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Myrika is by me!
The redhead did not bother with Cahal. He would not wander far, and soon enough, he would want his stable and his corral -- though she might have to catch the palomino and lead her into the lake before her stallion would approach her or the corral she now occupied. Myri closed the gate and gave a wistful glance toward the chestnut, though her concerns were elsewhere for the moment. The slumping and heavy motions her sister made almost provoked a grimace on Myrika's face, but some of the preparatory conditioning she'd received was returning. The Aquila in her, however tiny that part felt in the moment, remembered how to mask truth, and instead Myrika tried a faint smile of encouragement. Though she still hadn't the faintest idea what to say, the tawny-furred hybrid was beginning to think it was better she didn't speak. Sleep before speak, perhaps? But there was all that old blood, and clean sleep would at least allow Cassie to awake with some semblance of refreshment?
Her time in Inferni -- and even before that -- taught her enough to understand the torn shoulder and blood, the other signs of strife and struggle. The ankle along might be consequence of a fall or even a dismount taken badly, but the rest was unmistakable. Myrika was acutely aware of her home's every flaw: the beaten leather hanging across the holes where the front windows once were, the haphazard pile of firewood, the closed doors, behind which Halo and her younger cousins slept. There was a shuffling noise from the rear of the building, and Myri stepped forward to block the way toward her room. Go in, she said, indicating it with a toss of her head.
Who is that? The gravelly voice was surprisingly strong, though perhaps it was a strength arising out of fear. Kae's one eye was wide, though her scarred face seemed only terrible, as it always was. She rose out of the darkness clutching a green cloth blanket around herself. The thing was tattered to pieces and stank of Kaena, clearly a long-time possession.
Later, Myrika said, gently at first. She repeated the single, terse word more sharply when Kaena said a word or two of protest, interrupting the old woman to deliver a series of equally terse, whispered words about water and whatever was left from Halo. Don't wake anyone up, Myri said, and turned to her own room. She stepped inside and shut the door without ascertaining obedience from the elderly woman. A faint shuffle could be defiance in returning to the rear of the schoolhouse as much as it might be the following of what Myrika might later consider orders.
She stood there a second with her hands behind her, still on the door knob, and stared at the mess that had been her Cassie. There were more wounds than the recent and visible, she was beginning to realize. Letting both hands drop to her side, the redhead crept forward into the room. She stopped and looked down at the floor, acutely aware of the fact that she harbored within her home the progenitor of all that was Lykoi within her very home, and that same woman sent to fetch water and whatever else was to be had. I'm sorry, she blurted, suddenly and way more loudly than she'd meant to. And she wasn't even certain what it was she was apologizing for -- everything she'd done and hadn't done, everything she was ignorant of, lost time, everything, nothing, all of the above?
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