One please; Hades Beach.

The untrained eye wouldn't have seen the beach in its deserving form; to the clueless, Hades Beach was but a rocky and terrible shore, home to unforgivingly sharp stones at its edge and uncomfortable, grainy sand that stabbed the middles of toes rather than soothed or brushed between them like water. To the clueless, the beach was not a vacation spot, not a place for musing or getting lost in the caress of the ocean waves. It was simply another extension of Inferni territory, and suited as such: dangerous, uncomfortable, and unforgiving.

But to Razekiel, there was no such thing. It was as if the straw hue of his eyes were a filter; the bright-eyed boy could see things only in vivid and beautiful colors, find flowers were there were none, see sunshine when there was only rain. There was beauty in a dark, overcast sky just as there was beauty in the music of songbirds and the buzz of heat bugs in the hotter months; such things were long gone, however. Perhaps it was simply the change of seasons or the frightful territory itself, but songbirds were already absent and cicadas locked away -- Razekiel would be assured their presence only when the coming winter thawed and the warmer months were on their way. In the meantime, however, as much as he disliked the cold, the hippie liked the snow and its blanket. He liked the changing leaves and their dances on the winds of zephyrs; he liked the smallest, boniest squirrels as they hurried to find the last of their storage for the winter. He liked watching them, of course. Not eating them.

Oh, but Hades Beach! It was so beautiful, even in the winter -- the crash of the waves as the autumn winds pulled and pushed them to and fro were melodious to his dark-tinted ears. The numerous sharp pebbles coated in the sand were nothing against his calloused, thick-skinned and barren soles; the whip of the cold, ocean air was hardly noticed, although his thin, malnourished body was constantly wracked with tremors without the smiling boy's realization. He stood boldly in the water's crest, grinning at the tingling of his ankles and toes against the rush of the icy water. Joint in his mouth (the smoke of which vanishing fast in the busied wind), the hybrid extended his arms against the wind and ocean and beamingly exclaimed, "Oh, Father Ocean! Your waves are marvelous today! You are merciful to keep our land dry!" A strange one, Razekiel was.

I absolutely should not be taking moar threads, but I wanted this one badly and it is still lonely so I am taking it anyway. XD <3 And your post definitely made me smile!



    Had it been a month already?



    The hybrid could hardly recall individual days from these past four weeks. They were blurred with liquored-up days and black-out nights, nights she yearned for. During the day she had to keep some semblance of balance, some semblance of control—there was no doubt in the hybrid's head others were beginning to suspect something was up with her. She could hardly remember the Halloween party and Anselm's birthday, but the strange looks she'd received in the days following had not escaped her notice, even with a few drinks in her already for the day.



    Today, however, had been dreaded. Today was a merciless day. The hybrid had known this day would come, and she had feared it with every inch of her body and every ounce of her soul. Today was a dry day—and likely the first of many. Her alcohol supply was gone, and the hybrid woman simply did not have the guts to face the city again yet. She did not have it in her to slink past Dahlian territory; the only way to get to the city was by escort or by sea, stealing along the coast of the Valley pack and hoping she didn't run into anyone, keeping to the shallows. But even that would have required her to leave the territory, and Kaena Lykoi simply did not feel safe doing that.



    The hybrid meandered outside of her cave, breathing in the late fall air. Her golden eye roved the empty walkways between their caves, worn by the feet of Inferni as a collective. The hybrid woman paused just outside of her own domain, her yellow-gold eye roving over the empty area. The grasses had grown yellower and were beginning to die out with the coming winter. For her month in isolation, the hybrid woman did not look well. She had lost a few pounds, and her fur was slightly rumpled, but her expression looked somewhat better than it did when she had been drunk. Though she was now forced to deal with her feelings rather than drowning them, the broken part of Kaena had begun to mend itself back together again.



