The mid-winter wind tore across the empty wastes of Drifter Bay, howling all the while. Finn took the brunt of it with not a few stumbles, her light weight and thin body did not make for a secure stance. Still, there was some enjoyment to be found in this place, where the air was fresh and clean and heavy with salt. The seabirds overhead were amusing to watch, struggling with the wind even more than Finn. Some tried to dive and wheel in search of prey, but more often than not they were driven to the ground with audible thumps as the gale gained mastery over them.
Finn looked out across the snow driven plains, towards the ocean. A storm was coming in, grey and black and blue as her coat, the clouds just as curly. Lightning forked from cloud to sea, and Finn could hear the distant rumble of thunder like a heartbeat. Though she disliked the cold, at times it was a necessary thing to remind herself that she was still alive. Picking up the pace, she loped through the low snow drifts scored with dune grass, making her way towards the beach. Finn liked the concept of the ocean, she liked to watch its many moods. But you couldn’t pay her with all the world’s love and money to make her willingly enter it.
She took in another deep lungful of breath, her sides expanding visibly, the skin stretching over the bones. She had put on a little weight since joining Anathema, but it was doubtful she’d ever look like anything more than a sack of sticks. She had always been that way, even when she was young. Her father had forced her to eat until she was almost bursting with venison and hare and turkey, but the next day her rotund belly would be gone and she’d be back to impersonating a walking skeleton.
Her brothers Aegnus and Brom were much bigger, but it was not their father’s genes they took after, but their mother’s. Cuhlain Fidh himself was rangy and lean as a whipped cur. She could still see his long, toothy maw, and pale yellow eyes watching, watching, watching as she went through drill after drift, spar after spar with her brother, until she committed everything to memory and moved as smoothly as the river. Those lessons had stuck more than anything else, and even now Finn found herself slipping into the repetitive motions, if only in her mind.
That state was what kept her alive, that half-consciousness, that muscle memory that allowed her to react without thinking, move without feeling. It was almost euphoric, and Finn well understood why she enjoyed fighting so much. When she fought, all the pain, fear, stress, anxiety and confusion drained out through her toes and she was unified. One wolf, one mind, one goal. The scars were worth it, just to achieve something close to enlightenment.
Meandering along the beach, Finn stirred at the shells and smooth little stones with her paws. She wondered what it would be like to fight on two legs, like the many luperci in her pack did. It looked ungainly, it looked unstable. At least as a wolf she had four legs on the ground, four points of contact. But luperci had advantages too. They could wield weapons which made all the difference in a fight. Finn considered turning back towards Anathema, and seeking out one of the warriors in her pack. Perhaps they would have pointers on how to fight a luperci successfully in a form such as hers. But the storm was getting closer and Finn enjoyed a good tempest, so she leaned back on her haunches and watched the clouds race towards her.