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now I'm here to stay / love can be so boring / what was it you wanted / could it be I'm haunted?
Having been welcomed back to Inferni with what she labelled open arms, Talitha had set about to trying to find Gabriel. With the current situation -- they were, apparently, at war with Dahlia Whatever It's Called -- she finally got why she'd been ushered away with Faolin after Fatin and Ezekiel. Nonetheless, returning home was much sweeter knowing she had been in a place to be protected. She may have been the leader's daughter, and a huge heart set right out in the open for the enemy to smash, but she would rather stick by the clan in their hard time. For a young wolf, she was beyond her years in logic and collected calm and was more than proud to accompany the clan into war.
She was a born and bred Inferni wolf, and she was her father's daughter to the very last drop of blood in her. If God wished her out of the battle, He would bring her out. He would not allow her to march in it was not a part of His design. And so she had faith in the fact that if her father would not allow her to fight, their God would show him the Light. Perhaps it was all an idle hope, and she had really broken His plans apart, but whatever it was, she wanted a part in it.
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indent The doggish hybrid was half-asleep on a flat stone, basking in the sunlight. His body was rattled with fresh scars, but they were not deep and would heal in time. For the moment, he was far from the thought of war and the distant threat of the blue-eyed male. He had bought them some time, which was needed—their members were vanishing under his very nose. He expected this of coyotes by this point, of course. They were solitary by nature, and it was only the family that remained with him in the end. Before then, he would hear the Voice again; it whispered softly these days, showing him things in his dreams.
indent A remarkably familiar scent made his eyes snap open. Almost instantly Gabriel was on his feet, moving with militant speed towards the source. She was here, even after Faolin had taken the girl away. He was beyond furious; mostly, he was concerned about why she had returned and her mother had not. “What do you think you’re doing here?” There was rage in his voice, but it was even, and his body position was neutral—his eyes, however, were on fire.
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now I'm here to stay / love can be so boring / what was it you wanted / could it be I'm haunted?
The welcome she had been expecting had come from the hybrid that she hadn't been expecting to be there when she returned. Anselm had been quite amiable — quite, although truly she was cruising for a bruising even being present there — and she had been surprised, to say the least, that she hadn't been chased right off the land. Here she thought she was going to get off easy; what a joke that was. Talitha's wide grin was shot the minute Gabriel's eyes were visible.
From the look-alike coat to the golden eyes, he was quintessentially majestic. She had always admired that about him, even as a little tiny child; her father, she adored, even with all his faults. A Lykoi by birth, he was quite the chaotic coyote; it was simply in his nature. She would have the same problem if she were to meet the true Lykois of the world for any length of time. He was built more streamlined than blockish and more athletic than powerful, but even then she knew she wasn't a match for him, nor did she consider being. A softness that evaded his eyes dawned in hers as she crouched low to the sand, his words ringing into her ears and slashing through her. Like the knotted scar across the top of his muzzle.
This is my home, she stated, perhaps more flatly than she had originally intended to. Nothing can keep me from it. Not even you or mom.
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indent It was remarkable to him how one flawed gene in his blood had come to dominate both his children. While peculiar, it was not all that remarkable—Corona had been a very close replica of their father, as Rikka was to their mother. If not for his own daughter’s slimmer build and red eyes, she might have been his double. However, the wolf blood was thicker in his veins, and gave him the heavier mass and larger build.
indent At her tone, he frowned sternly. “It isn’t safe here, Talitha. I sent you and the others away for that reason alone.” He had never wanted to force them out, but he was desperate to avoid the fate that had befell the majority of his family. The fresh scars on his body spoke volumes; he had been involved in several skirmishes up until this point. Most, but not all, had resulted in the mass of skeletons in his closet growing. “Is your mother all right?” Ezekiel was beyond his reach, and he had faith in Fatin.
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now I'm here to stay / love can be so boring / what was it you wanted / could it be I'm haunted?
Perhaps it wasn't a huge party, but seeing her father like that was something different. Gabriel had always come off to her as cold at times, but very protective; he was a hybrid with a purpose and it was clear as day. Soft whispers tangled into her fur and shuffled through her ears, the wind singing its own song to counter the strict voice of her dad, which she all but ignored for the adoration; he had to understand here loyalty was not anywhere but Inferni. The clan may not have been made up of flowers and bunnies, and Talitha was a sweetheart among sadists there, but she held her own and would grow to be just as deadly and deceiving as the rest of them.
