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The woman had woke up to meet the dark dawn, like every early morning, and after her usual hours of training, the woman had chosen to withdraw back inside of the once so majestic mansion in the southern area of the clan’s precious lands. Come spring, and there would be need for maintenance, the warrior decided as her palm brushed against the well-used banister, and there was the slight pain as the softness of the sensitive skin there was invaded by a modest splint from the old wood. A shallow frown drew up to dance about lips guarding the fine rows of pearly white teeth, but it was a laughable pinpoint of pain. Turning her palm upwards, her calm eyes decided that the splinter hadn’t jumped all the way in under her pale skin, and to remove the unknown piece of what been just a small part of an actual tree once brought only a drop of her precious red blood.
Salmon tongue leaped out between her dark lips to capture the taste; unwilling to curl her fingers and leave the inside of her palm stained slight read. She flicked the splinter away somewhere in the main hall next to where she stood, before she decided to continue her lazy climb up the stairs. While the hybrid’s growing children could be considered to be early birds themselves, they were an as accomplished as she. For years now, Halo had risen to meet the early morning, and in the darker season of the cold winter, she awoke hours before the sun. But the lovely faced woman was gifted with wondrous eyes, and it had never occurred to her that the lack of proper lighting was unbearable while she trained on her usual spot in the overgrown back garden. Every morning at the same time, and that was her little secret that granted her such shapely body. Slightly rounded, feminine curves to speak of her gender, and behind the exotic, silky hues of coppery hues lay hard-packed muscle. The Triarii was a canine petite in appearance, but she was outrageously strong for her size. Her fellow clan members knew, as well as many of the dead heads set to guard the Infernian borders with their empty eye sockets.
Opening the door slightly to sneak through the sparse space, scarlet shades immediately drew to the bed that was placed against the left wall in the middle of the room. Light had finally begun to bloom outside, and carefully, the woman stalked over to the window, making certain to avoid stepping on areas of the wooden floors that had been known to crack in protest to her modest weight. Old human houses were noisy, but she had lived her for so long and knew how to make her way through the large, hollow building without making a sound. This advantage held her above the rest of the mansion’s inhabitants. Fingers on both pale gloved hands rose to brush her heavy locks of auburn fully away from her face, as she peered out through thick layers of transparent plastic. All the mansion’s remaining windows had been shattered and blown apart during the blizzard that had swept through the lands soon one year ago. Halo had always been fond of the light her two windows had offered, and had come up with an acceptable backup for the broken glass. The plastic wasn’t perfectly transparent as glass might be, but it was enough to get a fair taste of the light once daylight hit these lands.
Returning to her bed and the lightly snoring children, she lay down beside their growing forms and let kind, maternal fingers idly brush through the pristine pelt of her little princess. How fine they were; flawless and precious beyond anything. Harmonizing colouration blooming from the combined hues of their parents, with matching eyes. Had their father been present in these lands, she doubted the rest of the clan had struggled with guessing who had helped her create these two lives. But it wouldn’t be natural for others to draw such crude conclusions, for the Lykoi blood ran thick in this clan and its members, and it was only natural for a child to inherit features seen in those one generation older than their mother and father. It was such a shame that the insane man wasn’t here to see what she had given him. The hybrid wasn’t certain if he would have cared at all about having fathered two more children amongst the growing horde, but she considered her legacy far superior to the more common trash that had come from countless rapes. They were all Lykoi in name, but that was just not good enough.
It wasn’t until midday that the woman finally decided to exit the mansion, again without the children. Soon, she would finally take them to the border and teach them about the importance of never crossing without an adult’s supervising eyes, but not now. She was horribly protective of her precious young ones, and with the increased chance of meeting hostility on the skull-lined borders, she couldn’t force herself to seriously consider bringing the children along with her unless she found no one to take care of them and the trip to the marked territory line was mandatory. It had yet to happen though, and she kept them around the house, to the children’s dismay. Oh, Halo knew she was overdoing it, but she couldn’t help it.
The sheathed sword rested in her hand for some moments before she strapped it on to her strong back; getting it out of the way for now. It had also proven to be favourable to hide the slender blade away for as long as possible if she was met with troublesome wolves. There was always the increased risk of trouble doers by the borders, but after the arrival of Symera, the young wolf that the Triarii had more or less unofficially adopted, fresh wolf heads had been impaled on top of newly sharpened sticks. The clan’s ways were well known to the wolf population in ‘Souls, and perhaps those who came to ridicule the coyote clan arrived with just a little death wish? Halo didn’t mind at all, for she was a creature that prospered in battle and found pleasure in violence. She was a fiery thing, with some angered fire always eating away her insides, and nothing felt better than to see her gleaming sword dive deeply through another’s skin and flesh.
The well-worn silk with the golden dragon against the red, eastern sky waved lightly in the muted breeze. Beneath the beautiful woman’s steady footsteps cracked the unbroken surface of last night’s new snow. She was splendid colours against the white and black of the winter scene they were set in, and easy to spot as she slowly patrolled along the fine lined borders, broken only by the grinning wolf skulls. As she passed each deceased wolf, subtle fingers leaped to brush against the top of a weatherworn skull, cracked and intact alike. Her beautiful guardians. Which one of these was her half-sibling? The scarlet eyed woman knew that it was here, somewhere, but once fur, skin and flesh rotted off, they all looked the same, and could not be distinguished.
But then, large, coyote ears were forced to stand attention on top of the female’s lovely head. The call belonged to a wolf, no doubt, for it did not have the cut, yipping characteristic that made it coyote. A stranger and a wolf. The corners of the cruel woman’s lips slowly curved, and the claws on her fingers scraped without kindness against the skull of a long deceased canine. Her form found purpose at once, and her pleasant stroll turned into something much more agile. As the unknown male had called out for members of the clan, it was expected that she wouldn’t come sneaking up on him. And she wouldn’t, for what use was there to even try when she was a moving dot of splendid colour against the pale, snowy landscape? She was quick and deadly, and there were other ways to deal with unpleasantness. Sneaking up with a sword in hand would have cut the moment short anyway, had she been successful, and that would have been rather dull, now wouldn’t it?
It was hard to detect him against the white. The wolf held shades unfavourable to her. White and gray. But once her ruby lit eyes had found his form, they stayed locked to their target. Thin dark lips had long lost their unconscious smile, and now instead withdrew to offer the trespasser a long glimpse of her sharp teeth. The nameless man’s scent was drawn in by hungry nostrils, and he lost favour immediately as she recognized the scent of his pack. Months had stretched long and made news old, but Inferni had lost at least one of their members by the Anatheman borders. The clan member that had been lost had been stupid and worthless in Halo’s eyes, but it didn’t make it all right for anyone to end his life. Especially not if they weren’t offered a wolf’s life in return. The black pupils in her blood-red eyes shrank as she pondered these thoughts, hungrily.
And the pale man was not alone. It was easy for her to guess him to be some sort of a trader. What a fool. This meant free stuff for everyone, right? Scarlet hues washed over the stallion. The horse was fully loaded with wares, and would because of this be easier to take down, and if it was to try to run away, she was fairly confident she would be able to catch up, as the herbivore was carrying a rather heavy load. And he had even brought a child. Halo’s own children could get to play with its skull after she was done with it.
”What is your purpose for showing your ugly face here?” the woman growled, not caring to cloak her open hostility. Her clawed fingers flexed with rude intent, but she wasn’t about to go in for her first kill yet.
Your faith walks on broken glass
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