07-16-2009, 05:07 AM
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| http://digital-bonsai.com/katew/rp/kae/ ... tblood.jpg); background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:fixed; padding-top:248px; padding-left:25px; padding-right:25px; padding-bottom:10px;"> The hybrid woman thought she had seen war. In truth, she had only seen a brief, mostly futile resistance given by the Aremys wolves that caved within a few moments and sent them scrambling westward. Had they actually been organized or chosen to fight, the damage Inferni suffered surely would have been greater. As it was, they had only lost one coyote—a straggler Kaena could not even remember the name of now. He had been a recent joinee, eager to prove himself in the throes of battle, and he hadn't survived. The hybrid woman had not, however, seen the ravages of true, drawn-out warfare. She had experienced it on a smaller scale with Salvaged, but then again, there really was no such thing as a one-on-one war, so that was not the proper term for what happened between Kaena and Salvaged. The hybrid woman was immediately sorry she'd asked her question, and she hoped Jezebel wouldn't be too offended by her bluntness. It was never in Kaena's nature to beat around the bush; she had a direct, open honesty. If she was placid enough to sit down and ask questions and Jezebel was kind enough to answer, Kaena would certainly entertain most of the questions directed at her in return. The coyote hybrid's ears folded back at half-mast, not quite pressed into the shaggy silver mane along her neck but neither erect, the mangled flesh of the right ear moving slower and somewhat more jerkily than her intact left ear. Jezebel didn't seem to take terrible offense to Kaena's directness, so the Lykoi woman paid rapt attention to the words the woman spoke, eager to know more about her son's childhood. The hybrid continued to speak, explaining far more than her son had. He had explained the tactics of battle, the tides of the war—but none of the in-between. Inferni's war had been simple, primitive—but the war Jezebel spoke of sounded more like a human war. Those were ghastly things, though Kaena knew as the Luperci and other creatures adapted human buildings and relics, they would grow more human in turn. A rueful look crossed her features, and she realized her assumption about Jezebel was correct. She was indeed a deadly creature—capable of healing and damaging the body greatly with the very same set of paws. It was a comforting feeling to know this canine was on Kaena's side. Surprise flashed in Kaena's solo eye, the yellow-gold eagle eye growing wider as she listened to Jezebel. She had not known he had commanded wolves prior to this, though in retrospect, she supposed it made sense. When she had ruled as the Aquila he had taken orders as well as given them to those lesser, and she should have guessed it sooner. Her surprise over this occupied her thoughts, otherwise she might have picked up on some of Jezebel's eagerness in speaking about Gabriel. She was still marveling over the fact that her son had in fact had prior leader experience, that someone completely objective and indifferent had thought her son was good enough to have control over others. It was a lovely thought. "Gabriel never told me he'd lead elsewhere," the coyote said, gazing at the other coyote with a strange look plastered across her features. The darker hybridwas looking at the earth, and Kaena was sorry she'd been so forward. "I didn't mean to dredge up the past," she added. The gods knew there was enough painful shit Jezebel could have asked Kaena about, if only she knew. Her comment about the fire hadn't gone unnoticed, and the Lykoi nodded slowly, feeling as though she was missing something crucial. She could not for the life of her figure out what it was, so she set her troubled mind aside and tried to reconcile with Jezebel. "You survived, and you're stronger for it," she said, not daring to say the war had left Jezebel relatively untouched. Kae knew damn well the old wounds of battle often ran far deeper than the skin. There was a brief smile across her raven lips, and she peered over at the deer. Just behind it, there was a small sort of rodent, nervously hopping back and forth as it eyed the two canines. It hadn't dared to touch the corpse yet, as Jezebel was still far too close. The dark-eyed, tiny mouse eyed the ashen canine, and then disappeared back into the brush, probably to wait somewhere out of sight. "He mentioned the fire," she said, shrugging one scarred shoulder. It seemed an odd detail to mention to her, anyway—the more recent fire stuck sorely on Kaena's mind and she wondered if Jezebel had lived in Inferni before that wildfire had eaten the territories of Bleeding Souls. There was that pesky feeling that she was ignorant of some vital thing, and she shoved it down as best she could, ready for whatever Jezebel might throw at her next—Kaena knew just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the ravagings of warfare, it seemed, and if Jezebel had anything else to say, whether it was informative or purely cathartic. |