03-10-2008, 10:50 PM
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Death was nice. Omoi Aika had never really feared death, especially in the wisdom of her later years, and she had died a good death with her daughter at her side with only a handful of regrets trailing in her wake. In death, she re-found joy. Her mate, her lover, her other half was there, along with a good number more of her children than she would have cared to see so soon. And there were others, those claiming to be the family she had scarcely known, the family she had parted from as little more than a child and who were mere ghosts in her memory. Hell, they were all ghosts now she quickly discovered, and that was fine by her.[/html]
Some time after her death, a case of ghostly boredom led Omoi to find her shade wandering the lands where she'd died. From the looks of things, the land had proved one of those rare fertile breeding grounds for the members of her kind - at least, packs of no mean size left their mark on the landscape. Omoi went north, to find the lands where she had once reigned alphess. They were much changed. Storm had swallowed up what parts had still been habitable, and the rest had turned to a dusty wasteland. A far cry from the bursting landscape she'd first encountered coming north, looking for a place to shelter in her old age. The land had only begun to deteriorate when it was Shadowed Stars, she saw that now. Mordulin had been wise to heed her mother's council and move the pack, for there was nothing left now but dry earth, dead broken trees, and ancient ghosts.