you won't ever save your soul
#1
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Word Count:: 442 Derrhurr, I assumed Larkspur is hurr already. .__. ALSO assumed she took/found a cave, at least to use for the birthings. o_o Also hurrhurr you can just post here once or somethang. OR if you do not want to post here I will just mark it read only. IDK WUTEV YOU WANT WOMAN, YOU KNOW IDGAFFFF


What had started as a dull twinge in her abdomen had become an unbearable pain; rhythmic throbbing tore through her at regular intervals, causing the sable-shaded woman to twist and groan. She would grit her teeth, clamping her jaw shut so tightly she thought her teeth might shatter. She had not wanted anyone else here, not even Larkspur; she had wanted this to be done in secret and in private, her own little ritual for her children. She was afraid -- afraid one of them would look like a coyote, afraid one of them would be small, with bigger ears and a stout muzzle. She did not want this child to see the light of day, for it would proclaim plainly to all that she was, indeed, a Lykoi. Some twisted culling instinct had arisen in the Tuyul even as she drew ragged breaths, worn thin with exhaustion.


There was more difficulty than she imagined, and it felt like days since she had first limped into her chosen den and collapsed. Most of the torches were set up now, lighting the oft-used passageways through the cave. The place she had chosen, her own dank little hole in this underground labyrinth, was lit by only two small candles, both smoldering and flickering dull light around the small cavern. Powerful instincts took hold of the woman, and she found herself cleaning the first child, picking him up in her hands and whimpering as another wave of pain coursed through her. Nuzzling and licking him clean, he murmured a few squeaks and was quiet.


The next came soon after, smaller and almost dusky in coloration, dotted with a color found neither in her coat nor Larkspur's. The third was too still, too quiet -- weak signs of life stirred from the child after a moment, and the hybrid was satisfied, clutching these three close as a fourth, again quiet and still, emerged from her. There was a sense of dread from the woman, but the puppy moved, albeit slowly and weakly; something in her, some deeper mothering instinct, knew the puppy would not last the night. She did not pick this one up, but instead slowly leaned to her side, her chartreuse eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. Settling the three good puppies down, she curled her two-legged body around them, wishing she had the strength to shift. There was nothing left, however, and the hybrid breathed a tired sigh, curling her arm around her children. For all she had expected at the sight of them, there was little joy in the sable-shaded woman. Faintly, she wondered if there was any of it left for her anywhere.


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#2
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300+

He had done everything in his power to ensure that things were easy for her. He fed her, he gave her the space she needed, he slept next to her and night and shared his warmth. Ultimately though, whatever happened was not under his control, nor even his to aid. Larkspur had been lucky today. During his never-ending attempts to stay away from his family, he had begun exploring the mountain range. It reminded him of the Khalif, in a small way, and he was familiar with it. Hunting had proven a unique challenge—but he had quickly learned that height was the advantage. A precise jump was all it took to startle the goat, and all it took to kill it was one sharp twist of those billy-goat horns. No blood.

Said goat, now a still-warm carcass he carried on his shoulders, would be enough to feed both of them. Larkspur was pleased with himself. Large feet carried him through the maze of passages that led towards their den, and it was then he caught the scent. Blood. Something else, something he did not recognize but knew, and he stood still for several moments and his mind went mercifully blank. It was then that the can tah spoke of the coming prophecy, and echoed Misery’s words about his children. He knew. Suddenly and ultimately he knew.

With enough noise to make himself known (unintentionally of course, Larkspur was not made for silent movement) the burly Tuyul passed into the mouth of the cave and found her with four children. Three she held close, and the fourth remained still, but still breathing. It was the three he was interested in—one black, one mottled, one a dingy white. Of course. He lowered the goat to the floor and made his way to her side, settling near the dark woman on his belly, like a large and awkward dog.

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#3
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The emptiness did not fade away; there was no warm, glowing satisfaction in her, and her yellow-green eyes flicked to the children indifferently. Small and squirming and helpless -- she was not sure how she was supposed to love them. She was almost four years old and she had no idea how to be a mother -- she could barely remember her own, and she had left so early. The noise outside of her cave did not disturb her; she expected Larkspur. She did not want anyone else -- he would be the only one she could tolerate in this moment, and anyone else would have been chased away with a growl.


