09-25-2009, 02:58 AM
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 -- The hybrid woman had lived a long life, and though she'd taken many lovers over its course—some hardly worth naming, others of far more magnitude, love was a fleeting thing for Kaena. In many ways, she had loved Zarah, but she had been too afraid of loving a woman then. Perhaps if she was a stronger ceature, she would have been able to commit herself permanently to the coyote. That chance had long passed along, and Zarah was dead and buried now, too. Ahren had come after Zulifer, and though they'd raised children together, Kaena had not realized what she had lost in him (or never cared to culture with him) in the first place. The ache of missed opportunity was almost as terrible as the ache of loss itself; perhaps those missed chances and passerby had been her early ticket to everlasting love and happiness. Than again, maybe such a thing was impossible for Kaena to attain anyway. She was a rather brutal, hard-to-love creature. Outside of her family and Inferni, she had few friends. She had several encounters with wolves in the past months since her return, but really, only two had cemented their place in her heart. Naniko had practically showered the silver woman with gifts, an almost certain way straight to her good side. Jacquez had made an obvious impression, what with his wonderful lovemaking. And this wolf, if only for his haunting similarity to long-dead love. Her sharp eye met his gaze for a moment again as he spoke, soaking in the words that seemed to well from somewhere deeper in the creature. Kaena smiled, though it was a rather bitter one. She had not thought of Zulifer in some time before this instant, not in any detail, anyway. There were occasional, fleeting thoughts that hardly registered, but she took care not to dwell on him often. "I know this." She was not a dense creature, the resemblance between the two had simply startled her. Now that she had grown used to his features and face, she could no longer discern his lookalike or him, she had not gazed on the other wolf's face in so long. "I remember him in reverence, but dwelling on the past hurts," the hybrid said, indifference creeping into her tone now. She was eager to move beyond the subject of her dead beloved and her own weaknesses. There was a sudden grin on her face and a gleam in her eye, and she looked at his face once more, fire smoldering behind her remaining eye. "Of course. I avenged him, I tore his killer's heart out," she said. Maybe the phrase was murky enough to be taken figuratively, but Kaena had meant it quite literally. She had torn out the devil's heart and chewed it to bits, swallowing the remnants of it. Maybe she had gained his power, maybe not—ancient beliefs were hardly her style, but that phrase had echoed in her head as she'd done it, and it did again now, speaking to a stranger with a familiar face. |