One less shadow

[Neela Garcia]

[html]

26th

Neela had seen her fair share of disturbing things throughout her life but nothing she had seen so far quite compared to the corpse of her mother. Considering the ferocity of the fight Kaer's body was actually in fairly good condition, not counting the original wound to her face that had split her muzzle open into its characteristic snarl. Yet despite the fact that her body still held the thick, corded muscle, the fearsome visage that it had when she was alive there was something different now, some predatory hunch and tenseness of the muscles that had bled away along with Kaer's blood when she had finally fallen, Neela's knife still embedded in her neck where it had fallen.

There was a whirlwind of different emotions running through Neela's mind as she sat there on a log, gazing dully at her mother's body, but for the first time in Neela's life after taking a life, guilt wasn't among them. Neela had few, if any, good memories of Kaer. More prevalent was the bad; the violence, the hunger, the fear once Kaer had been driven off that she would return one night and find Neela. As a youngling Kaer had practically been a demon to Neela and even as she had grown and matured, gaining confidence, her mother had hung over Neela's life like a shadow.

While Neela couldn’t quite bring herself to be proud at killing her own blood again, it wasn't a shadow she was sad to be rid of.

Stillsick and twisted as she might have been Kaer was still Neela's mother and she would not leave her corpse out to rot in the woods.

Neela grunted in pain as she forced herself upwards to check on the body once more, feeling the faint itch as half healed skin twisted and broke with the movement. Neela's wounds from the fight before were unbound, the collie had spent most the remaining night in vigil over the corpse, but were mostly swallowed by the deep red of her fur. The main visible wounds were the claw marks running over the white fur of her stomach and the deep gash running down her arm, the latter still bleeding even now.

Neela's fingers ghosted through dark russet fur, almost identical in colouring to her own but short and coarse, the fur of a wolf and not a collie like Neela. Still despite the differences in texture the similarities between the two were obvious, especially when looking at their eyes, identical orbs of amber. Despite the fact that they were the same Neela couldn’t help but think that Kaer's eyes looked somewhat duller, as though a fire inside them had gone out.

"Descanso en el infierno vieja bruja." Neela muttered quietly as she ran her fingers down Kaer's face, closing her eyes for one last time. She then took a deep breath and stood back, her eyes running over the corpse, forcing the turbulent storm of emotions back away from her mind.

She could think things over later, for now she just wanted to deal with her mother's husk and get back home to Tony.

Word Count :: +528