The wolf walked through the familiar roads of her village, taking the long path to the outskirts so that she was less likely to be seen.  It was past her bedtime, and it was definitely past her curfew, but she had more important things to think about.

Not that the bedtime and curfew made much sense to her, anyway; she found a beauty in this time of night that she had never found during the day, with the cool air, the chirping of frog-critters and cricket-critters, and of course the brightness of the stars in the sky, providing light and guidance to any travelers who would otherwise be lost in the shadows below.

She also preferred the atmosphere when there were fewer people around–not that she didn’t like other people, but it was easier for her to relax and think things through when things were quieter.  Though, she supposed that the fact that fewer people were around was probably because of the curfew, and she pondered over what to do about that conundrum.

She didn’t have much time to ponder, though, since she was shortly interrupted by the same loud voices that broke her concentration during the day.

“Hey, weirdo!  Is that you!?” the voice called out.

“Weirdo” was not the wolf’s name, but it was what her classmates called her (among other things), so she responded to it.  Two of her classmates were running up to her: Jess, her coyote friend, and Tyler, the boy fox who had been calling after her.  The wolf stopped to wait for them.

After they caught up, they stopped to catch their breath, but the fact that Tyler was still panting did not stop him from questioning the wolf.  “What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“I’m going to see John,” the wolf replied.  “Isn’t that why you’re out here?”

“Well yeah, but you weren’t supposed to be a part of that!”  Tyler gave her a skeptical look.

“I wasn’t?”

“No.”  Strange; the wolf thought everyone had been invited.

Jess took one final breath, then stood up straight, brushing her long brown hair out of her face.  “Ah, c’mon,” she said.  “If she’s up for it, why don’t we let her join?”

“No!”  Tyler whipped his head around to face her.  “She’s gonna be a, a, a,” he snapped his fingers a few times, then pointed at Jess. “A libality.  She’s gonna mess things up.”

“How?” Jess asked, arms folded across her chest.  “Aren’t we just walking wherever it is?”

Tyler still seemed out of breath.  He looked at the wolf, then back at Jess, then back at the wolf, then threw his paws into the air.  “Fine,” he said, continuing to walk down the path.  “I don’t fucking care, bring her with us then.  Don’t blame me when she goes crying back home and dies on the way back or something.”

The wolf was briefly caught off guard by Tyler’s profanity, but only out of instinct in case her family members were around, which she quickly remembered they weren’t.  Jess smiled at her and slapped her on the back before continuing on the road herself.  “C’mon, ‘weirdo’, let’s go,” she said affectionately.

The three walked down the path in silence.  It wasn’t the wolf’s full group of friends, which made her wonder where the others were.  She knew they had been part of the original discussion, and though not all of them were on board with the idea, there were definitely a few others who said they were going to join too, her sister being one of them.  She wondered if she would see them at the meeting point.

The group moved at a faster pace than the wolf would have done if she were still by herself, but it still took a few minutes to reach the edge of town.  When they did, John was already standing there, waving at them and giving a knowing grin.

The wolf had already seen John several times before now, but she couldn’t help giving him another lookover each time she did, his delicate form, his gigantic ears.  John was a rabbit, a much different creature than any of the other people she knew from town.  He had appeared in her class only in the past few weeks, seemingly out of nowhere, and from what she heard from talk around town, he didn’t even have any parents or anything.  He was literally the only one of his kind she’d ever seen.  If she hadn’t been told otherwise, she would’ve assumed that he was the only one in the world.

“Hey gang,” he said, greeting them with a wink.  “You were the only ones brave enough to show up tonight, huh?”

“Two brave, one stupid,” Tyler said, gesturing towards the wolf.  “Glad you didn’t chicken out, either, rabbit.”

“Are you kidding?” John said.  “For me, it’s just a walk home.  Nothing to be scared of.”  He shrugged.  “But really, we’re not waiting for anyone else?  We’re ready to go?”

“Yep, let’s get going,” Tyler said.

While the others moved to start walking further out of town, the wolf stayed in place.  “Wait,” she said.  “Are we sure no one else is coming?  There were so many who wanted to go.”

Tyler glared back at her.  “Are you serious?  It was obviously just talk with them.  They probably forgot by the time their moms tucked them in bed.”  He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, and his tail bristled.  “I’m still surprised you showed up.”

