our flesh & blood has found me in your arms.

[Kaena Lykoi]

[html]

http://digital-bonsai.com/katew/rp/kae/kae_bloody.jpg); background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:fixed; padding-top:230px; padding-left:15px; padding-right:15px; padding-bottom:10px;">     There was understanding and acceptance from Kaena when her children chose to wander, but then again, such was the knowledge of any canine mother. Their young generally wandered far from home, and it was a rarity that they returned to their birthplace. She'd been lucky many, many times before, and she wondered if perhaps she would be so lucky as to see some of the others again, the ones she hadn't seen in many years. Conway had been gone nearly three years, never to return following his departure when he was just a year old. She wondered if he was still alive, but the grizzled hybrid figured the other side was too much for him. She had heard fantastic things about what went on over there, whole cities of canines living and working together in close proximity as humans had once done. It was a striking, disturbing thought to the woman, and she could not imagine willingly placing herself in such cramped, super-social living conditions.     The raptor's eye watched Samael, softened imperceptibly in the presence of her child and her child alone. It had lost that edge of fierceness, faded in the quiet tranquility of Samael's proximity. There was comfort and love here, radiating between them; the hybrid could no longer distinguish it from that permeating odor of desire from the tawny canine at her side. He spoke, and there was the slightest sigh of relief from her chest. Maybe that wall between them had always been there, but Gabriel seemed a hair colder to her on their last meeting. Perhaps he truly had tired of cleaning up her messes; the thought frightened the Lykoi woman, but she figured she was done making them. "I'm here to stay," she murmured, a pleased rumbling sound emitting from somewhere deep in her chest.     Kaena Lykoi could do nothing about dying. It was inevitable; the end was simply unavoidable. She could prolong its arrival, certainly, but she could not stave off death forever. The hybrid was aware of some slight change, something suddenly different about the demon beside her. He spoke, his words just a whisper above even the quiet breeze brushing through the twilight that had fallen over the beach, and Kaena had to strain to hear him, cocking one sable ear toward her honey-furred son. There was something else, and his face was against her chest, some strange shake coming from within him. Even the grizzled hybrid herself was confused for a brief moment, failing to understand what was taking place.     The coyote woman placed one hand over his back, her warm palm firmly pressing into his flesh as if to quiet his trembling. She leaned forward with her roan-splashed muzzle, her pink tongue extending to gently lick away the salty tears flowing down the tan cheeks of her son. "I promise," she said, fiercely whispering this phrase into the downy fur of his neck, clutching him to her with that same fire. The scarred muzzle of the old coyote nudged and nuzzled his neck, her fingers stroking his back gently to quiet the flood of emotion that had erupted from him. She did not know it was for her inevitable death, but mistakenly for her long absence and the time they'd been apart, the wasted years.

thanks to james for the header image[/html]