    Had it been a physical wound she suffered, the silvery hybrid would have been on her way and better again, but this was different. This cut deeper than skin and flesh and muscle and even bone, shattering something at the very center of the hybrid woman, evoking in her a quaking fear that had not been present in her for some years, not since she had been a small child. A sigh rattled her chest, and the coyote woman pressed forward, heading to the coast. A familiar scent sparked her interest immediately, and the hybrid stalked forward quickly, assuming that lovely spice to emanate only from two members of the clan—Anselm or Razekiel. Either was desirable as companionship at the moment, though the hybrid would have preferred the latter, seeing as how they hadn't quite had a chance to become acclimated to one another since his return. That was her fault—sort of. She hadn't come out to see him (or anyone) much at all lately. Trotting forward, the hybrid followed the scent, a voice calling out to her to confirm it was indeed her son.



    Kaena could only just make out the last bit of what he'd said, but coming upon the hybrid man standing ankle-deep in the cold water was a bit of a shock. Curiousity showed on her features in an instant, and almost uncertainly, the hybrid sidled over toward him. "Hello, Razekiel," the coyote called when she was within a few feet.

<33

The ocean had answered his praise with a welcoming, appreciative gust of wind and a rush of water over his calves. Razekiel breathed in the thick, crispy ocean air and cherished the taste of salt on his tongue, fond of its foreign and tangy flavor in the chilled wind, and smiled at the great sea with such admiration as if he was looking into the eyes of his father. That was wrong, of course; Razekiel hardly even knew his father. Actually, had the two even met? He couldn't seem to recall. From what he remembered of his mother's words when he was young, his father had not been much to remember in the first place, and that was that. Razekiel had hardly looked back on it since.

His mother, however, was a different story. At the sound of her voice, the red-faced prince's features lit immediately, her tone recognizable even under the heavy influence of drugs. The hybrid turned quietly and smiled at her as she approached, the boy mildly surprised but pleased that the woman had somehow managed to find him. "Well if it isn't the bright-eyed sunshine," Razekiel grinned, nonchalant with a crisp voice as always. "Father Ocean's really kickin' today, man. Here, let me keep you warm." The prince staggered a little closer and wrapped his arms around her, reeking of marijuana and shivering himself from the cold, although it was clear he didn't notice.

I didn't think he did.

Clearly he didn't realize how cold he was. As much as Razekiel loved nature and the ocean, he was still a living and thriving creature: nature's bite was not reserved only for the wicked. His body shook in terrible pangs; it was a wonder that he didn't notice it, but the boy's devotion to the world around him was just as overwhelming and plainly unbelievable. Razekiel himself was a creature of irony, the perfect prince of deceit he'd been born into. This title he no longer knew, long forgotten in the back of his mind, but the truth in the title was all but dead.

"Am I?" He laughed, lower jaw rattling as his jowls parted. "I'm just going with the groove, kahuna. It's Father Ocean's way of saying hello." He smiled, squeezing his embrace a little tighter without much more regard to the subject. He was flying high, unsurprisingly, and thus the bitter cold of the ocean and its visiting winds were of little business to Razekiel.

"The same reason the earth is our Mother," the straw-eyed prince responded as his mother drew near, rubbing at his arms in a feeble attempt to warm his stringy, thin limbs. Seeming not to notice, he simply smiled and held his arms around her, unfinished with their embrace. "Father Ocean and Mother Earth's been all I know for a couple years, man," he started, quickly dusting one of the thick tendrils of hair from his eyes. "They keep us alive, man. They let us live here. Humans took advantage of them and they got their just reward. Mother Earth and Father Ocean love us, man. They don't want to do that."

There was a pause as his smile twitched. "Besides, he's the only father I can remember, sunshine."

I'll PM them to you, then.

Razekiel grinned widely when his mother accepted his words. It was clear that the concepts mystified her, but even in his mellowed state the prince could understand that. Had he been in his youth, ideas like Mother Earth and Father Ocean and the wonderful world of colors and life around them would have been something he might have detested; younger Razekiel had been a destroyer, a hater, and thus nature and all its boundless beauty would have just been another thing he could have ripped apart to try and balance the angry, dark emotions in his head that he refused to release, unlike Samael.

