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Myrika is by me!
She pulled her knees up toward her chest, resting her chin on one. No trouble, she said, but it sounded meek and feeble even then. If it was no trouble, why did she feel so bad -- so strange? Her turquoise eyes alone were directed at her sister, though her muzzle was angled away and even toward the row of windows. There were other things she might attend, but nothing of pressing need. The coyotes of Inferni did not need her guidance in their day-to-day lives; the self-sufficiency of the clan was evident in the smoothness of her own transition to Aquila. Perhaps if they had been in need of strength to hold them together, perhaps if Ezekiel had been the binding to keep them from coming apart -- but as it was, it had barely seemed more than a few small ripples for the Legatus ranks to change so suddenly, and already, they'd dissipated, allowing the relative stillness to return.
Her fingers pulled at the fur of one of the bed's pelts, straightening it and plucking the stiffness from the small patch of fur. Her ear twitched with the question, though she did not turn her head toward Cassie and was now looking away, as well. Did she even have a reason? She tried to remember and recall. There were many things she might have said, but all reasons seemed flimsy and pale in response. She was still curious, she was still hopeful, she wanted to find truth no matter how harsh? I didn't want to go back, she said, unable for all her words to explain any more precisely than this. I didn't want to go forward, either, but I didn't want to go back more than forward, she could have added, but did not. I didn't want to see the same faces again, she might have said, too, but then -- her sister's face, her father's face, even the murkiest memory of her mother's face, were not amongst those she wished to shun.
She let her knees fall apart and sat cross-legged, though she hunched over her own lap all the same, making herself smaller. I stayed because... because... of Ezekiel. Halo. Kaena. Jacinto, and Ithiel, she said. There were other names -- more than she could hope to speak without forgetting some, but one she could not avoid. And Vesper, she added, more quietly than the rest. Perhaps Vesper most of all. Because it wasn't a vile place, because she'd found a startling lack of debauchery and evil; because she'd found somewhere where no one gave sidelong glances to her and grins to one another; because, perhaps most shamefully of all, she felt she'd found a place of belonging.
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