"As for what I'm up to out here..." Ayame continued occasionally meeting the boy's eyes but only for a glimpse to gauge his emotions each time, "If I'm honest, I'm not too sure myself." Ayame paused. "I guess I needed a moment away from it all. I just to find myself again" she muttered. "It's stupid, really, how easy it is to lose track of oneself in the commotion of life"

"The night, it makes me think and brings me insight when I have problems... but often the silence throws them back at me." she continued, walking around to sal's side of the boulder and leaning on it.

"The stars remind me of home." there was a pause "It'd be a hell of a lot easier to search if there were trees here," she said softly getting off track and staring into the sky, completely content that the conversation was going nowhere. She didn't want it to go further in that direction, so she just stopped to admire the beauty of the night, wishing to hear an owl, a common noise back in Konoha.

"It's absolutely stunning" she added after a long silence watching the twinkle of the stars and constellations with her arms crossed over her chest. They were much clearer here in Suna, almost as if there were more. The sky wasn't only black either... it was a swirl of blues and purples so dark that her unwary eyes could barely distinguish the colors.

Ayame was no good at hiding her emotions. If she had been, this social interaction would have gone a lot better than it was. She seemed almost sad, or longing as she stared at the stars, pondering her situation to herself, and then beginning to feel that slow trickle of loss continue from her throat down to her heart and stomach. Still, she focused on the beauty as her thoughts raced and stuck around in the back of her mind as if they had been stuck there with chewing gum. She was just unable to shake them.

WC: 488
TWC: 1255

Sky Reference:

Salzem nodded as Ayame reintroduced herself and shaking his hand, commenting how they never really did much talking the day before. T'was true... Most of that day they were just fighting an uphill battle together before going out to eat... Not much talking to be had at all. Pulling away from their friendly little shake, the girl answered his question from earlier, stating that she wasn't quite sure herself but maybe she was just trying to find herself once more in this cluster that was life. He could surely sympathize, no doubt about that. In fact, Salzem was still trying to find his place... He supposed on some level he figured that there was very little waiting for him on this plane of service, this... chuunin rank... It wasn't like he didn't appreciate the position at all, nor did he think that moving up in the world will open up that many doors, but maybe... enough would open up for the exhausted lycan to move on himself. Never once did he actually consider these midnight walks to actually help with that, more or less considering it to be more like a placebo, believing in it just enough so that he could forget how utterly screwed he really was so it felt better. Real medicine either didn't work or was a long-time coming so he had to make to with what he had: A new face, a new smile, a new personality... a transplant over the old one until that too rotted through.

Ayame walked over to his little side of the boulder, leaning up against it as she peered into the endless abyss that was the starry sky. He couldn't help but feel that every time he stared into the sky, he'd fall off the world, that his feel would lose the natural magnetism that kept him grounded, that kept him safe. Every time he stared up into that endless vastness, he felt so small, so insignificant, like his life didn't matter in the least. A beautiful thing can be terrible is scaled up hundreds of times because it makes one realize how small of a man they really are... Perhaps he was strong, perhaps he could lift his whole world on his back, but that still made him no better than ants.

Despite his own inhibitions about the sky, Salzem managed to turn his face up and face the white-black infinity that hung overhead, staring into it's menacing mass with as much bravery and gall as an ant could manage. Ayame noted how completely beautiful the sky was on a night like this and the lycan couldn't disagree more. In the morning, the sky was a ceiling. The blue made one think that the sky really was the limit, that there was an end one could conceivably reach. There was an end. On nights like these, black was far more mysterious... One could walk black for years and never be any closer to their destination than where they started. He didn't like being reminded of the path he chose to walk...

"If you say so." Salzem half-agreed, shrugging his shoulders, crossing his arms over his chest, propping his shoulder up against the massive rock. He needed something to hold onto if today was they day he lost his footing and fell into the sky.

"What's up there for you?" he asked, looking at Ayame oddly, as if she had commented her home was in the trash. "Was your home like a swirling, black hole or something...? That's not beautiful, is it?"

"No, It's not... not really. It's a little home with no walls. It provides me food most of the year and fresh air, and it allows me to watch the stars." Ayame paused, "I live in an Apple Tree. It's small, and some see it as humiliating... but I love just the same it because it's mine and it has been since I was eight and moved out of the orphanage. Back then it was perfect... heck, it still is now. I'm content with it more than I have been with anything in my life thus far."

Ayame chuckled a moment. "When I was younger I would sometimes roll off of it and wake up on the ground, but I adjusted to it quickly." her face suddenly turned solemn again.

