Chapter 3

Ruki realised his mistake after they'd entered the forest. He didn't know how to make a fire without tools like a match, or even a flintstone. He also didn't have a knife to skin and gut the rabbits with, and even if he had, he didn't know how to do it. The hunger and cold must have affected his mental abilities and made him not think about all of this beforehand.

They stopped in a small clearing. Ruki set the hares down on the ground while Nika took a seat on a small boulder nearby and watched him curiously. Defiance welled up in Ruki. He wouldn't admit his defeat to the other boy.

Ruki decided to collect firewood first. Once he'd done that, he made a fireplace and tried rubbing two sticks together. Meanwhile, Nika was lounging on the boulder and dozing in the morning sun, which suited Ruki just fine.

It felt as if Ruki had been at it for hours when the white-haired boy with the girly name let out a tiny snore, yawned and blinked sleepily at him.

"Are you done with eating?"

This question only served to infuriate Ruki further. He was mad at his own inability and lack of knowledge. "No. I... I don't know how to start a fire without any tools," he begrudgingly admitted, wondering if the other boy might have some matches.

"Oh." Nika furrowed his brows as if trying to remember something. Then he got up from his place and sat down next to Ruki.

He held up a stick and glared at it for some time. Ruki wondered what in heaven's name the other boy was trying to achieve. Was Nika trying to ignite the stick with a heated look alone?

That would never wo–

A small, golden flame suddenly flickered up the stick. Ruki stared, and then gaped at what he was seeing. Was he hallucinating from his lack of food?

Even after blinking and rubbing his eyes the flame didn't disappear. Nika held the burning stick to the dried leaves and waited until they and several other twigs were on fire before throwing his stick into the fire.

Ruki could feel the warmth that radiated off of it. This was definitely no illusion. Mystified, Ruki turned to Nika. "How did you do that?"

"Magic, I think? I just had the feeling that I would be able to light a fire. It was the same with hunting," was Nika's unhelpful answer.

Ruki couldn't believe it. Something like magic didn't exist. Getting some food in his stomach had priority though, he could contemplate how Nika had made the fire later. "About that... how did you catch the hares? Do you know how to make traps?"

"No, I don't. I just ran after the rabbits and caught them."

"..." Ruki was pretty certain that even a grown man would have difficulties with catching a hare with bare hands, so he was unable to believe that Nika had been able to do it.

However, the golden-eyed boy was absolutely weird, so a part of Ruki actually considered the possibility. He'd ignited the wood with a gaze alone and he even claimed to have eaten a whole rabbit raw.

Raw and whole. Like a wild animal. Who in their right mind did that?

Anyway, now Ruki had to skin and gut the rabbits somehow... He let out a sigh and turned to Nika. He might as well try his luck. Ruki hadn't come this far just to give up even though he hated asking people for favours and would rather do everything by himself.

"Do you have a knife?"

"I do. You can have it, but you'll have to return it to me after you're done using it." Nika retrieved a gleaming knife from his pocket and gave it to Ruki without a second thought.

Once again he was astounded by the other boy's outlandishness and couldn't believe how gullible Nika was. Ruki could use the knife to hurt him if he had any ill intentions.

"You shouldn't give a stranger your only weapon so easily," he couldn't help but lecture the amnesiac.

Nika blinked at him in mild confusion. "But we're not strangers? I know your name. Besides," he continued and proceeded to retrieve something from his other pocket, "I still have this."

The white-haired boy grinned at Ruki as he held up another knife, exposing two unusually long and pointy upper canine teeth with the action.

Ruki just shook his head in disbelief. He'd have to give the strange amnesiac a proper explanation later. Nika didn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed.

If he'd been clever, he would have gone to the police station to ask for help instead of making a deal with a random stranger who lived on the street. On the other hand, if Nika somehow turned out to be an orphan or his guardians weren't found, he would be brought to the orphanage.

Ruki had heard some nasty rumours about it during his time on the streets. There was a reason why a lot of kids preferred to join gangs and living on the streets over living at that place.

Maybe Nika had made the right decision by asking Ruki in particular for help. The other street kids would have most likely robbed him, and the adults might have done so too before selling Nika to the orphanage to fill their pockets. With his unusual and pretty features Nika would have fetched them a nice sum.

Ruki began to cut open the rabbit with the surprisingly sharp knife, having no idea what he was doing. The knife itself was well-made and fitting for an aristocrat. After seeing Nika and his clean, expensive clothes in the daylight Ruki had no doubts that he was an aristocrat, albeit his attitude had already exposed Nika as such beforehand.

His musings were interrupted when Nika put a hand around his hand to grip the knife. He led Ruki's motions with it before he let go again.

"I think you have to do it like this..."

"You know how to skin and gut an animal?" Ruki asked incredulously. "Why did you eat your own rabbit raw then?

Nika thought about his question. "I like the internal organs best, but I don't mind the other parts either. Maybe that's why I know how do gut animals?"

Ruki accepted the pointers wordlessly after that disturbing answer, because he was too hungry to complain or care at this point, and did his best not to gag or throw up when he skinned, beheaded and gutted the rabbit. The sight and smell of the headless, skinned and gutted animal made him nauseous but his hunger far outweighed his disgust.

Ruki suspected that Nika had been on several hunting trips with his family before losing his memory if these kind of things were still deeply engraved in his brain. And that family had also taught him how to prepare animals for consumption.

When Ruki was finally done with the first rabbit, he sharpened a stick, put the rabbit on it, and stuck the stick into the ground close to the fire. His mouth watered while he was preparing the second rabbit. The smell of the roasting rabbit was heavenly.

