11-24-2009, 07:03 PM
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With a heavy heart, Dawali stood and watched his friend bound and run away from him. What had happened to cause this change in his friend, he did not know, nor did he want to know, but something was missing from Leland. Something vital. And for a moment there, it had been as if he had returned, as if his friend was behind that curtain of pain after all, and for a split second peered out at him. He had thought he heard a whisper before the husky turned and ran, but what the word was he would probably never know. In his heart he knew that if Leland ever returned, he would have to deny him a rank among them, but his heart told him that Leland would not return. That Leland would never return to any form of existence that was at all alike the person the Kalona had known, and that Asha had liked, perhaps loved. That Catherine had loved, perhaps? He didn't know. In a strange way, the red wolf male felt alone, and as the all-familiar sensation of Gvihita appearing on his right shoulder he sighed heavily and turned to walk home. For all the things he had ever experienced, he had never lost a friend to an uncertain fate before. He would not tell anyone — Leland's fall would be protected from exposure. He felt as if he owed him that. |