♥


    The coyote hybrid herself had been sleeping most of the day away herself. She still had yet to find herself a permanent home, a thought which didn't bother her so much. She had no children and no family to live with her—so sleeping in the wilderness and open was just fine with her for now. Even in Optime form it wasn't uncomfortable, and though it meant she was more likely to be disturbed by coyotes who kept daytime hours, she was willing to take that risk for now. She generally stayed near to the coast, and it was here she was rising just as Anselm was laying near the sea.



    She stretched and yawned, various parts of her body popping and cracking as she relieved herself of the night's stiffness. Rising from sleep was always the largest reminder that she was indeed growing older, and as she contemplated this wearily, shaking the sleep from her eye, she caught the scent of another. He was rather fresh, but she could also faintly smell Gabriel clinging to his fur, so there was familiarity here, as well. The coyote pulled herself to her feet, again stretching, and wandered onto the beach, the sand squeezing between her toes. It was afternoon as she expected, and though there were several hours of daylight left, the Inferni coyote was glad she'd missed the hottest parts of the day. Summer was undeniably here, permeating the air with humidity and heat.



    She spied the hybrid in the waves several yards away, and made her way over steadily, curious to find out if this was just a visitor or a new member of Inferni. She had not yet seen his eyes, or else she might have pegged him for one of Gabriel's paternal relatives almost instantly. The scarred hybrid advanced on him slowly, her tail arced in a manner that was rather friendly, the black tip of her tail wavering in the air. "Good morning," she said, an uncharacteristic cheerfulness in her voice. If this was a visitor admitted by Gabriel, she ought to have been on her best behavior, and the same went if it were a brand new clanmember. Though the reaction to such a statement at this late hour was generally met with confusion, she had no idea this stranger held similar hours, and such a greeting to him was ridiculously appropriate.

-huuuuuggg!!!- I want to hear. :3



    The coast was a familiar haunt for the Lykoi by now. She'd been a member of Inferni just shy of a month, and it seemed she spent most of her time here or along the coast in the unclaimed part of The Waste or Drifter Bay. Even so, she did not like to venture far from her home territory, and the tiny inlet Inferni had staked as its own was her favorite place to be thus far. There was something about the sand between her toes and the wind whipping her fur that made it feel more like home, and reminded her terribly of the old territory. Hell's Coast was long gone and burned, but the coyote thought of it often.



    The hybrid caught her approach, and turned to face her with two bloodred eyes. She halted and faltered a moment, the grin fading for just an instant as she recognized the origin of those eyes easily. Not that there was anything wrong with being a de le Poer—Kaena was just surprised to see one with such a high percentage of wolf here in Inferni. He spoke, and rose to his feet, half-dry and half watered. His words indicated he had heard of her before, or maybe knew her—the hybrid woman returned the dip of his head, her golden eye burning with curiosity. It did not stay long, as he spoke of Gabriel and introduced himself.



    She smiled, though she did not reciprocate the introduction. He obviously knew who she was. Sometimes other loyaltys surfaced, however, and she understood that better than anyone else. "I had to come back. There's nowhere else for me," she proclaimed with a grin, immediately indicating her loyalty to Inferni, renewed and burning in her chest as plainly as the red chaos star emblazoned across it. It was true—there was nowhere else her heart beat so loudly and she felt so right as here. There was nowhere else she belonged, and it had taken her too long to realize it. Gabriel was obviously how Anselm knew her by just her face—otherwise she might have asked him how.



