In mythology, Lethe was the river of mindlessness and oblivion. After a Greek had died, traveling to and through the Underworld, they could be granted entrance to the Elysian Fields and watch their life replay itself again and again for a thousand years. They would choose their next life, any life they wanted—and it was then that they would drink from the river water, erasing their memories. And so they would be reborn, clueless that they had chosen the new form they walked in: the eternal return.
Vesper knew naught of Greek myth, but she did entertain ideas of reincarnation and might accept the tale if it was given to her. The practice of religion itself wasn’t something that she especially cared for, though she knew that a fair number of members in the clan worshipped or followed the laws set forth by a god. All she knew was what she saw with her eyes and what reason suggested she believe in.
In her case, Lethe was only a river that cut into the caverns that made her home. When she was restless and wandered the caves, she could hear it bubbling lethargically, could nearly smell the cold water as she traveled through the darkness. Even now, the pale blue of her eyes only a rim around dilated pupils, she ventured deeper into Grimwell and pricked her ears toward the sound of the water. There were several tunnels branching off this main one she walked, too dark for her to feel safe heading near. If she had to die, she would prefer it be in daylight, her teeth fixed in someone—not in the dark because she happened to get lost.
Her paw fell upon something stiff and covered in a thin layer of softness, and with revulsion she jerked back and sniffed the rock-hard thing on the ground. Her tongue slithered from her jaws to touch it, and she snorted as she recognized it for what it was: a dead bat, fallen from its perch on the ceiling. It had not survived hibernation, for some reason, and she sniffed again for hints of decay before grasping the thing in her mouth. She was slightly repulsed by eating something already dead and in the dark, but she hadn’t eaten anything so far, and she wasn’t sure what her plans were for the day. She might as well get a chance to wolf down the bat now in case luck wasn’t on her side.
She squinted once she exited the caverns, letting herself get used to the warmth of the late winter sun. Her lithe, scarred body stretched, each limb balanced out in the air, her back arching and tail swishing. She was about to drop the bat down to eat it when she detected another coyote’s scent: male, Lykoi, and specifically a Helotes brand of Lykoi. The smell was explicitly intertwined with a female aroma, something familiar but apparently not enough for a name to come with the odor.
Curious, Vesper approached the smell and saw a small, dusty brown male reclining on the ground. He had the telltale splash of ginger on his head, too. Definitely a Lykoi, which didn’t surprise her, but her guess that this was a brother of Helotes and Columbine faltered. He didn’t look nearly as ferocious as his darker brothers.
“Hey there,” the pale tawny she-yote said, but the bat dropped from her jaws then, one wing unfurling. It was a sad sight, so tiny on the ground, and she could feel her stomach clench again with a hint of disgust. She pushed the irrational feeling aside—food was food—and cocked her head at the male with scarred brow arched. “So who are you?”
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