Wolf blood didn't automatically condemn a soul—Kaena was far more protective of Inferni and her family than she was a vicious wolf-hater now that she was older and somewhat wiser. Still, there was absolutely no doubt that the grayscale mixed breed seriously disliked wolves, and needed little provocation to show one some fang and fight. Her thoughts turned to Skylar and DaVinci—had they met under better circumstances (i.e., when the idiots weren't trespassing on clearly marked, bordered Inferni territory) Kaena would have been friendly, if cautious—just as she was now with Talon. After all, both of those canines clearly had coyote blood in their veins. Hybrids could always be swayed to Inferni's cause—if Cour des Miracles did not survive the test of time as so many wolf packs did not, Talon might eventually end up an Inferni member. Indeed, Talon was intelligent enough to stay off of claimed land when he wasn't expressly invited, so that put him in far better standing than either Skylar or DaVinci from the one-eyed hybrid's perspective.



    He didn't seem to have much to say in response to her attitude regarding packs and he information she'd given about Inferni and living in it; then again, she hadn't exactly revealed a great deal of knowledge to Talon. The wolf looked down over the edge as she had, and delivered the same sort of guarded response the coyote had given him. Talon hadn't pried after that, but the hybrid knew a little about his pack, and she wondered if he was speaking of Cour des Miracles or of wolf packs in general. "Nobody's got it perfect yet," she allowed, which was the closest thing to revealing a flaw in Inferni's system. Truth be told, Kaena would have had to search hard to find one anyway. She held the clan in high regard, and she would have had to look hard even with a gun to her head.



    The wolf's gaze fell onto Kaena, and he felt her study her, just as she'd taken in his raven-feathered coat and his weapon, which he'd kindly laid to the side. That action finally put Kaena almost completely at ease, though there was definitely a part of her which was still quite wary of the wolf at her side. Still, she'd managed to have civil conversations with creatures that had come quite close to killing her before—Kiriska echoed on her mind, that raven-furred wolf who'd nearly torn her throat out. They'd met again, what felt like eons after their original, nearly-fatal encounter. Kiriska had been with one less limb, and Kaena had been starving half-to-death and broken-hearted. It was the same kind of conversation she'd entertained with Jael—one that questioned every belief at the core of her being. In the end, Kaena could not change, no matter how illogical her beliefs and behavior seemed at times. There was simply no pattern to her actions; she was a completely random creature. His question drew her attention away from thoughts of long-dead wolves she'd kind-of, sort-of befriended—or at least, tried not to kill.



    This was a subject she was more than happy to divulge information about, and she turned her shoulder toward him to provide a better view. In the same respect, it was a gesture of trust; it exposed the Lykoi woman's heart squarely to the male. If he had concealed something and was planning on pulling a fast one on her, now would be his opportunity. The hybrid was prepared, howevever, and her eye never left Talon's face, searching it for the slightest shift in his emotions, any indication he was about to strike. Most creatures had a tell of some sort, something which proclaimed they were about to attack. Salvaged's had been his eyes. They always widened just the slightest bit, or so Kaena thought. She would run, if it was the case. Her lupus form was likely faster than his two legs anyway, and she could probably beat him to Inferni at a sprint anyway.



    The ash-colored hybrid spoke, her gaze still on Talon. "My tattoo is a chaos star. I chose it to represent my family, the Lykois," she said, her tone both possessive and proud of her family—it was, after all, completely made up of her progeny. She had been the first to bear it, though certainly she was not the last—many of her children held this same bloody red mark, though they each were given the choice whether or not to wear it. "The points are the many ways chaos pulls us from the center," she explained further, wishing she had shifted so she might use her fingers to illustrate the arrows and the ring at the center of the tattoo. This ring was right over her heart, a personal memento to Kaena that she was a slave to discord.



    "Some of my family wear it, others don't," she said, a hint of sadness creeping into her voice. Most of her children had never had the opportunity to get their chaos star—the practice had only been started on her third surviving litter, the one that had given her Ahemait, Razekiel, and Samael. Gabriel's litter was almost a year and a half by the time Ahemait's litter got their tattoos, and she hadn't even been around to offer Rachias, Arkham, and Andre. The hybrid wondered if Eris would have accepted her Lykoi heritage; such a move by the sable girl would have been a step in the right direction in Kaena's perspective, anyway. It didn't separate her entirely from her Eternity blood, but it was a conscious choice of Lykoi, and the coyote hybrid saw that decision fell along the same lines as the one that had befallen Jael, Halo, and Enigma. They could have lived in whatever godforsaken hole their mother had whelped them in, but they chose to seek out Inferni after Vitium kidnapped them and set them loose on the world. It was this same choice which helped to condemn DaVinci and Skylar. They had made the choice to live as wolves, yet they showed no respect for the borders of their cousin species. She wondered, briefly, if the packs had such problems like that, and made a mental note to ask Talon , if the opportunity arose.