    "You're related to Gabriel," she observed, the grin again fading, though there was certainly no hostility in her scarred gaze, merely curiosity. She was intrigued, and there was little bashfulness or shyness in the Lykoi, certainly not enough to make her anything but direct and blunt. He was a wolf, and therefore he was related indirectly to her children, and a non-blood relative of her own. She held no connection to the de le Poers by blood, merely the tie she had forged with Ahren in bringing Gabriel and his brood into the world. Still, it was a connection—and each tie that tethered its members together strengthened Inferni as a whole.

mall-caps;">In Character
    Had Kaena been able to peer into Anselm's head, she would have seen thoughts almost mirroring her regarding clan and kinship. She had founded Inferni as the only Lykoi, and though Kerberos lived after her departure, he did not reside in Inferni. Her primary drive return to Bleeding Souls after her first departure had been vengance, and she had wanted to taste Salvaged Eternity's blod. When she had found her clan devoid of familiar faces save Kesho, who had never been too close anyhow, she had delayed an immediate return to Inferni, and instead pursued Salvaged. The strange leadership and the new faces within Inferni made it far less of a priority for the coyote on that return, but it was the presence of family and potential family which drove her back to Inferni the second time, when she found it under Segodi's leadership.



    As the Lykoi regarded Anselm with her single golden eye, she noted his high percentage of wolf. There was definite coyote in his blood, however, and she saw it in his slightly muddled features and his tawny golden fur. Were it not for her experienced eye, he could have easily passed for a full-blooded wolf. Those crimson eyes were striking, that same bloody color of Ahren's eyes. There was something hard and sharp in his features, and the Lykoi matron noted that, her golden eye taking in all of his features and filing them away. He was here to stay, she saw, and Kaena was even more glad as he continued to speak.



    It seemed Anselm was an experienced creature, and he was largely in part to thank for Inferni's continued existence. He seemed to be a tough, loner type, however, and the Lykoi wondered if he were not distantly related to Gabriel if he would have offered his helping hand so willingly. It didn't matter—Anselm was a very smart canine, and he was an asset to Inferni's ranks. "Glad to have you back," she said with a grin. Inferni felt more powerful already, strengthened by the return of this canine. "Inferni needs as many canines like you we can get," she said, complimenting his extensive skills—he hadn't quite organized them into a bulleted list for her convenience, but she caught the jist of things from his words, and what she heard had impressed her. The fact that he was a de le Poer already commanded her respect.



    She thought about it for a moment, and somewhere from the murky depths of her mind came the answer. "I think cousins is close enough," she said. There was only one degree separating Anselm and Gabriel from being true cousins, and Kaena wondered just how far the de le Poer family's vastness extended. There were several members of it she was now acquainted with who seemed to have little relation to Ahren, the focal point of the family in Kaena's eyes, anyway. Anselm was more closely related to Ahren than he was to Gabriel, naturally, but they were still a distant sort of cousin, separated by a degree of family. Valkyrie was even more distantly related to Gabriel and his father, separated by an entire branch and several generations. Kaena had no idea what to call that relationship herself, and she thought it was worth investigating later, perhaps when she had spare time to rifle through the books in the city.

    Previous to meeting Anselm, Kaena had attributed Inferni's survival after the apocalypse primarily to Gabriel; what the wolf had just told her contradicted that belief and forced the hybrid canine to rethink her knowledge of Inferni's history immediately following the fire. It did indeed seem Inferni owed much of its survival to this hybrid before her—and she was just beginning to understand it. She was grateful; thanks to this mixed-breed canine before her, she actually had a home to return to. Kaena wondered if it weren't for that, if it weren't for the presence of family—would she have come back? Surely, she would have explored these lands as a loner, investigating each grouping to see if any of her family lurked there... but she did not know for certain then if she would have stayed.



    The coyote was not surprised when Anselm spoke of the tensions between other packs, though Gabriel had seemed to refer to Dahlia de Mai's aggression as being almost completely blown over. He hadn't told her to avoid them, but neither had Gabe said to be unnecessarily friendly with them. "I'd pay real, real close attention to Phoenix Valley," she told him, her voice growing dark. Her fight with DaVinci had already put the Valley pack in poor standing with the Lykoi, and according to almost everyone else she'd spoken to, on the whole Inferni and Phoenix Valley were not the best of friends, though their disagreements hadn't escalated into anything violent aside from her own spat with DaVi. She knew almost all of the packs by name—Dahlia de Mai, Phoenix Valley, Crimson Dreams, and Cour des Miracles. There was one more, but it was far, far to the south and Kaena hadn't encountered a single member of its ranks. "I'm sure you've heard. I got into it with one of them the other day, way out on the beach. He remembered me from his childhood, from chasing him off of Inferni's lands." Her tone and word choice made it clear the youth was lucky his life hadn't ended on that day. Kaena had little patience for children who ignored the clear-cut rules of the world.



