buried in a shoebox labled burn

Kaena Lykoi · 01-25-2010, 04:35 AM

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old school table and everything :3

The world outside was a strange place. It seemed at times vacant, like a wasteland expanding before her forever; there were only miles of endless, empty forest—devoid in some cases of canine life and as clearly marked as Inferni's borders at home. She had been this way before; she was certain of it. This was the right path, and the calling in her heart grew stronger with each passing day of travel. The strange wound on her ankle plagued her at night, aching and throbbing as if Astaroth had just sunk his teeth in there. Maybe it was a curse; maybe the witch doctors had been right. It did not feel anything like arthritis, which Kaena was already accustomed to, especially in the colder months. She did not move as well as she used to; she lacked the youthful spring to her step. The hybrid had been walking many miles, saving one last reserve of energy for the home stretch—it was coming. She was not so far now. The call of home was strong in the coyote woman's bones, yet she felt she reassured herself of her proximity every day.

Winter's end was nigh; it seemed the whole world would melt all around her. Water soaked through everything and drenched it, dripping from the leaves to the moist earth below. The light, barely-there winters of the southland were nothing compared to what Kaena had experienced in the earlier winters of her life; their blizzards were meek and mild things compared to the wicked snowstorms that tore through her homeland. By this, of course, she meant Inferni; the silver-furred coyote had never truly considered her birthland home. That place was filled only with bad memories and relatives who might kill her for the simple fact of her hybrid blood, never bothering to ascertain her surname or even not caring if they did happen to ask. There was nothing there for her.

It was not too long ago that Kaena had considered that there was nothing left for her in Inferni anymore—she had no doubt that Gabriel held plenipotentiary rule over the clan. They did not need her anymore. She was nothing but a dried husk of her former self, a curse over her leg and a veil over former self, separating the weak and cowardly thing that she was now from the grand creature she'd once been. Or had she? The hybrid woman could hardly tell anymore; there was little of her old arrogance and swagger left in her step. She had run away and taken the coward's way out, and now she was returning home to face the music. The silver-furred coyote longed for family, but she did not wish to endure Gabriel's wrath, should he hold anger towards her for leaving in the first place. She was not looking forward to this.

Head down, always moving, the hybrid woman continued on this way for what seemed like forever; almost everything she passed was not worthy of note. There were scattered packs here and there, and she avoided their borders as if the canines inside held some kind of highly infectious plague. She did not desire their attention or companionship or anything from them; she did not need to rest. She could not until she returned home, and so it was night and day that she moved, halting only to sleep and eat, the latter of which she slacked on. Her weight had dropped since leaving the warmth of Malai Ratree; the canines of that place had done well to introduce her to exotic delicacies of cooked flesh, but now there was only what she caught for herself.

A scent entered her nose, one that caused her to freeze mid-step, inhaling deeper from the chilly air to catch that smell again. It was too familiar; there was no mistaking it, and yet... how? Here, in this desolation, far from anything either of them knew, they'd managed to find each other once more? Was it a joke of the gods or fate or whatever invisible hand pulled the strings that guided them that they'd meet again here? The hybrid did not know if it was a hallucination or the truth that she smelled, but she had to find out, and she went, haphazardly zigzagging through the trees until she saw him, a one-eyed ghost of his former self, aged beyond his years. There had always been a gap, but now, looking at him and reflecting on herself, it did not seem so great. She did not know what words to say to him; all she could think of was the last time she'd seen him. It could have been decades ago.

Word Count: 783

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