a fever coming on.

[Kaena Lykoi]

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1533 HOMG. We can wrap this up soon or keep going, totally your call. ;D I like the novel-writing, however, and I could continue it thanks to SoSu. XD And also, it might be weird for her to keep talking about history when they're screwing with the water, PM me if you want to change it. XD BTW I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN A POST THIS LONG HOLY CRAP. |:

A changing world required change from its creatures, and years ago Kaena would have never bothered with human artifacts. She thought them useless and she thought creatures who used them rather fanciful human wanna-bes—now she understood their usefulness and she could not underestimate it. After all, with human advances in medicine something close to that immortality could be achieved someday. Kaena dreamed about this, and she envied Lolita for ther apparent ability to wander the earth forever. She would have given anything for that, even if it meant watching her children and her children's children die until there were none left but her, until it was as it was in the beginning, when Kaena Lykoi was the only one of her name in as many ways as imaginable. Her ancestors had all seemed to slaughter or betray each other; both her father and her mother were outcasts of their own kind, shunned from their originating groups. Strangely, her father had perpetrated actions leading to his expulsion from the Lykoi wolf pack, whereas her mother was practically an innocent. For the opposing roles they'd played in Kaena's life, this made little sense to her. Her mother was the vile thing that had tried to condemn her to death at such an early age; her father had saved her from that certain demise.

There were a scarce few that Kaena freely bestowed gifts such as information, knowledge, and education to—those were her children, mostly. Duty to Inferni required she inform the clan members of their place and hand down ranks upon their acceptance, duty required she make sure they were comfortable within Inferni and willing to perform the duties asked of them. Happier clanmembers made for better quality of work and better morale in general, and Kaena knew both of those things were quite important in the grand scheme of things. Unhappy clan-members bickered amongst themselves and squabbled for rank and the Legatus' attention, but Gabriel had done well to squash those. In considering their current regiment, the silver-furred woman had to admit she was quite pleased. There seemed to be a solid core—Gabriel, herself, Anselm, Hybrid—surrounded by a tough, smart ring of canines quite close to it—Halo, Snake, Hezekiah, Rikka, Razekiel, and Cotl—and then the outsiders, newer members to the clan who had yet to prove themselves or, like Samael, chose not to be a part of the inner clan workings.

Samael made Kaena worry and wonder quite often, but she hoped giving him an actual duty would help him work his way back into the hierarchy of the clan. Marik was likely to stay; he hadn't come all the way from Germany to be with his brother for nothing. The same could be said about Fritz, but friendship was a more tenuous connection than brotherhood, to be certain. Mason was certain to be a valuable adult in the clan once he passed his ninth month, but Kaena could not consider him with the rest of the clan—he was still a child. Although she'd only met Cassius briefly, she had high hopes for his mechanical skills. Vieira was personally useful to Kaena, but the hybrid had to admit she was less useful to the rest of the clan. All in all, a good bunch, certain to cooperate with one another. Kaena was especially pleased with their numbers, and this time it at least seemed the newcomers to the clan would not simply drift away as they had so many times before. Injury and starvation made some coyotes desperate, and these coyotes settled down with the clan for a few weeks to recuperate and then pranced along their merry way, abusing the clan for its resources and safety so they could continue their worldly wanderings without ever contributing a thing back to Inferni.

It was not a surprise to Kaena to hear the coyote's request for the past. It pleased her to realize someone might have directed him to her as the greatest source of Inferni's past. It was true, too. No one had the rich history of Inferni committed to memory quite as well as Kaena Lykoi because she had lived through most of it herself. She had been present for many of the defining moments that twisted the coyote clan this way and that, and though she might have failed as a leader, she had even been responsible for some of the events that had caused the coyote clan such longevity. She could not claim that she had been a good leader, no, but she had certainly altered the clan's history herself. Her scarred muzzle split into a smile and her mood improved just a bit more, nodding at his request. "I'd be glad to," the hybrid said, speaking the truth. She had held the Immunes rank of Veritas prior to her ascension to the Legatus rank, and she still considered it her duty, even if Rikka now held that particular job. "Someone must have mentioned Inferni was not born on this side of the mountain, hm? Shall I start there?" she said, trying something of a joke. Did Snake have a sense of humor? He hadn't shown it thus far, and though such a quality was not particularly important to Kaena, she enjoyed testing and establishing boundaries before she inappropriately crossed them as she was so apt to do.

"Back on the old beach, seven years ago this past October, I met up with one of my old friends, Yasu Zarah. We'd both lived in another coyote clan in a different place, but it was destroyed by fire," she said, deciding to add in the flare of their inspiration to the story as well. Even as she spoke, they were still investigating the springs, with the one-eyed hybrid's eyes still staring at the rolling water, angry and hissing steam at some points. The other pools seemed a bit more volatile than the one she had first approached, and as she began to consider sticking a paw into the water, Snake came up with a better idea, selecting a nearby branch to take the first hit of the potentially corrosive, potentially dangerous water. As she watched him stick it into the water, she watched, fascinated and forgetting her story for a moment to watch and see what happened to the stick. Would it explode into flame, fire creeping up the branch and onto Snake's head? She was tense and ready as she watched, golden eye trained on the point where the stick penetrated into the surface of the water. Nothing happened, and relief flooded the coyote. Whatever this was, it was not immediately dangerous. The Hastati coyote stuck his paw into the water and reported back that it was merely warm, almost hot, and Kaena looked on curiously, wrinkling her scarred muzzle. She'd still never heard of anything like this, but it did spark her memory on something else. Onus had said he did not know why the lake in the middle of Arachnea's Revenge had glittered blue in the moonlight, but he'd mentioned something else—bacteria? Was it possible those strange and invisible microorganisms lived in this water? Kaena did not know, and she certainly didn't want to find out the hard way. It was better to err on the side of caution invariably where matters of illness was concerned. From Onus's words, bacteria were not a nice thing, and if they were capable of turning water fluorescent blue, she did not want any in her stomach.

"I definitely wouldn't drink it," the hybrid warned. It might be safe for them to stick their paws in, maybe even their whole bodies, but she did not wish to discover the potential ill effects from drinking this water. "I'm glad it's not actually on fire, though," she said, shaking her head from side to side. She reached forward with her own paw and stuck it into the water, testing the temperature to see just how hot it was. It did not burn, and it was almost pleasant to the old hybrid, the constantly-moving, warm water almost like a massage to her older joints. She looked at Snake in surprise, half a smile planted on her scarred muzzle. She leaned forward as far as she could, allowing her paw to slide slowly through the water to the bottom of the spring. It grew steadily warmer as she reached the bottom, but even scraping against the rocky bottom of the pool of water it was not burning. The rocks were pretty damn hot, but Kaena could comfortably keep her paw there without terrible burning sensations. Drawing her paw out of the water, she double-checked to make sure it wasn't completely injured or anything. Even seeing no ill effects from a long exposure to the water, the hybrid wasn't about to dive in. "Zarah lead us for several months. When she disappeared, I took over the clan, but I did not remain to lead us long. Her adopted son, Arlo, took the helm, but before long, a wolf claimed his life. We almost disappeared, but Kidorah revived us," she said, pausing to allow Snake to absorb this before she continued.