309.
“Good,” came her response. It was immediate and short, but conveyed all the emotions she was feeling. Within that single word has hope and relief: hope that someday she might be able to take on a monster like that of Haku and relief that Kaena would not deny her this. Or rather, relief that Kaena had graciously accepted her request and would let her have her blood. There was nothing that implied Kaena was displeased with her request: the coyote woman nodded before granting her request, and although her voice lagged a bit at the end, she sounded strong. She knew what she was doing, and even though Tayui had only begun to know the matriarch, she had begun to put her faith in her. Somehow, even though Kaena seemed larger than life and more monster than canine, Tayui found it easy to trust this woman with matters of life and death. They had both shared details with one another that Tayui would have never thought of sharing with anyone else, not even her children, her chief or her sister.
It was Kaena’s strength that made this easy. No matter what the woman could be thinking, Tayui believed her. With scars to prove it, Kaena was a warrior at heart. Tayui only hoped she would make the woman proud like she had hoped to do with Skoll. The thought that her prior training was with the one who was so loathed by Inferni amused Tayui. That whole debacle had gotten him kicked out of Storm and now she was fraternizing with his enemy. Or an associate of his enemies – she wasn’t too sure now; for the event had been years ago and Tayui had known little about it to begin with.
“When would you like to begin?” she inquired. It would be better to start sooner rather than later.