“We already checked with a couple others ourselves, and we’re already here later than we meant to be,” Jess said.  “I don’t think anyone else is coming.”

The wolf wondered to herself.  Were they here late?  She did sometimes lose track of time.

“Well, I don’t want to wait around forever, so you can follow me or not,” John said, and that ended the discussion.  The wolf moved to walk with them, but she still couldn’t help but wonder where the others were.  She thought back to what had brought them here in the first place.

Though John had not thought to mention it himself when meeting his classmates for the first time, Tyler had quickly informed everyone that rabbits came from the moon.  The wolf thought that this was interesting, but John seemed embarrassed about it, sometimes even saying it wasn’t true.  Originally, the wolf was inclined to believe John over Tyler–especially considering some of the other things Tyler would often say–but the other classmates said rabbits came from the moon, as well.  Eventually, John admitted it was true after all, which made the wolf think that maybe he just didn’t want to be too prideful at first.

On the day that John admitted he came from the moon, he also told everyone in class that he knew the way back, too, and would show it to anyone who was willing to come with him.  As a precaution, though, John insisted that it had to be on Friday evening, after their parents thought they were going to be in bed, because it was a long and dangerous trip that might take all weekend, and their parents may not want them to go.

Most classmates were excited to hear this, but not as many of them were willing to go through with it.  James in particular was still doubtful that it was even true.  Still, the wolf assumed that more than just the three of them would show up, especially after she told her own younger sister, Anna, about it.  Anna had seemed especially excited.

The wolf was broken out of her reminiscence as the group paused in front of the forest.  Jess fiddled with her paws as she looked to the wall of trees.

“We’re going in there?” she asked as casually as possible, though the wolf could see some worry in her face.

“Yep,” John said.  “We gotta walk all the way through to the other end.”

Jess rubbed her arm.  “I see,” she said.

Tyler side-eyed her.  “You’re coming with us, right?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Well, let’s go then,” John said, stepping forward.  He passed through the first couple of trees and the others followed him.

As they walked, the wolf considered Jess.  Though it was mostly boys who were interested in going to the moon, and some of the other girls made fun of them for it, Jess never seemed to be the type to care whether something was a boy thing or a girl thing; she just wanted to be involved with whatever others were doing.  In fact, it seemed to the wolf that Jess would often specifically participate in boy things as a means of bridging the gap with them.

Jess loved doing new things, too, the wolf knew that much.  Jess was excited to see someone of a new species join the class, excited to learn more about him.  Excited at the prospect of seeing the moon.  Excited to be doing it with him, with old friends, with a new friend.  But it seemed that that excitement was quickly draining away, the further they pushed into the woods.

The wolf was bad at keeping track of time, but it felt to her like they walked for half an hour.  Jess made a few attempts at talking, but she spoke quietly, as though she didn’t want to draw the attention of whatever might be hiding in the forest, and eventually she stopped saying anything at all.  For their part, John and Tyler kept pressing forward, determined, until at one point they all slowed down and stopped.

John stood and looked at the surrounding trees, quietly pointing at a few of them and muttering something to himself as he did so.  As he did, Jess’s nervousness finally overcame her and she spoke.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“In the woods,” John responded.

“Are we lost?”

John said nothing, but looked at her.  “You wanna do this or not?”

“I think I want to go home,” Jess said, rubbing her arms, her voice shaky.

John sighed, then returned to trying to discern something from the surroundings.  “Don’t let me stop you.”

“I don’t know how to get back.”

Things were quiet for a moment, aside from the background sound of tiny creatures communicating to each other in the forest.  The wolf raised her paw to point in a direction.

“Home’s that way,” she said.

The others looked at her.  “How do you know?” Jess asked.

The wolf raised her arm to point upwards instead.  “The stars,” she said.

The others looked up.  Though their view was limited due to the number of trees, there were enough breaks in the leaves that the wolf had easily been able to keep track of the constellations, which she had all memorized.

“The moon is probably easier to see, though,” she said, relaxing her arm back at her side.  “If you want to get home, tonight you’ll be able to get there by walking directly away from the moon.  It shouldn’t even take as long to get back as it took to get here.  We’ve been curving around a little.”

