WA 2 draft 1

Arashi sat on his bed. The wooly blanket underneath his uncovered hands itched and felt much to rough to ever sleep on. And yet night after night he found comfort under these coarse layers of fabric. He was feeling extreme physical hypersensitivity on this day. The reason? Today was the ninth anniversary of the day his father did not return from the war with the Village of the Mountains. He gazed at the pockmarked off-white wall and saw his father's dancing hazel eyes. He studied the chestnut wardrobe and his father's lighthearted smile His voice, Don't be in such a hurry to grow up, Arashi-kun. You'll be a man soon enough.

Yeah, well, too late for that, Dad, Arashi thought bitterly, feeling the rough stubble on his chin. He had decided to quit shaving about a month earlier. He lay back on his bed, squinting through the bright light that streamed through his window. The weather had been unfailingly sunny and warm all week, an ironic counterpart for his grim mood. Dangling from the ceiling was a wooden boat that his father had carved for him as a third-birthday gift. His father had shown him how to sail a fishing vessel. He had stayed devoted to the practice even after he and Tora had left the Snow Country to settle in the Fire Country. 

The door creaked open. Only one person came into his room without knocking. 

"Tora?"

"Hey." He listened to her shut the door and then his light was blocked out as she appeared over his face, her brows drawn in concern. 

He sat up and regarded his cousin. Her shaggy black hair - almost identical in texture to his - framed her dark golden skin and fell down her back in an unruly ponytail. She had a slightly more defined jawbone than him, a narrower nose, and very defined eyebrows. Arashi touched the indent of his nose and his forehead. "Look." He reached over to the night stand and picked up a necklace that was sitting on it. It was made from a leather cord, on which was strung a pair of wolf fangs with holes cut into the roots. She nodded.

He slipped it over his head. "This was... my dad's."

"I know."

"Why did he tell me that it was going to be okay?" he whispered, more to himself. He looked down at his hands, rough and scarred from years of fighting and training. "Why did he promise me that? He was wrong."

"You know he was just telling you that so you wouldn't worry about him," offered Tora gently. Arashi felt the old enmity that her father had survived and his hadn't returning. "Easy for you to say!" he snapped. "Your father is alive!" 

Tora's eyes were chips of ice. They always became like this when he yelled at her. "I think Jacen deserved more respect than you're giving him," she said flatly, getting up to leave.

He didn't need any of her wisdom right now. "Just leave me alone, Tora," he rasped, feeling tears sting his eyes. He heard her shut the door behind her. He lay back on the bed and let angry tears course down his face. Why, Dad?