they whisper words into my ears.

[Shakadyn]

[html]

and who's to blame; i could assume the loneliness of my white room Shakadyn was most certainly not the type to sit in snow — no, he'd chosen a vantage point that was bare of it. Down this way the trees were few, and it was difficult to tell if they were dead for the winter or dead permanently. Certainly the latter theory fit better with the picture of broiling low clouds flirting with mirrored skyscrapers; indeed, pollution from an age ago looked to be having an effect on the landscape even still. Don't be so dramatic, he reminded himself. There are lighter clouds everywhere — and Mother Nature seemed to be taking a new foothold here, slowly but surely. It'd be a long time, but unless humans returned or werewolves chose to rebuild it, the city would one day be run over and destroyed by greenery. It gave him further pause. Someone(s) had told him stories about it twice. Canines themselves were a lot like humans had been, or so the tales had said. Many had submitted to superior figures. Bosses, celebrities, gods... like pack wolves to their alpha. He sighed. Of course, there'd been an expression for humans like him, too, one that he only made literal. An errant philosophing thought told him that it was fate, destiny and order — they'd been meant to inherit the earth from day one, humans were only a glitch in the system. He squished that thought abruptly. The very concept of fate was... well, it was understandable, but only because he made a point to understand things from different angles. The universe was governed by chaos (he remembered that thing about butterflies and tornadoes and whatnot), and didn't anyone who believed in fate ever find it unsettling that, according to such a belief, they couldn't make a single decision for themselves? Actually, a pattern much the same was followed in packs. That was why he was a lone wolf. ... Canines inheriting the earth. He'd bet that the humans of higher rank had never expected themselves as individuals to fade so completely, and that the lesser of them had lived their lives in fear of it. (He shook his head. Sex was for pleasure. Children happened just so people actually remembered their parents.) Well, they weren't inheriting much earth at the moment, but if all of his thoughts applied to humans and wolves equally, at least they were carrying on a psychological legacy. Finally he was distracted from his broken, abstract thoughts by a hint of movement far to his right. (A delicate sixth sense was easy to develop if you were a Shakadyn.) His ears perked unconsciously as he turned his head to regard the she-wolf or, forgiving his less-than-ideal eyesight, what he thought was a she-wolf, with his pale eyes.

[/html]