in a trail of fire I know we will be free again

Gabriel de le Poer · 03-16-2010, 11:31 PM

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Private. 1000+

In all truth, there was a madness in Gabriel as sick and twisted as Haku’s own. He hid this better, and he was wiser in allowing such a disease to surface, but once his vestige was stripped away Gabriel was a monster. The brand on his shoulder was a mark to prove such a fact. Though it was his father’s name and father’s blood that Gabriel displayed, it was the Lykoi that had clawed its way to the top. Neither a wolf nor a coyote, Gabriel was trapped in a paradigm that demanded he kill one or the other. In this way, and in many ways beyond this, Gabriel and Haku were not merely brothers, but kinsmen.

Haku was his shadow; Haku was everything in Gabriel that he would not face. He was guilt and deception, murder and conquest. He was disease and sickness, corruption and war. He was the wolf. He was, above all, unashamed of these things. For these reasons, Gabriel had to destroy him. If his shadow, if Haku, was allowed to survive, he would be forced to acknowledge this fact and face it.

And Gabriel was afraid.

Four years and the mighty Gabriel still found himself woken in the night, sometimes screaming, sometimes crying, because he could not face that monster. He could not face the wolf, the thing that had taken everything from him. Baneesh; strong, proud Baneesh, had been torn asunder like he was nothing. Gabriel had watched his brother’s arm rip from his side, watched blood flow like a river, and watch the wolf sneer and taunt him. Run. He had run. He had been running for years. He had run without seeing or thinking and run until his lungs had collapsed and his muscles burned battery acid. When he had fallen in that forest, he did not have the strength to cry. An angel, a woman who had been his mother, had found him. She had called him a prophet and sworn to protect him, until she too was cut down by a wolf. Something that had survived only because of a powerful black wall had shattered. He could not remember killing the wolf.

He was the first, but he was not the last. The white wolf had been the second. It had cost him his lover and driven him to mark his palm—something that Gabriel had never spoken of to anyone. Then, once more, he had fled from his home. Fled from Inferni. Only this time, he had not run to familiarity; he escaped into a strange and unfamiliar world where the only thing he had understood was war. Slowly, he had disconnected from himself. No longer was he granted pardons because of who his parents were—no longer was he a crowned prince. Gabriel had become nobody in order to find himself. The scar on his face had sealed this promise. Only then had he become a soldier, and only then did he abandon arrogance for the militaristic survival thinking that had demanded survival.

A much louder and much stronger voice had demanded murder.

The fire had changed him, if only in appearance. Gabriel’s coat had darkened dramatically, as if the hand of God had brushed soot across his face and back. Walls reformed in his mind; barring away the shadow and the fear, replacing it with that blind devotion and that instinct to survive that had carried him home. He was lucky. His mother had accepted his vague explanation as easily as she had accepted his return. The faith he had laid into those who had fallen in the south had been given to her. Then she too had abandoned him once more, and Gabriel was left clinging to a woman and his children because he had nothing left. These too became things that were taken from him; and as each left, so had a part of Gabriel. By the time he had been completely abandoned, Gabriel had felt nothing but anger.

This was why he had all but turned on his family as they had come, one after another, crawling home. His mother had been the first, and she had been the most hated of all. The audacity of her return had left Gabriel reeling. It was only after months of patience he had understood her reasoning and given her rank as his council—because he was still, in many ways, a child desperate for his mother’s love. His existence was bound to her own, which was why Haku’s assault had not simply been against her—it was against Gabriel, and Gabriel’s pride would not allow such a thing to stand.

He had fought the bastard before and not seen him fall. The wolf, the demon, would not fall unless he was destroyed utterly. Gabriel understood that if he needed to destroy all of Dahlia de Mai in order to break the walls protecting Haku, he would. Total war was not unknown to him; he had done this twice before, and both times, killed without prejudice. Now, though, he had a mark.

This mark broke through a door, displaying his demon fire in his flashy appearance long before his voice rose to the sky. Gabriel laughed still, but the laughter died in his throat as he watched the beast. His shadow turned, focused on him, and Gabriel grinned. He did not wait for Haku to reach him, and instead rushed forward. Teeth flashed, and the coy-wolf reached for the blue eyed monster. This time, he did not let those bear-trap fangs hold their target. It was Gabriel’s intention to fight as a coyote—to fight this monster and draw his blood for the world to see. Around his neck, the cross and the holy signs flashed in the firelight, but they were nothing compared to the flames in Gabriel’s own amber eyes. In order to consume his shadow he would destroy the world with fire, just as he had in California and in the land across the mountain.

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