On hearing this, Tyler glared at John.  “You sure you know where you’re going?”

“This path is easier,” John said.  “Sure, if you take the direct path back, that’s the direction you go.  But I thought you might wanna avoid brambles and stuff.”

“Don’t skip the hard path on my account,” Tyler huffed.

“I’m sorry, I really need to go back,” Jess said.  She looked from one person to the other.  “You’re not coming with me?”

“No,” said Tyler.  “I thought you knew what you were getting into.”

Jess looked pleadingly at the wolf, but the wolf shook her head.  “Sorry,” she said, and she meant it.

Jess hugged herself, then let out a sigh.  “I’m sorry too,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to hold anyone back.”  She turned in the direction that the wolf had pointed and started walking.  “Be careful.  I’ll see you all at school.”

The wolf watched her walk off, then turned to look at the others, only to see them looking at her.

“So northeast is…” John said.

The wolf pointed northeast.  “That way,” she said.

John nodded.  “Correct.  I just wanted to test you.”

They walked northeast, with no other conversation happening in the meantime.  Once again, the wolf found herself thinking back to what had brought them there.

Though she still thought it was strange that no one else wanted to come, it made sense to her that if only one made it to the end of the journey, it would be Tyler.  Tyler was the toughest kid in class, and he made sure everyone knew it.  He always had scars and bruises that he was showing off, and judging by his claims, this wasn’t the first time he’d been out in the forest at night.  She didn’t know how true it was, but she also wasn’t sure where else he’d be, given how often he was missing from home and class.

Tyler had made a point of focusing his attention on John ever since John first arrived.  Though the wolf was used to the type of attention that Tyler would usually give towards people, her being one of the main targets of it herself, she wondered how well John was handling it.  John had a smaller frame than her, and would more easily lose his footing when pushed hard enough, for example.  She had wondered if his weaker physical stature would be balanced out by having a stronger emotional stature, but she wasn’t sure that this was the case, since she had spotted him crying once in a place where no one else was looking.

John showed strength now, though, resolutely trudging through the forest on the way to their destination.  The wolf considered that there were probably many different kinds of strength, and the kinds of strengths a rabbit would build on the moon must be very different from her own.

After some more time walking, they eventually exited out of the other end of the forest.  This was certainly new territory to the wolf, beyond where even the adults in their town would bother going, and she was beginning to wonder what new sights they would be seeing soon.  When she saw that they were now walking in the direction of the small mountain that was near the town, she became even more curious.  Would the entrance to the moon be inside?

Once Tyler understood where they were going, though, he stopped dead in his tracks.  “No,” he said.  “Absolutely not.”

John stopped and turned to face him, irritated.  “What?” he said.  “Getting afraid?  I thought you were supposed to be tough.”

“This is not about being afraid,” Tyler said, stomping up to John and pointing his finger in his chest.  “This is about not being an idiot.  There’s fucking wild beasts around here, and you know it.  Even the adults don’t fuck around with this place.”

“Can’t even tread the places a little rabbit can go?” John said, sneering.

“You’re a freak,” Tyler said.  “I’m not an idiot, I already knew you were lying about the moon thing.  But I wanted to see what dumbass stunt you were gonna try to get up to so no one else could say you’re tougher than me.”  He huffed.  “But you’re not doing this to show off, are you?  You’re just trying to get us killed, you little psycho.”

“You’re the psycho,” John offered.  “I hear you already killed a kid yourself, so what’s that about?”

Tyler grabbed John by the shoulders, then threw him on the ground.  “I don’t have time for this,” he said, turning around, stomping back to the forest, throwing a middle finger to the others as he left.  “Fuck both of you.  I hope you get mauled out here.”

John rolled over and curled into a fetal position as Tyler ducked back into the foliage of the forest.  The wolf waited a moment for the emotions of the situation to die down, then walked over to John and offered him a paw.  He looked up at it, gave it a cold glare, and swatted her paw away.  Then he got up on his own, struggling all the while, clearly not really ready to be walking yet, but insisting on doing it anyway.  He continued trudging in the direction of the mountain without another word, and the wolf followed him.