    Kaena had never been one for spying or surreptitious action, though she understood its necessity and valued it for its informative purposes. There was a slight shrug of her shoulder. "I'd say Cour des Miracles isn't anything of a threat," she said, recalling her meetings with it's king and a subordinate of the pack. Neither had been particularly nasty to her, though both had been treading close to Inferni's grounds. "Though I don't think you should ignore them in your casing of the lands," she added. She didn't know for sure, but she thought they might be seeking an ally. They were, after all, a very new pack. Anything official was up to Gabriel—Kaena personally would show no hostility to a Miracles animal, even if he was full-blooded wolf. Their king had been kind to her, and he had earned her respect. He was, after all, the descendant of domesticated animals and sans a limb—yet he managed to lead a pack.



    She hesitated to tell him of her meetings with the two Miracles wolves, but it did seem mildly suspicious that two of them would show up on the opposite side of their packlands so close to Inferni. They were a new group, and Kaena thought it was within their rights to scope out other packs just as Anselm was planning on doing. She hesitated to refer to them as a pack, just as she never called Inferni a pack. Cour des Miracles was led by a dog, and the only other member she had encountered was also a hybrid creature, not fully wolf. "I met two of 'em, on two separate occasions. They were over by us, in the unclaimed part of The Waste and on the Mountain. They weren't nasty," she commented, giving Anselm a sidelong look to see how he absorbed this knowledge. "They're a new group. Maybe they're looking for allies, even." Inferni didn't need to forge an alliance with anybody, no—but mutual, beneficial agreements between groups were never a bad thing, and Kaena knew it was worth investigating.

In Character
    The hybrid knew pitifully little about the surrounding packs, a massive swing from her days as Aquila on the old territories, when she could have told Anselm exactly where each territory was and perhaps half of the leadership of the land. Then again, she was older and no longer the Aquila—rather fittingly, Kaena held the Veritas rank. She was rather proud of it, too—she had been a part of Inferni long before they occupied these territories and she had sporadically been a part of the clan since its beginning.



    She nodded at the mention of Dahlia de Mai—Gabriel had told her what happened between the two groups, but not in detail. "Gabriel told me a little about what happened between us and Dahlia, but he spared most of the details," she said. "But he did say they're not hostile till they make it so," the hybrid added, shrugging her raven shoulders. They were a big pack, anyway, and Phoenix Valley did seem like the bigger priority, with her most recent tussle still fresh on her mind and in the bruises she wore.



    "Definitely a hybrid. Steely gray fur, couple of piercings. DaVinci," she said, recalling only the child's first name from their original meeting on the beach. The rest of it had been long and unnecessarily complicated—far too many syllables and words for the Lykoi to recall so long after their first encounter. "I met the Cour's king, yeah—he was young, and he's a dog," she said, though her voice was not derisive, merely incredulous. It seemed impossible to her that a formerly domesticated creature could hold the reigns of a pack.



    Dog blood flowed in her veins, though she was only a quarter canis familiaris and both her coyote and wolf instincts far outweighed whatever meager whine the dog might produce. The grizzled hybrid shook her head at his next question. "They're to the south, past the city somewhere. I dunno where exactly 'cause I didn't pass too close by, but I'm sure it won't be too tough to find," the coyote said confidently. There were bound to be clear scent trails from Cour des Miracles from Halifax, and she was certain Anselm knew that.

-caffeinates!-



    The hybrid canine listened to Anselm with interest; this situation sounded awfully familiar. Salvaged was surely a monster, yet he'd dutifully served as the beta wolf of Jaded Shadows for a long, long time. She wondered if an adoptive or blood relation connected the Dahlian subleader to the alpha, though she left that subject alone. It didn't matter what tethered the subleader to his pack—if it was a leash he could easily squirm free of, there was danger.