"But the stars?" she continued. "I don't know why I find them so comforting, to be honest. I mean honestly, there are so many that it is almost overwhelming, but I just wonder how many worlds there are out there, and the colors too; It's like a beautiful piece of art that is constantly changing, but the changes are so little that they are hardly noticeable until a time much later in the future."

Again there was another pause. "I guess it just reminds me that we don't know everything, and how much more there is to learn."

Ayame turned to the boy next to her and asked, "What do the stars mean to you, Salzem?"

WC: 254
TWC: 1509

Salzem looked at the girl even more oddly as she admitted that she lived in an apple-tree of all places, giving a good portion of her back-story as to when she moved out of the orphanage, she found that tree and deemed it perfect, all for reasons the lycan couldn't begin to understand. Why were people so weird and strange that they couldn't just find a house or something to live in...? Like... A tree...? It sounded like the beginning of one of those old bed-time stories his father would tell him when he was just a child. Next thing she was going to tell him was that she had an animal-skin cap and made her own clothes from scraps or something.

Of course, though, she didn't say this. Instead, she commented how the sky was one big piece of art or something, wondering about all the different worlds that were out there and how it was all constantly changing and was beautiful. Again, he couldn't see it. It was simply black and white and the spinning of it above you would make you sick if you stared at it for too long. He'd start to notice the changes in the star positions, and realize just how fast the world was really moving, making it all seem even more unstable. Ayame asked what he thought of the stars and Salzem simply shrugged.

"I've got nothing to say, really. They're just dots on a ceiling and that's all there is too it. I don't know how you see them as 'art' but I was never really one for aesthetics anyway." His eyes fell on the girl again.

"You never answered my question. Why were you crying? You said you were here to clear your head but that explains nothing."

Ayame sighed. "Where to begin...?" she started.

"I guess I lost a friend recently. I cared and loved, and perhaps it was all too much for him." Ayame thought deeply. "All my friends seem to leave me for one reason or another... they die, they stop talking to me, they cease existing all together, or they push me away." Ayame paused again, thinking and searching for the right words. "And now someone who has trusted me with intimate details of his past... well he suddenly wants nothing to do with me."

Perhaps Aya was much too open for her own good. She didn't share secrets but was always open about herself so long as it didn't put anyone else in harm's way.

"I honestly had come out here for some time alone. Showing overwhelming emotions is not something that is generally accepted among our kind; among shinobi. I didn't want my room - neighbors to hear such guttural noises coming from my room if I were to break... I didn't want anyone to hear or see me so weak and vulnerable." Ayame sighed. "It's too late for that now, anyway."

With a Yawn the girl stretched her arms from side to side, popping her shoulders as she looked to the boy. "Seeing as we are out here anyway, would you like to spar? Or would you rather continue to stare into the abyss?"

WC: 238
TWC: 1747

Salzem nodded whistfuly, completely understanding what Ayame was going through. Instead of them leaving OR dying however, they all ended up dead one way or another. He couldn't even count on two hands anymore how many of his old friends had bitten the dust... It was one of the reasons he hadn't sought out the Suna graveyards as well for fear or recognizing some names.

"Believe me, I sympathize." He admitted, already the faces of each one of his fallen loved ones flashing behind his eyes, playing before him like some macabre slide-show that reminded him of how many good people had fallen in just the span of a year or so. "I've lost more people than I'd want to remember. I don't even think I could count them all off the top of my head if I were asked..." Suddenly, Salzem's face grew darker, more edged and serious than before. His fingers gripped the inside of his pockets, practically strangling them, threatening to rip out their fabric with nothing but his finger-nails. "We're loosing good people every day, you know... you'd think people would realize when to quit, when enough life has been lost... Sometimes, we can be so stupid..." It was true enough... War wasn't necessary. Death through combat was petty at best... It all seems so selfish... When he looked back at all the lives, all the friends he's lost, half of them were dead because they were fulfilling a ninja duty, a duty that would be unnecessary if people could keep their crap in line... the other half were claimed to be "accidents", a long string of "unfortunate accidents." What. Garbage.

"I don't blame you." He sighed, responding to Ayame's explanation as to why she was out. "I couldn't sleep either honestly. It's kind of hard to sleep when that kind of weight is on your mind." every night. "It rather....... distracting." Ayame began to stretch her arms to either side as the lycan watched, remaining as calm and relaxed as ever. When she asked if he wanted to do a spar, he only shrugged compliantly.

"Hey, if it'll help you get this off your chest, I'm game." With that, Salzem would take a couple steps back so that they were about 3 meters apart, his hands still tucked away in his pockets, allowing Ayame to make the first move.