The wolf knew that what Tyler was saying about John trying to hurt them couldn’t be true.  John seemed to her to have a gentle nature; he was cheerful and eager to do well in school, and he always greeted strangers with a smile, even though he was surrounded by strangers in this new town.  She didn’t think he would be able to smile at everyone like that unless he saw everyone around him as a friend, as she did.  She saw everyone as a friend, and didn’t even smile at them.

She watched John as he struggled to climb the rocks.  She thought he must think highly of the town and the people in it, if he was willing to go to this much trouble to reach the town from the moon.  The wolf admired his courage and tenacity; she wanted to have the same kind of strength he had, the strength that would allow him to reach new people.

And it was her own desire to reach new people that had brought her out here in the first place.  Of course, the idea of reaching the moon was exciting to her, too; she’d always loved the night sky and everything in it.  It was also her understanding that the moon was a place of pure magic, maybe even the place where all life on earth had come from, not just rabbits, and a place from which someone could form a spiritual connection with everyone on earth.  She loved the idea, though many people, especially her parents, said that it was just superstition.

Her mother had also told her that rabbits being from the moon was a superstition, too, so a part of her was still wondering if her classmates may have been lying about that part after all.  But though her desire to connect with other people drew her to the moon, more importantly, it drew her to John, himself.  He was a new kid for her to meet, after all.  She hadn’t talked with him before, since she wasn’t good at talking, but she wanted to get to know him better, especially considering everything that he was.

John was different.  He was a rabbit, in a place with no other rabbits around.  The wolf was… well, a wolf, the most common species in her town, but all the same, she had always felt a disconnect from others around her that she didn’t know how to describe.  She still saw the people around her as friends, but she didn’t feel like she was fully “there” with them.  She wondered if, being a rabbit, John might feel the same way.

She especially considered that this might be the case after her mother told her to keep her distance from the rabbit.  She thought she sort of understood the reasons why, once her mother explained them, but to her, all it really did was show her that John may have even more barriers reaching other people than she did, if parents were warning other kids about him.

She wondered if it was possible for two people to connect to each other, relate to each other, because both of them were lonely.  She wondered if, after two lonely people meet and become friends, they both learn how to connect to other people.  If John was lonely like her, she wanted to be able to have that kind of experience with him.  And this trip to the moon, whether it was real or not, felt like the perfect opportunity for it.

The two of them climbed to the top of an outcropping of sorts, John panting and struggling to move forward.  The wolf was having some trouble breathing, too, but not as much as him.  She wondered if something was wrong.  “Are you okay?” she asked.

John said nothing, and stood silently for a moment, still shuddering and breathing heavily.  He slowly knelt to the ground, picked up a rock, and stood back up.  He considered the rock for another moment, then swung around and threw the rock directly at the wolf.

The wolf ducked, but the move caught her off-guard enough that she couldn’t avoid it completely, only block it with her arm.  “Huh?” was all she managed to say.

Tears were coming down John’s face.  He knelt down to pick up another rock, and threw that at her as well.  “Why are you the only one who followed me here!?” he shouted.

The wolf continued to block the rocks as he continued to throw them at her.  “You asked me to come with you,” she managed.

“No I didn’t!” he yelled.  “I asked everyone else to come with me, and for some reason you’re the only one who bothered to come this far!?”  He started stumbling closer to her, but kept looking for more rocks.

“I-I wanted to get to know you better,” the wolf said.  “I wanted to be your friend.”

“Don’t say that!” John screamed.  “I’m not some weirdo like you!  Everyone in class thinks I am, but I’m not!”  He threw another rock, then started moving more quickly toward the wolf.  “But what are they gonna think now that you’re the only one who followed me here!?  Freak!?”

John dove at the wolf, and swung at her, but she swerved out of the way, catching him off balance.  She moved backwards, putting her paws in front of herself, trying to calm him.  “John, please,” she said, “I didn’t mean–”

“My name’s not JOHN!” He screamed, moving toward her again.  “It’s HARUTO!  They made me change my name, they told me it’d help me fit in!”  He shoved her in the chest, pushing her back.  “But it’s not helping me fit in, is it!?  Everyone can still tell I’m a rabbit!  And nobody wants anything to do with me!  Nobody except you,” he said, pushing her again, “the creep who just stands around and stares at everyone!  And now everybody’s gonna think I’m gross like you, too!  What do you want from me!?