She was, after all, Lykoi blood. It was really only a fourth, however, not nearly enough to infect her with the insanity of such beasts. She had heard dark tales of Lykois but that they were all family and that they, unlike so many nomadic coyotes, were loyal to Inferni and always had been.
She found Fatin and 'Zeke, she said, though it wasn't really the question, And they're all fine. And that was it. She was staying where Gabriel liked it or not. She hadn't responded to his prior warning simply because it made no difference whatsoever to her. This was her home; this was where she would stay.
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indent They were together, which relieved him. It was only slightly, though, as his daughter had come back—in the middle of a war, no less. Even now, he knew what terrible things could and would be done if they knew who she was. That fact was unavoidable; Talitha, like her brother, were nearly identical copies of himself. They would know, and if they saw her, they would kill her…or worse. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said quietly, advancing and giving her a nudge with his muzzle. It was not much, but it was enough to show he had missed her sorely.
indent Almost as quickly, he had sat down and looked at her gravely. “The people who came here are out for blood. They killed a mother and her child.” She had to hear this now, before things came to a head. She had to know that the danger was very, very real. “If they find you, they will hurt you. They will probably kill you. I won’t make you leave, but if you stay, you have to be able to defend yourself.” And that would mean training.
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The gravity of the situation, as Gabriel described it, was not lost on the stubborn Lykoi. Indeed, she was shocked to know that she was in so much trouble for something she couldn't really remember doing; naivety set in where the blanks had not been filled in. Why would they hurt or kill her when she hadn't even gave them a reason to? But she didn't dare ask; she was supposed to be more mature than her age, was supposed to prove she could stay.
Show me how, dad, she requested. She had no desire to be torn from her home once more and thrown elsewhere in the world. The fire he had started had already uprooted the family, and she had hated that enough. There was no reason for him to make her go again... Right?
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indent Show me how, dad. Almost instantly, Gabriel’s body had tensed and he was on his feet. All along the ridge of his spine his fur rose, and his muzzle cracked, pulling back and showing off-white teeth. A vicious growl rose deep in his throat, his ears went forward, and his eyes turned remarkably cold. Then he rushed forward, fangs bared. Though he had no intent of hurting his daughter, and though he would not do so even with such a display, he wanted to see how she would react.
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Her hair — dark, thin, and short around her ears, growing into a slight mane along her back, but not so noticeable in the Lupus form — blew back as the wind changed direction and, just like that, she was facing a formidable foe. No; more than formidable. She may have been God's little finger, but this man was His Hand, His Hammer. He was everything that God was, and that was a huge threat to Talitha. Most of his religion, she didn't quite understand yet, but she knew God. That much she had picked up before being wrenched away. They had lived in a land of desecration, had come to this place hoping for... What? She imagined it had been a hope for some kind of peace from the wolves that never relented, the tyrants that had unsound minds and cried to the night with no consideration. The coyotes mimicked them, but coyote voices were hauntingly warm; a wolf's howl was cold and melancholy.
So she stood there, face-to-face with her worst nightmare, watching ever dark hair along her father's back rise as if he had been touched by lightning. His golden eyes, so warm even when he was so different from her in his attitude, were no longer her daddy's eyes; they were eyes of a man who wanted nothing more than to snuff out her flame. And for all that, Talitha cowered. Had it been some wolf, who was actually a tiny bit larger than Gabriel, she might have been able to stand up a little taller, to challenge him, but this was not a Luperci in shambles. This was someone who had breathed life into her bones and bodies, had told her to rise and had gave her purpose she would otherwise have not found with ease.
This, she knew, was madness. The beast was charging now, not lumbering as a bear but swift and sleek. Reaction time could not have been worse in her, but she did manage to stumble out of the way with a weak cry, falling onto her side at the attempt to side-step as she did in her Optime form. This wasn't the way the Lykoi had wanted to learn! She shuffled back on the sands as much as she could, making herself tiny, so the man who resembled nothing less than God and commanded His will upon the subjects He could not personally deal with might forgive her blunders.
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