.hybrid-bloody p {padding:0px 30px; text-indent:25px; margin-bottom:10px; color:#BFBFBF}
.hybrid-bloody b {color:#CFC39B; letter-spacing:.3px; }
.hybrid-bloody {width:373px; margin:0 auto; background-color:#2F2F2F; background-image:url(http://sleepyglow.net/souls/gifts/feb2010/hybrid.png); background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:fixed; padding:235px 0px 0px 0px; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size:12px; color:#0E0E0E; word-spacing:.5px; line-height:14px; letter-spacing:-.2px; text-align:justify; border:1px solid #000000;}
</style>
Set in Hades Beach, at Amblelick Penninsula. (307 words)
The charred remains comforted him. It was somehow comforting to Hybrid to know that Inferni was in no ways invincible. Although it might have seemed that way and they strove to project that image, it was a relief to know it was only a projection. It was a relief to know he was still needed here and that without his services – whatever they may have been – things could have been much worse. Hybrid frowned at the strange feeling bubbling up in his chest, unfamiliar with it. It wasn’t happiness or anger, and it was not annoyance. It had to be pride: pride that Inferni could be broken.
And pride that Inferni, like Pilot, his wolf prisoner from many years ago, could develop Stockholm syndrome just the same. He wondered if the lands had come to love their torturers: did the grass breathe a sigh of relief every time a coyote trampled them and every time a wolf shed blood? Or, perhaps, the grass preferred its abuse at the hands of a wolf; Hybrid could never know. You could not ask the grass, after all.
He stared across the sandy beach and then let his gaze sweep across the water as he continued to travel back to land and the rivers that surrounded him. He was encased by water in a land that had been burned by fire. He smirked at the thought – that was coincidental humour; he recognized that.
He stretched his limbs out as he pushed himself to his feet. As always, he was in his Secui form: his awkward almost-there-but-not-quite form that gave him just enough height and mass to have the edge on a wolf in their lupus form. Hybrid was small, yes, but not where it counted. And it was a good thing, too – he knew many encounters would have gone differently otherwise.
[/html]