07-07-2009, 10:16 PM
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| http://digital-bonsai.com/katew/rp/kae/kae_disorder.jpg); background-position: bottom center; background-repeat:no-repeat;"> The coyote's face did not change as Gabriel spoke, and there was only a slight movement of her head downward to indicate she had a clear understanding of what he meant. She would avoid them as far as their borders went, but if she encountered one who was less than perfectly polite, she would not hesitate to remind that wolf of the blood that flowed through Inferni like a river, a mutually beneficial symbiote relationship in which one sustained the other. There were times when the Lykoi had been few and Inferni numbered many not of its name, but there were also times when the opposite had held true, where the coyote clan was filled with members of the infamous family and little else. Gabriel's words struck something in her, and there was hesitation across her scarred face. She had never held belief in fate or any higher power—but in her age she had seen more and more signs that there was something more powerful than the living, something which crafted them and directed them gently at times and pointedly at others—she had felt it strongest in her first drive to return to Inferni, when she had hunted Salvaged unsuccessfully and returned to Inferni. It was that which had drawn her back to this territory at first to exact her revenge, and later to begin her family. And it was only much later that she'd even realized that—a longer or shorter time away might mean she would have missed Ahren entirely; perhaps if she had waited a year or two to return he would have already been the king of Chimera, unreachable, and she would not have Gabriel now. The canine hybrid again nodded. Even so, there was something that had not settled in her. Gabriel's comfort had worked, but it had still left something unsaid, something the Lykoi woman could not reach in her son. There was more than he was telling her, but she let it go and did not pry at him. Gabriel was a multi-faceted creature, and if he kept something from his mother it was for a reason. It was likely something she did not want to know—something that would have caused her unnecessary strife without actual benefit for the knowledge, or so she liked to think. "He brought it on himself," she said after a moment, and decided she had nothing more to say about Andre. He was gone. Her thoughts turned almost mechanically away as she forced herself away from the subject, swallowing the sharp ache in her chest as best she could. "You brought Inferni to this place," she said, making more of an observation than a statement. It was more or less a lead-in for him, since she could ask nothing specific about a generalized event of which she had little knowledge. She had gathered that there was a fire, and after discovering this place and some of its familiar scents, she had surmised that there had been a great migration. But unlike the other packs of the former territories, Inferni had not perished with the flame and smoke. Here she stood on its soil. It was different, but it was Inferni the same. |