    The chrome hybrid had wondered about his attire previously, and since he had asked a question, she thought she could return the favor now. "I've never seen anything like that before," she said, indicating the raven-feather cloak with a toss of her tapered coyote head. "Did you make it?" The curiosity was clear in her voice, and for the first time, Kaena seemed truly friendly. All external signs of stress and wariness had evaporated from her demeanor, and the coyote seemed quite settled and at ease, her eye regarding him with interest instead of caution.

    The canine supposed she had no real reason to be surprised by the hybrid's friendliness; he was wary and businesslike at first as she was, and it seemed once they realized neither was in the mood for troublemaking, they were able to relax. Kaena had just been in a scuffle with that pesky Phoenix Valley wolf, DaVinci, and she was in no mood for a repeat of that match so soon after round one had ended, especially not with an armed canine such as Talon. He was a spry young buck himself, and sooner or later the hybrid realized, her fighting days would have to end. That thought left a bitter sourness on her tongue.



    Though the Miracles wolf hadn't moved closer to her, Kaena still kept a wary eye on him at all times. She was ready to bolt back into Inferni at a moment's notice—the skull decor of the border was not more than several hundred yards away, and it would take only a sprint before she was back into Inferni's stronghold. Running away was never the first option, but here she was clearly outmatched by the bow alone, nevermind whatever other tricks Talon might have hidden behind that crows' wing cloak. The ashen hybrid hadn't completely dropped her guard, and she pointedly kept her blind side facing the tiny, stunted tree, the good side facing Talon. The Lykoi matron's blind eye was a sensitive area, and one she did not take kindly to being violated.



    There was a brief grin on her lips as he acknowledged her, and she remembered the question that had popped into her head. "You've lived in packs a long time?" she began, wondering how she might phrase her inquiry. "Do you get wolves from other packs who just... cross your borders?" She was highly interested to know if any of the packs suffered the same lack of respect Inferni did, especially Cour des Miracles. Maybe whole-blooded packs showed them disrespect because of who their leader was; maybe Jacquez's dog blood was just as despicable to some wolves as coyote blood. The hybrid was curious, and she looked at Talon, showing only interest in her scarred features.



    "To say the least," the Lykoi said with a genuine smile, the wry thing twisting her charcoal lips. She loved her family—but she knew they were screwed up, and she knew a lot of them were hard to love. Even the ones who were outsiders to the bloodline now, like Vitium, even part of Kaena loved him and always would. "I chose it to represent us," she added. The Lykoi genes as they existed here were exclusively her progeny—she had no surviving siblings and her closest relatives were almost whole-blooded wolves, and they were almost surely unaware of her existence, unless Brennen had returned to Maine after his departure from here years ago.



    The ashen hybrid listened to Talon, and not surprisingly, her thoughts turned to Marlowe. The crow had been part of Inferni, and he'd been quite useful, especially during the Aremys war. The hybrid Lykoi nodded at him, finding the idea that he'd wanted to be a crow rather interesting. "Why did you want to be a crow?" she asked, curious. The feathers shimmered blue-black underneath the silver light of the moon, and she admired the coat again before her gaze returned to Talon.

In Character
    The coyote seemed far calmer now that the other hybrid hadn't made any kind of move toward her. She had exposed her most vulnerable part to him, her heart, and he had simply politely sat there. He might have chosen the life of a wolf, but it didn't completely obscure his hybrid blood, and Kaena could forgive him. After all, Cour des Miracles was alright in her mind. Jacquez had been pleasant and kind to her, and this coyote-wolf was not so bad himself. At least he was interesting and at least he wasn't spurting garbage about how she had chosen the wrong side or some other such nonsense. Kaena was forgiving enough now to understand higher percentage hybrids and the drive to be social; it had goaded her to establish Inferni, hadn't it?