    Her own knowledge about the pack was less than Anselm, though there was something in him that seemed hesitant to further discuss the subleader and Dahlia de Mai. Still, Kaena yearned to know more—her survival depended on it. "Sounds familiar," she said. "If history repeats itself, he'll find himself an outcast sooner or later," the ash-colored hybrid added. Packs tended to be far less tolerant of evil amongst their ranks, and once the subleader was without his pack behind him, he would be far easier for anyone he'd wronged to dispatch him, just like Salvaged.



    She wondered if being alone would make the wolf more or less dangerous—certainly, without the pressure and duties within a pack, he would have far more free time. But he would also have to roam across neutral lands, and without allies to call to, he might find himself at the losing end of a fight with someone from his distant past. The hybrid woman looked at Anselm in surprise, her eyes darkening. There had been no doubt that Jacquez was a leader—he carried himself as such, and he simply had that air of royalty that spoke of one who was every bit the King he claimed to be.



    The hybrid nodded her head in agreement with Anselm's assumption. "I don't have much doubt Jacquez is the ruler of that group," she said. "So you're probably right. What the hell did she want here?" the coyote said, cocking her head. Now she was curious—was it possible that the Cour des Miracles pack planned something against Inferni, after all? She wondered why they would be so surreptitious as to have their king and a subordinate lurk around the borders, while sending the princess of the pack in so overtly.

Oh, no, I'm totally the same way. I don't actually get tired until well past 3AM. :|



    The past was a subject the coyote often thought on; with so many memories in her head, there was little else that occupied her mind. She did not engage in philosophical thinking, for she had long found that delving too deeply into the intricacies of the past exposed gaping flaws, glaring hypocrisy she could not defend. The hybrid had lived too long and seen to many complete turnarounds, wild changes and swings in her personality. As a child, she'd been scared and quiet, beaten into submission by her mother, just beginning to flourish thanks to her father's doting when she was changed again, transformed into a monster by the death of Andre, killed by his very lover. Then, violence was everything and her viciousness was arbitrary, suicidal, even. Kaena truly hadn't cared whether she lived or died. Then, her children had come and changed things for her again—the Lykoi gene gave the hybrid woman purpose in her life and a reason to carry on, and she would not abandon them so readily.



    Salvaged was more recent past than that, however. "There was a shift in power, and the alpha who'd tolerated him lost absolute control over the pack. Her replacement was a lot less indulgent of his vicious tendencies," she said, shrugging a coal shoulder. Truth be told, she'd only had a little to do with his ejection—but perhaps if she hadn't fueled the flame of distrust in Spade, Salvaged might have remained in Jaded Shadows forever, shouldered and protected by the pack even if he wasn't leading it anymore. "Things change, and if he's truly vicious, a pack of more even-tempered creatures won't tolerate him forever," she said, banking that most of Dahlia de Mai was not as malevolent as its subleader. It had been that way in Jaded Shadows—certainly, if the rest of its members held even a fraction of Fatin Kali's compassion, they would not tolerate following one so violent as Salvaged as alpha. Mordulin knew that, in all likelihood, hence why she called upon her nephew to serve in her stead. At least with Spade at the helm, she stood a chance of returning to something similar to the pack she had left.



    It was frustrating to find so little information on that woman and the Cour pack in general; the coyote wondered if she might be able to find Jacquez again and ask. The king probably wouldn't take too well to being interrogated—but then again, the mother of Inferni's king had a right to know why his subleaders were charging into Inferni territory uninvited. And perhaps Jacq would be eager to know his subleaders were wandering around into claimed territory portraying herself as the leader of the Cour des Miracles pack. "I got along pretty well with the one who claimed to be king. I could try and talk to him again," the coyote suggested, sharing Anselm's suspicions. It was too interesting, and the coyote was extremely curious to know why the wolf-girl had come so unabashedly onto Inferni's hostile territory.