Ruki had to remind himself that he'd have to eat slowly or he would throw everything up again because his stomach wasn't used to food anymore.

Nika had settled down on her boulder in the sun again and was watching Ruki eat his rabbit at a snail's pace. He gave her an explanation why he was doing so when she asked him. Apart from being affected by the cold, his stomach was apparently very sensitive, too.

Nika's stomach was completely fine despite Ruki's warning that one shouldn't eat a rabbit raw. Ruki was a very fragile person. Almost like a pup.

He had to stop eating after he'd consumed the meat of the first rabbit and kept the second one for later. It surprised her that he hadn't eaten her favourite parts, the internal organs, but the rabbits were now his, so he could do with them what he wanted even if she thought it was a waste to throw them away.

She showed him a stream, that she could hear in the distance, where he cleaned her knife and his hands. Nika used the opportunity to clean her bloodstained gloves, too.

Ruki inspected the knife once more in the sunlight before he returned it to her. He asked her if she knew what the foreign runes on it meant.

"The one I gave you says 'Nika'," she said and showed him the engraving on her other knife. "And this one says 'Little Spitfire'. Have you heard any of this before?" Nika doubted that he'd ever met her before she found him in that alley, but it was worth a try.

"No. I haven't seen runes like that before either. And you spoke a foreign language when we first met. Do you know what it is called?"

"You mean this language?" she asked in said language.

Ruki furrowed his brows in incomprehension. "Hmm, I've definitely never heard it before..."

"It's the same language that is engraved on my knives. I don't know what it's called, but I think it's an ancient language?" she mused.

Ruki appeared thoughtful. "Which one seems more familiar to you? German or that runic language?"

"The runic language, of course. I just learned to speak your language this morning by using magic." She'd never even heard of this 'German' that Ruki was talking about.

"...What? What are you saying? Things like magic don't exist."

Why would magic not exist? Could he not feel the magic coursing through his body like she could?

At Nika's confused look, Ruki changed the topic. "Did you know that the town we just left is called Mülhausen, and that we're in western Germany, close to the border to France?"

"No. As far as I can remember, I've never heard of any of these places before."

"Alright... Do you know today's date then?"

What did Ruki mean with that? "It's the time of the waxing moon?" Nika had the feeling that the moon phases were important.

"That wasn't what I asked. Today is the 10th November 1917," Ruki informed her.

All of this meant nothing to Nika either. "What's a 'November'? And what does 1917 mean?"

The boy gave her an incredulous look. "'November' is the name of the eleventh month of the year. And 1917 means that it's been one thousand nine hundred seventeen years since Jesus Christ was born. You have large gaps in your memory if you can't even remember that... Instead of focusing on what you don't remember, we should probably focus on what you actually do remember," Ruki said.

Then his blue eyes met hers. She thought the colour was fascinating – she had the feeling that she'd never seen someone with blue eyes before.

"What can you tell me about yourself and how did you end up in Mülhausen?"

Ruki was finally doing his part of the bargain – helping her out.

After Nika had told him pretty much everything she remembered since waking up near that underground passageway, Ruki revealed the conclusions he'd come to.

He used a stick to poke around in the fire. They had returned to their small camp because it was more comfortable near the fire for Ruki. Nika had sat down on the boulder she'd claimed earlier.

"You're a high-ranking aristocrat, Nika, or at least belong to a very wealthy family. Because of the state of your clothes and your own uninjured, healthy state, I don't think that you were abandoned by your parents or abducted. You couldn't have been on your own for long either because you're too clean for that. Maybe you went out by yourself and fell on your head. It's weird though that there isn't any blood on the back of your head if the impact was bad enough to make you lose all of your memories..." Ruki ended his explanation.

Nika let his conclusions sink in. Ruki had definitely proven his worth. She was glad that she'd chosen him to ask for assistance.

"I think you might be right. I couldn't pick up any scents apart from mine in the area where I woke up. But I didn't leave any scent trails that I could follow back either, as if I'd appeared out of thin air."

By now she was aware that everyone and everything left a scent trail, so it struck her as odd that she hadn't left any trails around the underground waterway. If she had, she could have just followed it home.

Ruki gave her strange look. "You speak as if you have the nose of a dog. It's impossible for humans to track someone by smell alone. Our nose isn't that good."

Now Nika gave him a puzzled look. "Really? But I found you again by following your scent... And I also tracked down the rabbits by scent. Ah, but that was as a wolf. I can smell even better as a wolf."

She realised that she'd forgotten to mention that she could turn into a wolf. Ruki appeared even more unsettled than before.

"...People can't turn into wolves, Nika," he said slowly. "Just like they can't use magic."

"Of course they can," Nika disagreed. Why would he say that?

Ruki shook his head. "I can't and I don't know anyone who can use magic or turn into a wolf either. I've only read about it in fictional stories."

"But you know me."

"You can't do it either. It's impossible."

"It's not! You saw me light a stick with magic with your own eyes!"

"You must have used some kind of trick," Ruki argued.

"No, I didn't! I used magic to set it on fire," she protested, growing frustrated at his lack of faith in her and why he thought that magic didn't exist and that she couldn't use it. She wanted to prove him wrong. "Here, I'll show you that magic exists."

In no time at all Nika assumed her wolf form and stood proudly on the boulder, gazing down at Ruki with triumph reflected in her eyes.

"See?"

A/N: Find out how Ruki's going to react in the next chapter! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed chapter 3! The pacing at the beginning of this story might be a little slow, but it'll get a little faster in time. I'd love to hear your thoughts (so I can read something, too) :D