“H-Haruto,” the wolf mumbled, taking steps back, trying to avoid his blows.

“DON’T CALL ME HARUTO!”  The rabbit shoved her once again.  “You don’t get to use that name!  You’re not my friend!  Don’t call me John, don’t call me Haruto, don’t call me anything!”

“Please stop,” the wolf said, realizing she was being backed up to the edge of the cliff.

“Don’t tell me what to DO!  Stop trying to CONTROL me!  Stop trying to RUIN my LIFE!”

With this, the rabbit gave a final, forceful shove to the wolf, knocking her off the edge of the cliff.

The wolf dropped some way down before hitting the cliffside at enough of an angle that she started tumbling more than falling, and eventually this tumble became a roll.  It was still too steep for her to try to stop herself, especially since she injured her arms in the fall, and she was too afraid to do more than try to curl into a ball out of self-defense anyway; she continued rolling down the steep incline, eyes closed shut to what was happening around her.

After a longer period of time than she was able to measure in her distress, she finally stopped rolling, now on her back.  She lay there in shock for some time, before she finally settled enough to try moving.  She couldn’t do it; she was in too much pain.  She could, however, open her eyes, so she did–and the first thing she saw was the moon.

She had landed back among the trees, and her head had stopped on a slight incline, positioning her just right so that she could see the moon just in the center of an opening in the branches, almost as though it were being framed.

She lay there for a while, staring, letting the pain run through her system until she almost couldn’t tell it was there anymore.  In the suddenness of everything, she had forgotten why she was even there, but it slowly came back to her piece by piece.

“I came here to try to reach you, you know,” she said to the moon.  “Well, sort of.  But now it’s starting to feel kinda silly.”

She tried to move her right arm.  It was still a struggle, but it wasn’t broken.  She sighed.

“I don’t think I belong here,” she said.  “Sometimes I wonder if I’d be more at home on the moon.”

She was still feeling some shock from what had just happened with John–or Haruto–but it was already receding into the back of her mind as yet another case where she tried to communicate with someone and it backfired on her in ways she didn’t understand.  She blamed herself for it.  The others called her weird and stupid, and time had shown that this was probably a good explanation for how she kept finding herself in these situations.

But it left her considering the moon.  “You know, though,” the wolf said, “I’m not sure I really believe that you’re a ‘place’ to go to.  You’re too bright and beautiful.”  She smiled.  “I bet you’re actually a living person like me, aren’t you?”

The moon didn’t respond, but the wolf knew it was because the moon was far away, much too far away to hear her, let alone respond to her.  The wolf sighed.

“I hear you have the ability to connect to everyone in the world, but you can’t talk to me.  Maybe you connect in ways I don’t understand.”  She looked away.  “I don’t understand much, I know.  But somehow… I feel like the fact that I don’t understand… just kinda helps me understand better.”  She chuckled, then looked back to the moon.  “Does that make any sense?  Probably not.  But it makes sense to me.”

She stared at the moon for another minute before continuing.  “You’re so different from me… so different from everyone.  And that makes you lonely, too, doesn’t it?  I don’t know if everyone left you up there in the sky, or if you chose to be alone up there yourself… but either way, it’s still a lonely situation, isn’t it?  Sometimes I feel like both things happened to me.”

She tested her arm again.  It hurt less.  She lifted it up and placed a finger in the air, almost as if to console the moon with it.  “I don’t want to leave you lonely,” she said.  “I know what that feels like.  I don’t want anyone to feel that way, even though I feel like… so many people around me do.  I can’t reach them, but…”

She spread her fingers out, and reached as far as she could.  “Maybe, if I try hard enough, I can reach you.  And then you won’t be lonely anymore.  And then maybe we can work together to reach out to others.”

She let her arm rest by her side.  “Yes,” she said, suddenly feeling more secure in herself than she had ever felt in her life.  “I’m sure of it.  I can reach you, and we can be friends together, and neither of us will be alone anymore.”  She smiled.  “I promise.  I promise I’ll come reach you.”

She closed her eyes, fatigue taking over.  “Even if it takes my whole life to do it… I promise I’ll come to you, moon.”