There was food, but she did not want it -- she was too tired and too exhausted to eat, even, though a faint hunger gnawed at her stomach. There was no desire in her to lift her head and take anything from the goat, however, and her yellow-green eyes focused instead on Larkspur, shuffling the puppies forward so he might have a better look at them. Some part of her was desperate for his approval -- she had not looked at the ill puppy since she had set it aside, and she hoped he did not care. For all her tiredness, there was still that intense desire for acceptance. She had given life to these things of his; maybe he would love her for it.

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#4
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SSWM: 407

There was within him a capacity to love. Larkspur had been beaten, starved, abused to within an inch of his life. He had had everything taken from him—compassion, family, purpose. They granted him his faith, for all of the Khalif must believe, and so he had clung to such a thing desperately. It was within him to love because he had hated. He hated his family and he had hated the terrible things they had done to him. Each time he had fought them it was with hate, but never with the intent to kill. Not until that terrible day when the fire had been calling for him and they had come. Larkspur had fought then for his life, even though it was an empty thing, because he was a simple creature who knew simply he did not wish to die. He had nearly killed his own cousin, struggling against them, and likely would have taken at least one with him if not for divine intervention.

Misery had been the first he had loved. She alone had given him affection, shown him what it was to feel. He was stupid, but not slow. Larkspur too had the capacity for knowledge. He learned from her quickly. He behaved as she instructed and soon had become capable of living without aid. When she had left, he had turned to a pack only out of desperation. Now, the same was true. Anathema had offered him sanctuary and offered this woman he had come to know as his own sanctuary as well. Now they had children, children that she offered to him as if they belonged to the D’Angelo male alone. Perhaps this was what she wanted.

He stared down at the tiny things, squirming to find heat, and saw what she did not. He saw them as power in the making, as a prophecy finally fulfilled. Three living children, and one who was salvation—white, as he had been told to become. Larkspur smiled for himself them, and smiled because he knew his fate was sealed. He had done right. Now there was only the need to ensure they lived, for that was the key to his own existence. Larkspur looked up to Eris and moved the children back to her, nudging her neck lovingly with his nose. He said nothing but breathed in her scent and made low noises deep in his throat.

Finally, he had been saved.

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#5
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Word Count → 282

Even if the shadowy man did love her, it was questionable whether the coal-shaded woman would be able to deal with that. She had never experienced stability -- even in Eterne there was always that out-of-place feeling. She had known of the rumors long before the eventual banishment and escape -- they had whispered that she was a wolf and a fraud, and she had not been immune to those rumors. Only Mantus's thundering insistence had kept her among the good graces of those who mattered within Eterne; were it not for that, she might have found herself in the street. Perhaps that would have been a better fate than the one she suffered, even if she did not fully recall it.


These children were not a symbol of love to the woman -- she did not yet know what they stood for. They were not her mothers; she and Larkspur had made sure of that. Surveying the monochromatic and timberwolf brown, thin pelts of the children, the sable-shaded woman knew -- or feverishly hoped -- they would grow up to look like wolves, every inch of them. He was silent, and she did not move beneath his slight touch at first, remaining still and staring down at the children, still bewildered and amazed by their existence. That they had come from her was unthinkable, and yet as she lifted one closer, touching the end of her muzzle to it, she knew they were hers. They would belong to no one else, and no one would take them from her -- she did not know Larkspur well enough to call him a wonderful father, but he had not abandoned her yet, either.

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#6
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SSWM: 195

To know exile and to know discrimination was something that Larkspur had grown up with. His own parents had cast him out from birth, making him know hardship for what it was. Misery alone had saved him from death by fire. Things had changed now, though. If they could see these children then they too would know as he did that fate had changed. Now, now because of this woman, he had been given proof that his duty was here. It was his fate to teach the ignorant of their heritage—to remind the D’Angelo’s in this part of the world that they were descendents of those bound to gods.

She moved the children and touched them, and Larkspur was ignorant to whether or not she did as she was supposed to. He had no experience with children outside of his lazy nephew or the girl in Dahlia. Still, he understood the basic needs of a mother because Misery had drilled them into his head before once more vanishing like a ghost in the fog. Sometimes he wondered if she was a ghost. “You should eat,” he said quietly, leaning his head against her neck.

