09-14-2009, 10:30 PM
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| http://digital-bonsai.com/katew/rp/kae/kae_jaws.jpg); background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; background-position:fixed; padding-top:221px; padding-left:25px; padding-right:25px; padding-bottom:10px;"> -- The summer was gone, fading fast as fall stormed in with September. The leaves on the trees were not yet dying, but the whole green earth had taken on a faded, yellowy quality, some of the earlier-blooming species of flora dying out with the end of August. Already, there were graying patches of earth here and there, well-worn summer trails that had already pounded the grass to nothing. The hybrid woman followed one of these prey trays out of Inferni, heading North for a long time. She avoided the coast, as the last time she'd been up this way she had stuck to it like glue, walking only a few feet over. Now, she was a good distance from the water, though she could faintly hear the call of the waves in her ears. The hybrid coyote had always been attracted to the ocean and the sea, it would seem. She had been raised along the coast, remembering in her youth the faintest sounds of the ocean's waves, though she'd never seen the Maine Atlantic in person. The hybrid woman was shifted into her Lupus form, her four legs carrying her in the quick trot of the coyote. This was her preferred form for distance travel; it did not offer the speed of her Secui form, but the endurance it provided was unmatched by either of her other potential transformations. So she walked, her head bobbing with each step, all traces of the limp gone from her figure. It had been nearly two months since she'd encountered Haku, though she had smelled his scent by Dahlia de Mai, something which was immensely troubling. Hadn't she put him in the ground? That was particularly bad for the woman; no doubt there would be retribution for her actions. Still, for once in her goddamn life, she was not to blame for the violence that had befallen her. She had not sought it out; indeed, she would have been completely willing to trade information with him and pass along on her merry way. He had attacked her, and the hybrid woman had felt it absolutely necessary to defend herself. The silvery canine wandered forward, coming across what appeared to be some kind of farm. She tilted her head to the side; most of the fields where there should have been crops were dead or dying, the sunflowers that had filled the field dying or already dead. The coyote was intrigued; most of the brilliant yellow plants were long-dead, their bright golden metals withered to brown, their stalks bending with the weight of their dead heads dipping down toward the ground. The silvery woman looked around, her single eye peering around at the open spaces around here. She had passed by the area once or twice before, but the hybrid woman had never bothered to stop and give a closer look until just now. She wandered forward, heading toward the empty, dirt ground where the sunflowers were usually situated. They were fast-dying flowers, it would seem, but the coyote woman did not come here to look at flowers. Even now, she was only momentarily interested in the area and satisfying her curiosity. |