Shot Through The Heart

Vesper · 01-25-2012, 12:32 AM

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you know life should be beautiful,
so come on out of your shadows for a while

SSWM Word Count → 840 :: Holy crap this is long sorry ;__; I wanted to get out some extra words for SoSu and got carried away. And much for not being melodramatic, Vessie-poo.

Vesper pricked her ears in disbelief and concern as the dark wolf explained her adoptive mother was the only reason she’d stayed in Crimson Dreams. Soran must have been a caring wolf for Blind to feel about her the way she did, and to give up freedom in order to stay close—not that Ves had ever experienced something like that. Or—perhaps once, when the young coyote band’s leader had neglected and abused his groupies, and the she-yote only found herself giving a damn because of, surprise surprise, a pretty girl. But she’d actively done something about the group before needing to flee with blood on her paws.

There was no way that she could understand what Blind had been feeling, with a pack she didn’t truly belong in rooting her to the spot. She couldn’t know how hard the girl had tried and how cold her comrades must have been to not make her feel welcome, or if it had just been something that could have been worked out. She simply couldn’t know.

The phrasing on the last statement made her flatten her ears against her angular head and draw back a little, glancing down into the mismatched eyes in confusion. “When you thought of me?” she asked, prompting her to explain while she was worried about the answer. What had she done to urge the young she-wolf to take flight? She remembered Blind honestly telling her that she’d instilled something in her—but causing her to tear away from her home wasn’t something that she had wanted unless Crimson Dreams really was a distant place. And in that case, why hadn’t Blind come to her?

Because you told her you didn’t want to go with her, fool, a sneering voice retorted, its teeth dripping with acid. What the hell else was she supposed to do?

Giving her head a shake, her mangled ear flapping against her skull, Vesper smothered the tiny ball of self-resentment. She had promised herself long ago that she would put herself above all but a select few others. There was no point in being the type of wolf to glare daggers at their own reflection and wish to be taken from the world they did not deserve. She had never been at that level, but her flaws were rearing their ugly heads. A creature of pride bordering on sheer arrogance, she could tolerate her own defects only briefly. It was much easier to ignore them and live life how she wanted to.

If only she didn’t care so much.

She almost sighed before the dark wolf skittered backwards, eyes fixed on the ground. The sudden movement had the hybrid’s patchwork fur standing on end, and she wondered what had prompted this shift in behavior. Take your pick, the voice replied snidely, and once again she drove her thoughts back with bared teeth.

Blind protested suddenly, ears flattened, her body regaining control of itself though her emotions were as wild as before. Her words planted another seed of guilt, but logic halted whatever quiet sympathies the coywolf was about to share. Instead, anger welled up inside of her, and she took a step back and lashed her tail.

“How?” Vesper demanded—one word, yapped out harshly. Her claws dug lightly into the frosty soil, and a skinny branch rattled as a cardinal took flight from it, startled by the hard sound of her voice. “We can make things better—how, Blind?”

She did not need a sarcastic little voice telling her that she was being impossible at the moment. But she refrained from a more biting tone, and she kept the distance between them for safety’s sake rather than cruelty. Her jaw clenched, the muscles in her face fighting to keep her expression in check.

“I don’t know what to do,” she hissed out, her ears pulled back tightly. “I didn’t know what to do even before you left.” Oh, the sleepless night after their last reunion had been torture, all of those lovely images replaying through her head, her mind dancing through the alternatives—what if she had said this, done this—and she’d thought she would fall asleep happy until the stressful realities put her fantasies in check. “All I know is that I’ve never had a friend like you, and that some of my clan mates would not hesitate to cast me out if they knew I—” Deep, shuddering breath. Regaining some cool. You’re acting the fool all over again, Ves. “If they knew I was consorting with some wolf.”

Her voice growing firm again, the tension in her body relaxing into something fluid and controlled, Vesper wanted to snatch back those last words. She would not throw away Inferni so easily, would not paint the fire clan into the same violent picture others did. But the divide still lay wide and unsurpassable before her. She could never invite Blind into that part of her life. She could not promise her safety in her home. And it was a shame.

coding by Raze; image used with permission from northcry

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