Words: 500+
Coli had only been accepted to the pack a little while ago, and yet she was already straying... The slender girl let her hand trail against the cold surface of the building she stood before, her warm blue eyes wandering up the wall she considered scaling. It would be a foolish venture, she decided, and instead stepped softly through the snow along its length. She did not know the building was a university; a place where humans had once flocked to learn, to mature, to better themselves. All she knew was that the edifice was strangled by vines of ivy, and that plant life was fascinating to her. Winter had all but killed the flora on the outside, but through the cracked windowpanes, Coli could see the vegetation indoors merely had a little frostbite damage. If she could claim this place as her home, she would have gladly. But alas; it was too far from Dahlia de Mai's borders, and she had promised to remain with her dear friend Cercelee, even at the cost of Haku and Firefly's violent hatred.
Haku... She could never keep the twisted male far from her thoughts, try as she might. Every reflection she glanced at held his face for her - she looked uncannily similar to him, with the warm chocolate-brown fur, melting into the soft cream-toned underside, licking up her throat, down her belly, to the tips of her toes... From a distance, she knew she could even be mistaken for him, albeit a shorter, younger, more feminine version. He had apparently kept her a secret from all who had known him - she had been an accident to begin with, and then to top things off, he had left her for dead more than a year ago... She shivered from the haunting recollection. It was something she had never been able to get over, something that was constantly etched into her thoughts and actions. She had become a fearful, withdrawn shell of a woman, choosing the companionship of plants over other wolves. "Pathetic" was the word her stepmother, Firefly, slung around so frequently in her direction. She wasn't wrong.
"And now, to be a sister... What does it mean, to have younger siblings...?" she mused aloud, her voice hesitant and soft in the deafening silence. There wasn't much wildlife in the abandoned human district - aside from a smattering of solitary birds, the werewolf was by herself. She bit her lip, worry written across her delicate features. Now that she was accepted into the pack, wasn't she expected to participate in her family's comings and goings...? Shouldn't she play some role in her newborn brothers' lives, despite the fact that she had been disowned...? She had always wanted a family of her own; children to raise and to love unconditionally, although now she felt too emotionally crippled to love anyone or anything. She didn't even know about Haku's other illegitimate offspring - only that this was his first official litter, since he had finally taken a mate (one younger than his firstborn daughter, she added bitterly). "Is family supposed to be this screwed up?"
