_____Once the meeting had concluded, Corona had returned to the mansion to once again explore its libraries thoroughly. She knew that she couldn't make too many more trips down to Esper Hollow now that they were being told to stay away from it and the last thing she wanted to do was pick up whatever it was that they were suffering from. But it was nice to know that the two packs were aware of one another; the fact that it was run by coyotes gave her a (perhaps false) sense of comfort.


_____ Of course, there was that nagging notion at the back of her mind to talk to her brother too but given everything that had been going on, she didn't want to detract from his time just yet. So she settled on telling herself that she would do it soon and intended to stick to it. Having picked a place on the floor to sit, she pulled a book from the pile she had set up some time ago and thumbed through it, back to the place she had saved before. Corona felt like she was getting closer to figuring it all out as far as what they had, but for now treating the symptoms one by one would have to do.

indent A rushing, violent pulse kept striking in his skull. It was the desire to set that southern pack on fire, to burn all of their black flowers to the ground. Gabriel was incensed; he was very close to abandoning his political stance and going after them on his own. He wanted to rip apart that pack because it had been their fault, and they needed to suffer. He wanted to hunt down Andre like the worthless mongrel he was and rip his heart from his still breathing body. Only remarkable control kept him from doing these things, even though it was affecting his outward appearance however slightly.
indentMostly, though, the glass case he was holding all this in was starting to crack. It was such that he had gone off to somewhere most of the clan had avoided, for whatever reason, intent on finding something priceless and destroying it. He had barely realized he had made the change to two legs, and even less aware of going inside the building and digging through a pile of odds and ends on a shelf he had claimed for his own means. The tobacco and matches were all he needed, and it was at the moment he had them everything seemed to rush together and he hit the floor, sinking down with the wall on his back and sitting heavily. His hands were shaking as he managed to strike the match, and they were shaking as he began to smoke for the first time in a long time.

_____She generally zoned out on the world around when focused, but it was hard to miss the sound of squeaky hinges and stern steps in the same building. A building that was generally quiet, for that matter, as she had noticed. Corona stopped mid-sentence and raised her gaze, listening carefully to figure out just where the footsteps were going. They got louder, passed by where she was and went to an adjacent area altogether. She heard the match strike, the sound of the charcoal tip catching fire, and then distinctly picked up the smell of cigarette smoke.


_____By then, her interest was entirely piqued and she set the book aside once more, rising up and carefully walked from the room back to the cooridor. Angry steps, steps of strain and cracked resolve, she honestly hadn't expected to find her brother on the other side of the wall when she peered into the other room. Eyeing the red glow of the ash, she directed her gaze to his face. “You okay?” she asked, though feeling it was very obvious he wasn't.

indent Had he not been so oblivious, he would have realized Corona was here. His reasons for being ignorant of her presence, of course, were completely justified. It was not until she walked into the room that he became aware of her, and at that point could only stare at her. At her question, he managed a forced, half-mad smile. Smoke poured from his mouth as he exhaled. “Oh I am,” he stated, and then paused to take a drag.
indent The smile faded and his eyes turned vicious. “Andre came back. He came back and he found her,” he snarled, and slammed his left hand against the wall behind him.

_____As he spoke, she slipped into the room and to his side, looking him over with the faintest traces of concern. She was so used to the aggressive outbursts that she didn't even flinch when he hit the wall, but instead felt a forming frown overtake the stoicism on her face. Andrezej didn't mean anything much to Corona other than the fact he was her half-brother, but the one time she had met him he wasn't even able to tell sibling from sibling. He thought her a wolf and she had thought him a poor excuse for a Lykoi. But for a moment, she was lost for words, unsure of whether or not she needed to comment about that.


_____But in the case of Talitha, it was apparent that she had been battered up by someone or something—her initial thoughts went straight to Dahlia de Mai—but there had to be a reason for his earlier order to kill Andrezej. “He did something to her, didn't he?” she asked lowly, much more quieter than her previous question. But there was anger in her for what had been done to her niece and ever a desire to taste revenge. If he had done something to her, then he had committed the greatest sin to not only his siblings, but to Inferni, the place where he had been born.

indent In his right hand, the cigarette burnt. He took another long drag, and then another. Just the thought of Andre was enough to make him furious. The signs had been there in the past; he had attacked his own brother, and threatened them all. He had wanted to kill Gabriel, though this would never come to pass. Before Andre even laid a hand on him, Gabriel would lay him to waste. For a long time, he stared ahead blankly, unaware of the cherry-tip of the cigarette burning closer, burning to the point it had reached his fingers and begun to burn through his fur and to his skin.

indent “He beat her,” he began, eyes turning hollow and dark. “He beat her and then he raped her.”

