500+ words.
####It was not as if he had any choice in what would happen to him next. Vigilante knew that he could not fight back against his niece. He simply did not have it in him to even try, a result of the blow from her enraged words. He had known that the young woman would be angry about her mother’s death, and he had been feeling the guilt of it since the day that it had happened. His birthday, which had never held any importance to him when he was younger, would forever be a day of mourning for him. The part that came as a surprise was that nothing had changed, but he could not say he actually expected them to. Everything that he had done and everything that had happened had been predetermined by the Elders of his pack, but there was no way that they could possibly predict the outcome of anything that they told him to do. Only those involved could determine that, and though he had known deep within that nothing would change in his nephew as a result of his mother’s death, Vigilante had done his required job anyway. There was no way that he could change what was going to happen; once the Elders told him what to do, the malamute-shepherd did not have any choice but to do his job. No matter how much it had pained him to take his good-hearted sister’s life, they had both known that he had no choice, and that was why she had been so willing and happy to let him to do. It had been painless for her, but he had been wrenched by the pain for so long. . . He wanted the guilt and the hurt to go away.
####Something else that she said, though, seemed to be of a greater importance. There was no denying that his niece had always been a bit off center, especially with her absurd amounts of unfound ailments, and that she was now apparently crazier than ever, but surely she did not believe she was dead. With her claws sinking into his flesh, however, it seemed like a bad idea to argue with her.
“Who killed you? Why?” he asked, genuinely concerned. He knew that he had caused her a great deal of pain, but he did not understand what she was saying. Lolita was alive before him, but certainly not well, and she seemed to believe that she was dead, and that he had been the cause of her demise. There were many things that he had done in his past that he did wish that he had done differently, but he could not fathom what he might have done to cause his niece to believe that she was dead. There were many things that he could, and would willingly, take the blame for, but this was not one of them. Lolita was crazed and currently had the upper hand, however, as Vigilante would not fight back against her. He could only hope that she made this a quick attack and that she did not plan to kill him and leave him here. Ayita didn’t deserve something like that to happen to him, for her sake. . .