Word Count :: 378
It had grown easier to move the past two weeks, and so the hybrid had been looping the borders once more, moving with painful slowness compared to her former pace. With her returning movement came her strength, and now one could hardly see her injuries—they were nearly scars, still fresh and pink and shiny, but nearly fully healed. As for her limp, well—she doubted she'd ever get rid of that. There was a heaviness in her right forepaw that would never leave her. At least she had escaped with her life, and at least the monster was dead—now would be the lull, now would be the years when a new monster sought to make his claim on the world, sinking his teeth into the innocent. By the time he was ready to reign, though, Kaena rather thought she would be dead and buried—this fall, she would see her eleventh birthday.
The sound of a soft call rather nearby drew the hybrid's attention; one gnawed ear and one whole one lifted up to catch the sound. It was a stranger's voice, the coyote knew—there was not so much as a note of familiarity in this howl. The coyote altered course, heading toward the sound with renewed energy and interest. Before long, she came upon a ghostly white figure, her eyes brilliant and striking green against the pale of her coat. Though it was clear the canine before her was wolfish, there was a clear hint of coyote in her as well. These subtle hints to the strangers' blood might have been missed by one with a less sharp eye than Kaena; the scarred hybrid was well-versed in the appearances of her own kind, the mixed bloods—she had seen enough of her grown children to generally be able to call a coyote when she saw one.
“Hello,” she said. “Looking for something?” the hybrid asked. Her voice was neither cold nor warm; rather, it was simply indifferent. She had seen this scenario a hundred thousand times, and she would see it perhaps a hundred more before she died—greeting newcomers at the border were simply one of the tasks she had grown accustomed to, and thus it was done with an almost robotic monotony.
.sie-blanktext {
font-family:georgia, serif;
font-size: 12px;
letter-spacing:.5px;
word-spacing:2px;
text-align: justify;
margin:0px 25px; }
.sie-blanktext .ooc {
font-style:italic;
font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:12px; }
.sie-blanktext .divider {
border-bottom:1px dotted #000000;
margin-bottom:10px; }
.sie-blanktext p {
text-indent: 25px;
margin:0px;
padding:0px 5px; }
.sie-blanktext b {
letter-spacing:1px; }
</style>
[/html]