    The coyote woman previously hadn't put much thought into Skylar's trespassing onto Inferni's territory. It was possible that Jael and her really were half-siblings, sharing the same mother—but for all Kaena knew, this could have also been a lie, falsified information created to save her own sorry ass. Certainly, the girl must have realized the chances of her walking away were slim, so she had fingered Kaena's own grandson as her possible half-sibling. Still, it didn't make much sense to merrily plunge over Inferni's borders without giving second thought to it.



    His words made the coyote curious; surely there were differing personalities throughout the packs, but it seemed most of the previous packs had valued evenness of temperament in its top leaders. Viciousness was indiscriminate, and when a wolf led a pack, he represented that pack, and it was unlikely the other groups would tolerate an unnecessarily violent group for too long, hence why Inferni stuck to defending itself if it felt threatened. If they went around attacking all of the packs, it was likely they would find themselves at the losing end against a strong alliance between at least two of them.



    She shook her head. "Inferni alone survived the trip over the mountain after the fire," she said, pride apparent in her features. Her head rose just a bit and her ears swept forward, a grin displayed prominently across her scarred muzzle. "What does that tell you about pack loyalty?" There was clear derision in her voice; Kaena had no respect for the supposedly tight bindings of pack life. And it was true—alpha wolves demanded the pack members' fealty, while Inferni's leadership was not so full of itself to constantly require its' ranks to grovel in the presence of the Aquila. Besides, their bonds weren't so weak and fleeting to be destroyed so easily—most of them were family, after all.

mall-caps;">In Character

    The hybrids and coyotes who made up Inferni were almost all related in some form or another, distant cousins and siblings and Kaena's own descendants. This bound them tightly, for all of her surviving children were born within Inferni's borders themselves. Kaena had done a damn good job of insuring that the generation of Lykoi following her knew their true home—Inferni. In a way, this insured at least some of them would return following their generally unavoidable first departure. The only two who hadn't returned at least once were Razekiel and Conway, and Kaena figured at some point they would return. Most of the others had, anyway. Even Anselm, though Gabriel was only his distant cousin. Kaena did not yet know that Ryan as Anselm's child, and Valkyrie was his grandchild.



      The trickster's grin didn't fade from the grizzled hybrid's face, and she nodded even as Anselm spoke, too eager to throw her own words about packs in with the de le Poer man's. She laughed, raspy and akin to a witch's cackle at his impression of the typical sob story at the pack borders. Too long ago, even Kae herself had told the same sort of story, believing since her father was a wolf and since he had provided the closest thing to a family and a real childhood Kaena had ever experienced, she thought to follow in his ways and attempt the life of a wolf. Wera and Narcyz's deaths spoke loudly of how well that particular venture had gone. "Inferni was almost short-lived," she said, recalling how Kidorah had told her how Inferni had dwindled to just one miserable soul by the time she found it. That was when Arlo had raped Kiriska, producing the father of Rachias, Arkham, and Andre. "But family ties us tight," she affirmed, that grin never fading from her muzzle.



      The hybrid's words surprised her, and Kaena wasn't absolutely certain she had a good answer for it. It was more like... what hadn't driven her away? Her father's death and her brother's abuse had insured the Lykoi woman ran far from her birthplace at her first opportunity, stopping only to slaughter the stepmother that had sent her gentle father into the afterlife. The ruthless murder of the alphas of her only pack experience had been enough to send her high-tailing away from that place, lest the entire pack descend on her and rip her limb from limb. There was a different smile now, far thinner than the one that had been there before it.



    "Since Zarah and I founded Inferni, I haven't thought of another place as home," she said, indicating that was what had driven her from every place she had visited since the two coyotes had met that night on the beach. "But when I was young, it was the usual story. Death and disorder, things of that nature. My immediate family died, so I had no reason to stay where I was born," she said, masking her tone with indifference so Anselm would be less tempted to ask about that part of her memory. It was even still painful to visit those places in her head. "Believe it or not, I tried to live the pack life, once upon a time," she said, shaking her head. Her presence here and her apparent dislike of pureblood wolves was evidence enough of how well that had turned out. "And you?" she asked, curious about the origins of this de le Poer before her.