    The ashen hybrid nodded, having little to contribute in the way of parents. She didn't know her mother beyond a vague face and endless babbling, things she'd only made sense of when she'd met her father and he'd whisked her away, her wolfen rescuer and savior killed just months later. There was almost pain on Kaena's face for a moment; Andre was long dead, but she still thought of her father often, and the knowledge he'd given to her was far from useless. Andre's lips had first given her the word inferni, and here it was, nearly seven years following its inception, still strong. "Curious, but why a pack?" she asked, knowing she was prying now. The question could have been "why not Inferni?" but she thought for once it was respectful to be less blunt; perhaps Talon had some deeper tie to Cour des Miracles than most wolves seemed to have for their pack.



    The coyote listened as he spoke of crows, cocking her scarred head to the side as she listened to him speak of flying, the tips of her canines showing as she smiled, though it was not a derisive one to the idea of flying. She was unfamiliar with wanderlust; when she had left her home, it was usually because tragedy had driven her from it. But she understood the desire to do the impossible—like living forever, for example. Part of Kaena desperately yearned for eternal life, some spring of youth or some vampiric curse which would condemn her to wander the earth forever. This admission of Talon's reminded her of another story she'd known when she was a child, a bedtime tale her father had told her. "Ever heard the story The Fall of Icarus?" she asked him, hardly giving the younger canid time to reply before she began her story.



    "Him and his father lived under a tyrant, and his father planned for them to fly away, so he made wings of wax and feathers. They tried to fly away, but Icarus flew too close to the sun," she said, hardly recalling the details from her youth. It was one of those things like the ancient words she knew, remnants of a society immensely older than even she, queen of the walking dead. "The sun burned his wings, and Icarus fell to the sea and died." It was a strange story and an ominous one, but maybe it would save Talon some trouble later in life if he got the urge to fly again. Either that, or inspire him to try it himself.

mall-caps;">In Character

    The canine's answer was hardly cryptic, and he must have seen her true question anyway, because he responded with the answer she had wanted to hear anyway. Her canine teeth showed in a grin, liking that Talon was perceptive enough to have picked up on it. Many wouldn't have. There was no denying that she was full of hate, but Kaena generally didn't have without reason—sure, she had her bad days when she picked fights without reason, but the days of the reckless Kaena Lykoi were long over. With direction and purpose in her life, the Lykoi woman was far less keen on the "nothing matters" philosophy of life. "I don't believe I've ever hated anyone who didn't damn well deserve it," she said, ice coating her tone. There was a difference between hate and the simple derision she showed most wolves. Hate was goading, hate drove its possessor to do something about it. Hate had driven her to return here after her first departure; if it weren't for that bastard Salvaged Eternity she probably never would have returned here, save perhaps years later to see if Kerberos had become anything.



    His reaction to her story was expected; there hadn't been too much of a point in sharing it, other than to share it. She hadn't intended to dishearten him, but it was the only thing she could say in relation to what he'd shared. The marred hybrid had never been given to wild flights of fantasy such as Talon's crow obsession, nor thoughts of flying. Her imagination had died in her childhood, taken from her by her flesh and blood, the half-brother who had stolen her youth in one swift motion. She only offered him a half-hearted shrug, lifting one coal-dusted shoulder to him as her attention diverted to a small fox, creeping silently a just a few feet below them. He was trying as hard as he could not to be seen by either of the two larger predators, and Kaena allowed him to pass, though she was often given to slaughtering their small, distant cousins, a hypocrisy she failed to realize. It was the very same persecutions of coyotes by wolves which drove her to rage and hatred in many cases, though Kaena did not kill them for their smaller stature. She had long been inclined to stranger appetites, both for sustenance and satisfaction, and foxes were a delicacy she thoroughly enjoyed.



    His next words surprised her; they were seemingly unrelated to their prior tangents. There was a long pause as the Lykoi thought about it. She had certainly held many lives in the palm of her hand, but it was not her tendency to save them, especially if she put them in such a fragile state. Ahemait floated to mind, and she recalled that bastard Storm wolf who had nearly stolen her and she almost growled out loud, though she stifled it into a sharp, short sigh. Whoever said hate was unnecessary, whoever said her hate for wolves was unwarranted? "No. I have only held one life in my hand that was worth saving, and I could not save her alone," the coyote said. She thought of Fatin, and ached dully, missing the cinnamon she-wolf whenever the two were apart. She had been hurting a long time now.