Word Count :: 383
The silver-shaded woman had been changed in an irreversible and deep way in that library, and she was not keen to return to the place where that life-altering thing had happened. Dead and buried as he was, Haku's fangs continued to be buried in the old woman's shoulder, that old and thick knot of scar tissue across her collar that he had drawn blood from more than once. She had known real fear, deep and terrible and paralyzing fear, and old as she had been, this was not something she had experienced before. She had not feared Salvaged in such a way, and everyone else she might have feared in such a way had died at someone else's hand before she learned to fear them.
The hybrid liked more than anything that Kesho had returned to Inferni, even if it was different from the one he had departed from and filled with hybrids, wolfish ones at that. It was good to have a companion somewhat close to her own age; she no longer felt like an anomaly. She and Kesho had experienced quite a lot in their days, and that they still walked the earth was a good sign, to say the least. “Yeah -- no sense tiring you out by making you shift twice,” the hybrid said. “I like fighting in my Secui form -- it's heavier than the other two, and the claws can be dangerous,” she pointed out. “That goes for opponents and yourself, of course.”
“You're bigger for an Optime,” the silver-shaded woman pointed out, grinning at the height difference between herself and Alyssum. The Hastati easily had ten inches on Kaena, if not more—the scarred woman had never been known for stature, after all. “If you're fighting someone of my size, use it to your advantage. You've got a lot more reach than me, so you can take swings at my head more easily than I can,” she said, stepping forward toward Alyssum and illustrating this by more clearly defining their difference in height. The silver-shaded woman stepped back and continued speaking, touching her own stomach to illustrate the point. “Be careful and protect your stomach. You don't have to do that in Lupus or Secui and it can be harder to remember in Optime,” she warned.
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