_____What he said made her set her own jaw shut for a moment. And for that long moment, Corona felt the hair along her spine bristle and burn like fire. It was hard to believe for a moment, but she didn't know him all that well. She didn't know the things that Andrezej had done or said in his past other than what he had said to her. To know that he was hanging around the region didn't sit with her well either, even though there were probably miles upon miles of space between all of them.


_____But how dare he. It bothered her so much knowing how young Talitha was and now part of her understood why she was so upset, why she was scared. Her gaze had fallen in that silence, but now she raised it with an inner fire to set them aglow. “We'll find him, he'll come around. He has no right to call himself a Lykoi.” Even he if he was more of a coyote, even if he had stayed with Kaena more, she knew she had more of a right to that name than he did. She imagined if their mother had died somewhere out there, she was surely rolling her grave now.

indent The fury in his sister and her words made a white-hot fire spark in Gabriel’s eyes. They were Kaena’s eyes in truth, and he believed that even if she had died out there, she lived through him. She lived through all of her children, in some way. A vicious smile that could have been a snarl cracked his face, and he curled his right hand, still not feeling that he was burning his flesh through. “We have enough eyes out there,” he agreed. “Someone will see him.”
indent He stared her in the eyes, and wondered just how far she would truly go. “I want him alive,” he said lowly. “I want him to suffer.”

_____“I want him to suffer too. I think I've wanted him to suffer since the day I've met him,” because then, she had wanted all of her younger siblings to suffer. She didn't want them to exist and maybe there was a small part of her that wished that was still true. There were so many of them and so many of them were uprooted by the choices (or lack thereof) of their parents. “But until we have that chance, I won't let anyone hurt her, Gabriel. Right now she needs all of us to be there and I want her to feel safe. I don't want her to be afraid.” Maybe it was a hard promise to keep, but she would do more than just try.


_____“And I know there's a lot going on, but I have something more to tell you than that. Anselm told us to stay away from Esper Hollow right now, but Dad is there… and he's one of the people who's sick.” They had more than one crisis going on, at least in her mind. And it worried her just as much as having Andrezej hanging over them. “I've been trying to figure out what they have and I've been going there to give them things to help, but it worries me a lot. He's really sick.”

indent The pain in his hand suddenly registered. With a jerk, he shook his hand and sent ashes and embers flying. Lifting his hand, he licked the burn and stared ahead into the dusty house. Corona’s words kept him focused, listening to the things she said. Talitha was their first priority. She would need them all now more then she ever had before. Then she went on to explain about their father, which caused the red-head to look up and send his dark streaked hair into his face.

indent “We can keep an eye on her,” he said, turning his eyes forward. “Talk to her. She wants her mother and I can’t help her there.” Licking the burn again, he sighed. “I’ll go check on him sometime. I wanted to go meet with the people leading it anyway.”

_____She nodded, already wanting to take up any role she could to Talitha other than the ones that she was already in. It had been a surprising moment to find her when she had that day and even more in the sense that Talitha wanted someone—anyone—to comfort her. So she had no problem with standing in where Faolin could not and it was much easier than she thought to feel a desire to protect her. She was family, that was the first thing that fuelled it, but she was also a child. A child who needed someone to mother her. It was equally satisfying to know that he would go and see their father; Corona didn't know much about his relationship with Ahren, but knowing he would go gave her peace of mind.


_____“I haven't directly met with the two coyotes who are in charge there, but they didn't seem bothered that I was there. Rachias is there too,” she went on to say after him, wondering if knowing that their younger sister being there would spark his interest as well. She had mentioned wanting to eventually speak with Gabriel eventually, but Corona didn't make any mention of it. If she saw him there, she thought that the younger girl would take the chance to speak with him.

indent Rachias is there too. A shadow passed over his face and he was pulled back to the fire. That night had been a blur of noise and voices and smoke, and he could remember everything. His Voice, commanding, and the need to obey. Gasoline and matches and the rush of wind and howling trees that had gone up in flames. Inferni moving, one after the other, until Rachias had tried to flee. Gabriel had chased her down and dragged her back as the city began to explode, and drove them through the mountain pass he had used when he had returned home. He remembered everything about the fire, as he had remembered everything about the first fire. He remembered the bodies burning alive, and the screams. He remembered everything.
indent When he looked back at her, he forced a small smile. “She went back to look for Arkham. I guess if she’s here then she never found him.” This he had expected. If Arkham had survived, he would not have lingered in that charred ruin.

_____Corona returned the small smile, knowing that much of what she had done too. Of course, Corona had never gotten to meet Arkham (though she already had, and not all that long ago) so in a way, it was a small loss. No skin off of her nose, at least. “That's what she said too,” and then there had been more to that, more things that she had said. “I think she said that she wanted to talk to you too, but I don't know what about.” Things meant for them and not for her, so on and so forth.


