 Word Count: 1003 The previous night had left the hybrid woman feeling all sorts of dizziness, confusion reigning over her. She would need the rest of her life to sort out the thoughts that threaded their way through her brain. On one hand, she was happy she no longer had to bear the burden of Haku's wrongdoing on her shoulders alone. That in and of itself had caused the silver-furred Centurion a fair amount of discomfort and near-constant worry. She was aware that the rest of the world as she knew it found Haku Soul to be a despicable creature, but that did not make her publication of his wrongdoing where she was concerned any easier for Kaena. She'd admitted it to Halo, figuring to save the clan and her family some trouble, it would be better to just bury it, or to recover and come back to fight him herself, even if that was almost certain death. She'd gotten lucky the very first time she ran into him, she knew that much. It had been sheer luck for her to even fell him the first time; she knew she should have been destroyed that rainy night during the summer. On the other hand, the ash-coated canine now had to deal with the consequences of making public her rape, even if she hadn't exactly meant to. She had kept it quiet and secret for so long because she knew in her heart and her head that such an act could not go unpunished. Her children and her friends would not allow such a thing to happen to her without retribution, and while that had comforted her slightly, she did not want to endanger them. To have told Samael herself would have meant that he would have immediately went to the Dahlian borders, immediately trespassing to track down Haku Soul and rip his throat out. If Samael didn't die trying to kill Haku, the rest of the pack would have quickly taken care of that. Now, she understood better than ever why she should have kept it to her damn self. Gabriel and Samael were over there, roaming the pack's claimed lands in search of the subleader. Anxiety and worry gripped the silver-furred Centurion's heart, and several times she almost started toward Dahlia de Mai herself, though she remained where she was. It would not do to disobey Gabriel, though the silver-furred coyote could not help but pace the coast and the western border through the early morning. A low, loud howl from the center of the territory drew her attention immediately, recognizing the voice to be that of her son. He'd made it back from the foreign soil in one piece, then. Relief settled over the ashen-furred Centurion, and she broke out into a quick run, her long limbs carrying her swiftly over the frozen ground. It was cold enough for snow, and a thin layer of frost covered the ground in some places, sticking to the persistent, hardy stalks of dead grass that refused to succumb to the pressure and weight of snow. In some places the ground was bare and wet, and in others the remnants of the prior week's snowfall remained, sticking to the ground perhaps until the springtime sun came to melt it away. The hybrid had never experienced winter in these territories before; she did not know what to expect, exactly. She knew it couldn't be so different from the old winter she remembered, for there was not so much distance between this place and the old beach. She had missed the cold season terribly; the warmer winters in the southland were nothing compared to the bitter desperation of winters in the north. When Kaena arrived, she saw a great deal of the clan had already assembled. Halo, Cotl, Hybrid, Anselm, Hezekiah. The clan's numbers had increased quite a lot in the past few weeks, and the silver-furred hybrid could only hope that this time the majority of them would stick around. It seemed like a more well-connected bunch, anyway. Marik was Cotl's brother, and the latter of the pair was already well-settled into the clan in his Imaginifer rank, quickly climbing through the ranks. Kaena was particularly proud of this; it meant that others had seen past the curses and the random explosions of words to see the intelligent, creative hybrid beneath. Cotl had experienced quite enough ostracism and taunting back home where he was from. Marik's devotion to his brother would seem quite serious; after all, he'd made the trip across the ocean for the love of his brother. The hybrid didn't yet guess that their connection went just a bit beyond normal brotherly love. The silvery Centurion hesitated just a moment before she stepped through the crowd of coyotes, brushing quite close to Halo, close enough to reach out with her scarred muzzle and briefly offer a nuzzle of affection to the Hydra. Halo might already guess what was going on from the stricken look on Kaena's face and the severity of Gabriel's howl, and the elder coyote wished to offer some small form of comfort. She did not linger, however; the silver-furred subleader was quick to circle around near Gabriel and Samael, her eye gazing on both of them for a long moment before turning back to the coyotes, keeping her face carefully neutral through Gabriel's speech. She had nothing to share, herself—if others were to ask her for the details of her attack, she might have shared with some, but in the ash-hued coyote's mind, there was no need to publicize to all of Inferni and then some what had gone on between herself and Haku. Once again, Kaena's face took on a rather stoic appearance as she claimed her rightful place beside Gabriel, her head held just a bit higher than it had for a long time. She was quiet, but there was strength yet in her haggard and scarred face, shining through even through the weeks of anxiety and paranoia, pain and misery. |
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