Fanfic:The Art of the Hunt Season 2/Chapter 4-Stalking Shadows

J eren held his hand to his forehead and gazed across the open horizon in the field in front of their camp. Dawn was breaking, and reddish-pink clouds were floating leisurely on the edge of the world. As it was his turn to watch, he and his watch partner, Yuki, were the only ones awake.

"Yuki, you should really see this." Jeren said, almost dumbfounded. He turned around halfway and looked at her, nodding towards the field. Yuki got up and walked over.

As she carefully tiptoed around the sleeping forms on the ground and the large boulders around their camp, more and more light flooded the camp. She was finally standing right be Jeren.

"Wow, that's really pretty..." Yuki said.

Throughout their life, Yuki and Jeren had always been opposing forces, completely opposite of one another. Jeren noticed the beauty in things; he noticed their metaphorical value, the storytelling capacity they held. In a strange way, he wasn't that different from Gamor. Yuki, on the other hand, was more like Taka or Katrina; she noticed things for their utilitarian qualities, how they could be utilized and what they were. Yuki saw rocks as rocks, little more; Jeren saw a rock as a slow-changing organism, practically a living thing, with a story and an ancient tale to tell.

Yuki had a relatively hard time appreciating the beauty. She looked at Jeren strangely, and turned back to the rising sunlight.

"I don't see how you do it." She said.

"There's nothing to 'do', or be 'done'. It just is. Stop looking. That's the problem; you're looking for beauty, looking for meaning. If you always look with your eyes, you'll always think the world is an ugly place. Look with your mind. Close your eyes, if you have to, and look with your mind. Leave your mind open. Always do that." Jeren replied.

Yuki sighed and stopped squinting. She carefully, gently closed her eyes and let her imagination soar. She thought about the time when she was five, and her father and her took a walk down a high road in their old home. The sun had been setting that day. Her young mind, innocent and untainted, saw dragons, fireworks, thunderheads: all peaceful rulers of the sky, little things that swirled about every young one's mind. Her thought drifted to her travels in Moga, when, while sailing, she had witnessed a true high noon. There were no clouds in the sky that day; the ocean was serene; the wind blew only enough to power the little boat.

Finally, her train of thought stopped at the present. She smiled brightly and opened her eyes wide, turning towards Jeren excitedly.

"I did it!!" She said with glee.

Jeren embraced her and gave her a small kiss on the forehead.

She had just imagined something... natural... for the first time in years.

After a while, the others began to wake up. Taka was the first awake. He saw the last glimpses of the sunrise and got up to fix breakfast. For the first time since the beginning of the trip, his mind was filled with happy thoughts. He looked around and realized that he was surrounded by nine other people who, for once in his life (so he thought) shared the same goal. All of them shared a little bit of the same morality. Somewhere, no matter what differences or ways separated them, a little bit of them somewhere was all the same.