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#7
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Word Count :: 501 HEHE. Lazy nephew. <3 POOR USELESS HARLOWE, EVERYONE HATES HIM~ Also RAMBLEEEEE you can skip to like the last paragraph. :|

As much as the coal-hued woman wanted to shield her children from what they were, as much as she wished to protect them from the disease that was her known family, she could not do such a thing. It had been done to her, and she knew what it was like -- it would be easier to lie to these children; she knew the truth, but she also knew the eventual consequences of such things. She would not have them resent her as she resented her mother and her greater family. The sable-shaded woman did not know of Inferni's exact policies -- she had never bothered to learn them -- but she knew enough to know these children would not have a place there if they wanted one. There was relative safety if she did allow them knowledge of Inferni and the Lykois, and everything else about herself. Inferni would reject them outright -- it would not be forced to tolerate them as it had Eris herself. Without a quarter coyote to claim, these children would be outsiders and nothing more if they were to seek a place within the clan.


Whatever weaknesses her blood gave them, Larkspur's certainly strengthened it. She was not deaf to the surname itself -- it was attached to many, and the sable-shaded woman only knew a fraction of these. None had been unkind to her, though, and it was the pale-furred leader herself who had first extended to Eris the courtesy of joining this place, hybrid blood or not. The sable coywolf had no idea how apparent (or inapparent) her mixed blood really was to others. Tired as she was, she did not argue in the least with Larkspur, shifting slightly as to reach for the meat without disturbing the puppies or removing his nose from her neck. Estranged and awkward as she felt, she would not be so stubborn as to reject whatever small comforts she could find in this moment. Obliging him and her aching body both, she ate slowly and quietly, her children doing the very same.


“They should have your surname,” she said quietly, licking her muzzle clean of any leftover gore from her meal. “Except this one,” she said, touching the warm back of the brownish child. She reminded Eris of a dream or vision, she could not remember -- and the sable-shaded hybrid simply felt this was the correct thing to do. Never one to second-guess instinct, she made this thought known to him readily. None would carry the Lykoi surname -- it would not fit them in a place such as this, and she did not wish for them to carry it and its stigma. They would blend in here, they would belong here as D'Angelos, and this girl -- she would inherit whatever legacy Salvaged still had, whatever legacy Eris carved for her. There were none who shared that surname but Eris and this girl anymore, and only a ghost of a man had once held it.

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#8
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he is such a creep

They were both creatures born out of faith—one from mountains and one from the desert. Opposing things that should not have struck such an accord, yet here they were. She gave him two of the children, the night boy and the pale girl, and the brown one she took for her own. This was her right. The dead ones would not matter. Larkspur finally lifted his head from her neck and looked down at the things they had made, finding a great deal of magic within them. All three would be taught. This he knew he must do.

“When they git old enough, we’ll teach ‘em. Teach ‘em about what we know.” All the things from the world beyond this one. Old magic that was made of blood and fire, magic that had carved prophecy into his arms and given her a purifying scar that carried no power. Larkspur was a simple man, but he saw the world as being filled with such terrible things as old gods from the earth. As if now waking to this thought, the can tah whispered and his pupils dilated in the darkness, turning inward. “Pandemic,” he said, touching the black boy with his large but oddly gentle hand. “Salvia,” the brown girl, the legacy of a dead man in shape. “Wretch,” sickly, weak, his saving grace but at a cost. She would be lucky to survive to adulthood. The eagle-stone, the little-god, it murmured pleased things into his head and the orange-eyed wolf smiled in the dark.

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#9
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Archive?

Eris had wondered why this had not happened to her before. Staring at the differently-colored puppies, all of them already apparently wolfish, she knew. To have had children earlier and with anyone else, anywhere else -- it would have been simply inappropriate. This felt right, and this felt like the closest thing to home -- she did not remember Inferni feeling like a home, and she could not remember what Eterne had felt like as one. She did not yet even know anyone in the pack, and the sable-colored woman still felt it was clearly a place where she belonged. They did not seem to notice or care if she was a coyote -- her wolfish features allowed her to blend in for the most part, as she exhibited few coyote features herself. Whether it was blind optimism or denial that had caused them to believe her in Eterne, the hybrid could no longer tell. Being a coyote no longer mattered -- she had abandoned that life as certainly as she had walked away from that place.


“Of course,” the coyote said, too tired to muster a more eloquent response. It was her every hope that their children would grow to be stronger, smarter, and more successful than they were -- Eris, after all, felt she had accomplished next to nothing in her three years of life until this point. The hybrid listened to the names, her yellow-green eyes falling from one child to the next as Larkspur named them. She offered him a smile, brief as it was, and put her head down, too exhausted to keep her eyes open. Sleep would be a precious commodity with the children, she knew, and the sable-shaded hybrid desperately needed it at that moment.

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