Dissappearing Dark

Dark sat up. She had heard a noise from around where she was. Cass was asleep in her fiery red slumber bag nest to Dark where she had been all night. Kaumi, however, was missing from his cerulean sleeping bag across the way.

Dark stood up; she wore a violet nightshirt and black shorts. She wandered past the cave and over to a boulder. There was a crackling behind it. Peering over the top, carefully, she saw Kaumi sitting at a newly made fire. He was staring deeply into it. Dark walked around over to him.

"Hey," he said, not looking up. She sat down by him and looked at his face questioningly. "Couldn�t sleep." He turned to her, and she looked down at the fire.

"Yeah, I heard you up." He looked back at the dancing flames. After hearing that story about him, she felt really bad she had ever threatened him at all�she hadn�t meant it�

"Shiki?" Dark didn�t respond. "That�s you�re given name, right? You should go by that, it�s nice." She still didn�t say anything. Kaumi frowned. "I was a little down that you noticed I was up."

"Why?"

"I�m leaving tomorrow, before sunrise. I didn�t want you two to know."

Dark looked shocked. "Leaving? Why?"

He sighed. "You said yourselves you didn�t trust me, and I don�t want to be in your way�"

"Hm," Dark said loudly. "I don�t recall telling you that."

He shook his head with a faint smile. "Shiki, you and Cass are fine by yourselves."

"Hold it. You said you wanted to travel with us�and I can�t just let you leave now�"

"Why?" He grew a little angry. "Because you�re sorry for me? I don�t want pity. That�s the way it was, and life sucks so get used to it." He stood.

Dark stayed sitting and looked at the ground, hurt. Kaumi scoffed and walked off past the boulder. She didn�t know if he was leaving or if he was going back to bed, but she didn�t care. Once emotionless, she had felt different when he came along�something had changed her. Her heart would be as cold as ice if no one was there to thaw it again. She didn�t know why it happened; it was just the way she was.

Dark walked to the boulder and looked around. Kaumi was lying down and appeared to already be back asleep, a bubble rising from his nose. (cute!) She bent down over her bag, picked it and her sleeping bag up, and was gone.

In the morning, Cass woke up, stretched, and looked around. Kaumi had built a fire in front of the sleeping bags and was making breakfast. Pulling her hair into the usual two ponytails, she spoke. "Kaumi, where�s Dark? Did she get up early?"

"Dunno," he said, flipping a pancake in his pan.

"Well where is she? You were up when I woke up, didn�t you see her?"

"No. I don�t know where she went." His words still were casual. Cass scowled, but fixed her face when Kaumi looked at her. Her cousin may have trusted him after that story, but that didn�t change her opinion.

"Well we hafta find the Primeape Stone with or without her. Let�s get moving," Cass ordered. Kaumi scooped his pancakes into a bag, packed his gear with Cass, and the two began down the mountain.

Cass tumbled the clue all around in her head. Where was fire that touched the sky? If she didn�t have a lead, she couldn�t go anywhere.

Kaumi chimed in about then, "Cass, where�re we supposed to find the stone?" He took a bite of a pancake.

"We�re gonna go to Cerulean City and ask around about the poem�I don�t know where to go, and it�s the nearest city." Kaumi nodded with his mouth full of pancake. Cass sweatdropped. "Don�t be a pig, you don�t hafta eat so fast."

"Mrph grum mah mrrrm�"

"Whatever. Shut up."