_____“How are those cuts healing up that you have?” she asked, then changing the subject. She leaned forward as well, looking him over as though she were really going to see something horrible that hadn't been there before. But it was better safe than sorry; none of them needed to be getting gangrene and fall apart. Even if she had been too late for any sort of offensive, Corona knew patching them all up was just as well and just as important.

indent He smiled thinly, thinking about what Rachias had to tell him. That she hated him, that he was no good, that she was never coming back. One of those three, at least. If she had returned and not come to Inferni, then he doubted she planned on it. It was just as well. Rachias belonged with her father, and Esper Hollow would suit her. She had never been a vicious girl.
indent At the question, he eyed the wounds with apathy. “I think they’re all right. This wonderful burn is going to be fun, though,” he added with a grunt, eyeing the mark he had just caused himself with the cigarette.

_____“Probably, but at least it's not any worse,” she murmured, looking at it when he had it raised. Brushing her bangs out of her face, she leaned back against the wall and sighed heavily. There were probably a number of things she could have been doing, but she felt more inclined to sit beside him. Needless to say but said anyway, it had been a while since they had simply gotten a chance to talk. She looked down at her own hands for a moment, letting things settle at the forefront of her mind. Things had certainly changed on her once more. “It's been a long time since I've been here. In Inferni, I mean.” Years, really.

indent Vaguely, Gabriel felt the pulse in his hand, and the sensation he had felt several times before. He had burnt himself in California, when the city had gone up and swallowed the deceivers whole. It had taken men, women, and children; but that had been His will, and not Gabriel’s own. Whatever The Voice said was His Law and His Truth, and no one had a right to disobey that, Gabriel least of all. “Did you ever find what you were looking for?” That was what he had told Segodi, when he had left. He was going to find God.

_____His question surprised her, though she wasn't really sure that she had an answer for him. Her eyes fell towards the floor, looking at the worn boards and following the grain of the wood from end to end. “I don't really know,” she shrugged, letting her ears pin back slowly. Corona wasn't even sure that she remembered what it was that she had set out after anyway. She had lost sight of a lot of things both in the past and present. “I'm not even sure what it is that I'm after any more.”


_____Almost childishly, she pulled her knees up to her chest, as if making herself seem smaller would bring back the thoughts that she had before. She had been asked what it was that she was after before and it seemed like the answer had always been the same. “I probably won't find it either,” she went on to say with brief sad smile. But at least this time she felt the confidence to confide in him. “I don't even know what I am. I mean, I do know, but at the same time I don't know at all. Wolf, coyote; anywhere I go I feel out of place. I don't even know when I started to feel that way either, even when I'm glad to be where I am.”

indent Despite everything he was feeling, Gabriel knew it was his duty as an elder brother and leader to take care of everyone else. One arm reached over and hung across her shoulders, a physical reminder that he was here to comfort her. “You’re Corona Lykoi. You’re your mother’s daughter and your father’s favorite,” because even Gabriel knew that. “, and you’re one of the only ones from our litter to come back here in one piece. You belong with me, and with your family.” His family. Inferni.
indent Smiling, a chunk of hair fell in his face. It almost gave him back his innocence. “Don’t you let anyone look down on you,” he added, and his eyes glinted with a vicious darkness. That alone made his mother seem to bleed through him. After a pause, he leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “I missed you,” he finally said.

_____It was easier to smile genuinely when he draped his arm across her shoulders, finding that sense of comfort was like finding an old niche that contained things from a happier time. It was nice to know that out of all of her siblings, the bond that she had with Gabriel hadn't diminished. She leaned against him as he spoke, casting her eyes out over the rest of the dusty room, letting everything fall into perspective. He didn't chide her in the way she thought others would, but instead gave her the peace of mind she hadn't been able to find.


_____“You're right,” she said firmly, trying hard to convince herself that it was more than just an obvious truth. She needed them as much as they needed her. There had never been much point in travelling to figure out where she belonged when the place she simply belonged had been there all along with open arms. “And I've missed you too. I've missed everyone… I just wished that the circumstances could be different. But we'll get through this, everything will be right again.”

indent Squeezing her shoulder, he continued to smile, almost sadly, and looked down at his feet. Even now, he was covered in scars and bruises, and felt less like the strong leader he had wanted to be and more like the boy he had once been. Lost, scared, running for his life. He kept running and scrambling because those ghosts were right behind him, the wolf with the crooked smile and the men who had come for his life so many times. Whatever he tried to be, he was never going to get away from those things. They haunted him like a bad dream, like his own shadow.
indent “Yeah,” he said, though it sounded like his heart wasn’t in it. “We’re gonna be okay.”