Things had changed since then, of course. "My old group of buddies taught me that," the coyote smiled. "They called themselves Juniper Peace. I had a bad tumble-fall and they found me, man. I hated them but they wouldn't fly the coop, man. After some time they all made sense and I stuck around. It was a good time while it lasted, boss." He smiled openly, but it was clear that he wasn't saying the whole story: Juniper Peace was where he should have still been, but he was no longer the creature they had tried to make him be. Deep down, Razekiel Lykoi had always thrived; the second he hastened away from Juniper, the second Marsh became Razekiel once more.

He did frown, however, when his mother admitted to the killing. "Aw, sunshine, I'm disappointed," the prince admitted, his demeanor sinking just slightly. "We're all children of Mother Earth, man. We have no right to kill one another without real reason." ...The reason she gave, of course, not being killworthy in his head, somehow. "Peace and love, sunshine. We're not killing creatures. Killers are the damned sinners, man." The prince smiled some eerily crooked, unexplainable smile and flashed the peace sign as always.

"Home is where your heart is, man," the hybrid quoted, seeming to understand his mother's words clearly on the account of Oregon. He hadn't the slightest idea of where such a place was, but if he recalled correctly, Juniper Peace and its constant, wander-travels paced throughout southern Canada, along the country's border. They weren't cold-loving people, so-to-say, but they had many distractions from the cold that made its bite and nip much more acceptable. Razekiel decided to leave such details as unsaid, but smirked a little to himself boyishly as he recalled the good ol' days before everything had gone wrong. "Juniper was like living in another dimension, man. I didn't know people could be so chill. A lot more chill than both Infernis I remember, yeah?" A smile. Inferni hadn't changed since he was a child; leadership had switched and its placement moved, but the feel and legacy was the same. As peace-loving as Razekiel was, he was an Inferni creature: those that knew that would judge him as such. "You haven't told me why you left Inferni in the first place, boss."

He breathed in and exhaled deeply as she spoke, a hint of regret in the melancholy of her voice. "Nonsense, sunshine," the prince grinned his fangs, "the world's a big place, yeah? There's plenty of demons worse than yours. Besides, if Mother Earth doesn't mind me, than she's gonna love you, man."

    Her heart was certainly in Inferni, lurking in the legacy that she had crafted on the other side of the mountain. It mattered far less here, but this was still a living incarnation of the Inferni on the far side of the mountain range, birthed by Zarah and herself on Hell's Coast so many years ago. The hybrid smiled a little at Razekiel's proverb, her yellowy eye growing wistful. It had certainly been a hell of a long time. She could hardly believe she had been just three when Inferni was founded, and it was more impossible that she was breathing still.



    The coyote listened as Raze described his former home, curiosity on her scarred features. The Malai were similar, but that might have been due to their isolated location. The Siuslaw park's forest surrounded them for many, many miles all around, and butted up against the ocean, they really did not have many neighbors, though they were not completely free from drifters passing through the area, as Kae herself was evidence enough of that. "The way I see it, we're just trying to live these days," the coyote said, a hint of sadness in her voice. It was only the species' natural history; coyotes and wolves had been eating each other's children for many centuries before Inferni had been born. Part of her yearned for the old days, of lashing out without care for the consequence.



    "I took off after Astaroth and Eris. Shouldn't have done it, regretted it ever since," the hybrid said, gruffness apparent in her tone. It was a sore subject, and not one she often liked to explore. "No excuses for me," she said, tilting her head in Razekiel's direction with a small smile that was almost forgiving in nature. The youth were wont to wander, and in the end he had come back to her anyway. "Mother Nature's a pretty forgiving... woman, eh?" the coyote said, scrunching her muzzle up and wondering if this was correct. Nature was a woman, if she was a mother, but the hybrid had trouble wrapping her mind about these concepts.