a fever coming on.

Kaena Lykoi · 01-05-2010, 04:18 AM

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I knooooow. XD You inspired me, though! History is Kae's bug. ;; Word Count: 1098

Kaena herself had little in the way of a belief system. Her mother Delphine certainly had not imparted any religious wisdom on her; more accurately, the "beliefs" Kaena had gleaned from the coydog was a mutual love of violence, a predisposition for bloodshed passed on from Kaena's grandfather. Her father, on the other hand, had indeed spoken of religious idols, though his were of a world many centuries old. The Roman mythology that Andre taught Kaena was just that—mythology. He had presented it to his daughter as little more than stories, never bothering to impart on her any knowledge of a spiritual world or a scientific one. Andre seemed to prefer fanciful explanations for the way things were; he told her of how one god dragged the sun across the sky, and another ruled the sea. He told her of Icarus and flying too close to the sun, of Lupa, Romulus, and Remus. These ancient tales had sufficed as Kaena's bedtime stories, traditions passed down for many generations in the Lykoi wolf pack. The silver-furred hybrid had not continued these in her own children, finding it far more useful to impart upon them the teachings of war and battle. She was not a member of that pack, and she had no use for their history.

Hers was far more securely rooted here in Inferni, surrounded by her own family. This version of the Lykoi, wolf and dog and coyote blood all mixed into one, was Kaena's very own invention, as far as she had control in deciding her own parentage. She wouldn't have chosen it any other way, however; for all her hatred of wolves, red wolves—perhaps because she herself was one—were regarded with far less hostility than their larger cousins. There were legends of red wolves being descendant of coyotes anyway, some very-far reaching hybridization of the two species, and maybe Kaena took those stories to heart. That was her justification for it, anyway. It was the both wolf and the dog that had lent the silver-furred Centurion her stature and size, and likely a fair bit of her strength, as well. The Centurion's single eye still regarded her wet leg cautiously. The only strange effect from the water so far seemed to be a rise of steam; drawing her leg from the warmth of the spring and into the cold winter air had given it just a wisp of smoke not dissimilar to that billowing up around them. "Good. I guess that's what's causing the steam, then. Warmth in the cold air?" she responded to his statement about not drinking the water. Even if the warmth was the only thing that caused it to steam and smoke, the silver-furred coyote did not think it would be safe to drink.

"Agreed. We got enough wolves disrespecting our borders without them having a reason to act like tourists," she said, rolling her eye at the thought. The moments passed and Kaena's foreleg grew cooler, now feeling just plain wet rather than warm and wet, which was less comfortable. She considered dipping her leg in again, but instead contented to settle down to her haunches, resisting the urge to lick her leg clean. She'd have to wash it off in some fresh water before she tried to clean it off, for licking herself clean would surely defeat the purpose of not drinking the water. Snake seemed to wish to hear more of the clan's history, so the hybrid straightened up, settling herself comfortably on her haunches to continue Inferni's story. "Kidorah gave us our first real ranking system—before that it was just the Leader, Subleader, and subordinates," the hybrid said. It was a little more complicated than that—they did have a position for youths, though in Kaena's memory this position had only been held by Arlo Xyl himself. "She was succeeded by Segodi, who once again changed our ranks. Segodi led Inferni during a war with the Clouded Tears pack, but I don't know the details. I have had several gaps in membership here," the hybrid admitted.

"Segodi left after a year, I think it was, and left his friend Roane in charge. I ran into him on my way back to Inferni, and after I shared with him my history in Inferni, he left me in charge," the hybrid said. The next period of time was one she held quite strong memories about, far more than the brief detail of the other Inferni leadership. "A pack had settled to the south and one of the prior leaders had conceded a little bit of our territory, so when one of Inferni's allies, Hollow Nothing, came to me with a plan for his own vengeance, we decided to team up. We drove the pack away and took our land back." There was definite pride in the coyote's tone here, but it disappeared when she spoke again. "I left in the fall, and Gabriel took over the clan from there. This year will be his third in command. When the fires burned the former lands, he was the one to lead the clan to these new lands. Thanks to Anselm's knowledge of the territory, Inferni was the only group to survive this trip."

Now the hybrid was working off of what she'd gleaned from the others since arriving here, more from hearsay than anything else. "There was a war with Dahlia de Mai, begun by Dahlia's subleader. From what I was told, he killed a mother and her child on our borders," she said, clear contempt for Haku Soul, though she was still unwilling to speak his name aloud. A particular sort of fury and agitation flickered across her face, though she regained her composure after a moment, continuing. "Phoenix Valley gave the clan trouble, mostly 'cause they couldn't get it through their heads to keep on their own land." The silver-furred coyote was not particularly sore with the valley, though she had caught two of their wolves traipsing on Inferni's demesne herself. They had seemed to learn from their mistakes, anyway—it had been many months since they'd had trouble from the Valley or Dahlia, and things were eerily quiet for the usually drama-laden coyotes. Not that Kaena minded, anyway—after her own altercation with the chocolate-furred subleader, she was not interested in stirring more drama. "That'd about bring us to present day," the hybrid said, a faint smile on her coal lips. She raised her eyebrows, a sort of nonverbal way to prompt the dusty-furred canine to ask his questions, should he have any.

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