    The coyote eyed Anselm, her damaged gaze falling on his bloodied red one. He was not so far off from Gabriel's dead father, though Ahren certainly did not have coyote blood. Still, that quarter of a coyote was muted in Anselm, and he was easily passable for a wolf. She supposed he liked it that way; he seemed like the type for surreptitious action and he had spoken of going to pay the other packs a visit. Again, the grizzled hybrid was glad Anselm was on their side. It could have just as easily gone the other way, especially if the Inferni that had traveled over the mountain was a weaker clan. It would seem Anselm was not the type of creature who would align himself with a struggling group. He had done well to choose Inferni, the only clan that had survived the trek from their prior home. There was special distinction in that.



    The hybrid smiled that same toothy smile, and wondered just how much spare time Anselm had. She was the keeper of Inferni's knowledge, by the length of her tenancy and designated rank of Veritas. The gray hybrid was determined to live up to that; Inferni's story would not die with her. Again she yearned to find a coyote with the power to write; she had met Giggle and knew he was capable, but she had not seen him since their first meeting. Besides, she didn't know him well enough to ask him to undertake such a gargantuan task. "I led Inferni twice. The first time, I took over after Zarah departed," she said, pausing. She wasn't sure how to characterize her own departure—she surely didn't want to rehash the details of her first viable pregnancy and Zulifer over again.



    "I guess you could say I was too distraught to lead," she continued, supposing it would have to do. There was no avoiding questions when it came to history; her personal life had directly interacted with her clan life. It had caused her to go mad and leave. "Zarah's adopted son, Arlo, took over after that. I suppose there just weren't many coyotes after we gathered the first batch up, because by the time the wolves had their vengeance on Arlo, it was just Kesho left in Inferni. Kidorah Talik rebuilt us," she explained. She hadn't been here to see the specifics of ruin during Arlo's rule. The silver canine supposed Arlo was not specifically to blame for the clan's downfall; Kaena hadn't exactly given him a stable place to stand after her sudden departure. And as often as she'd begrudged Kidorah for placating the wolves, the elder woman would not deny credit where it was due. Certainly, if it weren't for that coyote woman and her eventual co-rank and successor, Segodi, Inferni would be nothing more than dust by now.



    One coal-powdered shoulder shrugged, and she swung her head to look at him, wondering if he'd want to know more. He hadn't expressed the same eagerness Halo had in learning the clan's history, and that was fine by her. At least she had given him a foundation upon which to stand, and he could always find her later if he had a few hours to burn. Instead, she listened to him, wondering what it was like to grow up in such a place. Killing children surely wasn't beyond the gray female, though she had avowed only to do so in times of war anymore. Like that Aremys kid. No, he hadn't needed to die, but it was war, and Kaena and her brood had been looking to inflict as much terror and anguish on Aremys as possible.



    Kaena had always been the type to dwell in history; her mind was just a long, bloody trail of memories, long-dead and long-gone faces with half a name or no name at all attached. She did not feel as though she had seen too much, however; if that was true, she certainly would have wandered off of a cliff by now. The world was wide and an even longer, possibly more brutal future stretched forward in front of her. Anselm had discussed his history rather neutrally, displaying little overt emotion or feeling as he discussed his origins. "You're a stronger man for it," she said, very simply. It was true, and it held for almost everything in life: whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.



    There was an off-white smile across her scarred features for a moment, and she focused on the earliest part of his speech. "If there wasn't chaos where we were from, we wouldn't have ended up where we are. If your homelands hadn't been swept into a resource war, you would have stayed there. Maybe you wandered a bit while you're young, but if it was good and peaceful that place would be home, not Inferni," she rambled, unable to translate the thought in her head to verbal communication. At least Inferni was good. Even if it wasn't paradise rediscovered here, the coyote clan provided a stable home for the hybrids and coyotes who otherwise would stand alone or in tiny family groups against the wolves.