read only. fkosdlgskjg these threads are awkward. also backdated to some point in late june. >_>
Discomfort had drawn Eris out of her house on this warm and hot evening. It was stifling in the house, and even with the windows open, there was no breeze, and thus there was no circulation in the house. The sable-furred female had meandered outside some time ago, but almost immediately upon exiting the house, a wave of nausea had settled her right down to the couch someone had dragged out there. She waited several long moments for it to pass, and the relative coolness of the outside air was perhaps the only thing that kept her from becoming ill. A few deep breaths later, the hybrid was up and about again, though she was mildly disturbed by the heat-induced episode, and she contemplated this as she meandered through the overgrown gardens of the D'Neville, inhaling the thick scent of flowers that covered the air. Everything was in full bloom now, and Eris found her fingers brushing against the velveteen petals of some of these flowers, her chartreuse eyes half-lidded with pleasure at the menagerie of lovely scents in this place.
She had spent considerable time in this garden, of course—the small creek that ran through the back along with the pond meant prey was not entirely absent from this area; the sable-furred woman had hunted in this place successfully with Itzcitla before. She knew the cat would never be able to bring down prey as large as a deer; he simply was not intended for such tasks. A rustling noise drew her attention, and she turned around rather quickly, her lime-colored eyes narrowing at the figure making its way down the path toward her. Eris did not speak; she wished to remain quiet until addressed.
The coyote woman had not seen her sable-furred daughter in some time. Her scent was faint along the borders and elsewhere in Inferni. Kaena could not figure out if this was a comfort or something she ought to have worried about; she did not know Eris in the least, and her shadowy daughter had proved herself capable of abandonment before. Of course, Vieira's existence and continued servitude over the past few months had done quite a bit to alter Kaena's opinion of Eris. If the slave had been sent here with an ulterior motive, certainly it would have shown through by now—and since Eris's return, the Centurion did not think they had interacted beyond Eris's grand upsetting arrival.
Even now, the hybrid hardly knew what to say to the younger woman as she approached. She did not truly know why she had come here; there was no particular urge in Kaena to socialize with her daughter and nor did there seem to be one in the Equites herself. “Eris,” she said in cold greeting, though this was not as frosty or aggressive as Kaena had intended it—the sable-furred woman merely nodded in response, a thin and false smile crossing her shadowy muzzle. “How are you getting along?” the coyote woman asked, halting a few feet away from the woman. She leaned on one of the numerous marble statutes littering the garden's grounds. It had grown over with moss and vines years before, though patches of stone were still visible.
The sable-shaded woman rolled her shoulders in a shrug at the elder coyote's question. She simply didn't care—this was simply the interim for Eris, the somewhere between Eterne and... wherever she was headed. It still hadn't quite sunk in for the sable-shaded coyote that this was it, that there really was nowhere else to go—where else would have taken in a subject as useless as herself, unable to even hunt to survive? The dark hybrid, of course, did not think of herself in such terms, but it would have been shockingly apparent to her, had she tried to run off to any place but Inferni. “Just wonderfully,” she responded caustically, her chartreuse eyes roving over the scarred hybrid. There was a bag slung over her shoulder, and Eris was puzzled by this; she had not recalled her mother carrying such things before.“Why are you here?” she asked, irritability and bluntness getting the better of her. The sharp look that immediately snapped into place on the scarred woman's features was enough warning for Eris to know that had been a mistake.
The scarred woman bared one yellowed tooth in response to the sable-shaded woman's question, moving away from the subject of her settling into Inferni entirely. “I'm here because it's my job, otherwise I wouldn't be,” the coyote growled, her own annoyance showing through clear as day. It was far more dangerous than whatever petulant aggression lurked in Eris—the silver-shaded woman was a killer, whereas her daughter was merely one who profited from death, unable to inflict it herself without placing her own body in mortal danger. Kaena had half a mind to whirl away then and there, but she would not give Eris this pleasure—walking away meant that the sable-shaded woman had been victorious. “I would expect a little more appreciation, Eris,” the coyote spat. “I didn't have to let you return here, and Gabriel or I could throw you out on your ass any moment.” The threat was clear and not obscured in the least: Kaena did not have to be psychic to see that her daughter had suffered during her journey here. Already there was evidence of weight gain and an altogether healthier appearance to the sable-shaded woman.
This would get her nowhere, and Eris had slowly realized that. It had been nearly a month she had been back, and nearly a month since she'd last faced her one-eyed mother. In that time, the sable-shaded woman hadn't grown up any, but she had gained a far clearer head than she had when she'd first arrived here. Then, her only concern was the single burning question on her head, and she could do nothing but ask it at the first opportunity. Now, she was remembering—manipulation was not beyond her. Though she had been handed almost everything she wanted, there were things Mantus refused her, authority figures she had been forced to bow to before. She had not Eterne in the manner that Gabriel ruled Inferni now; indeed, her status was not even equivalent to the Hydras of this clan. She had learned craftiness, however, and now the sable-shaded woman would have to use this. The Equites frowned, and looked to the ground; something like shame crossed her face. “I'm sorry, mama... I've been moody lately,” the sable-shaded woman said. This was not altogether a lie: she had been “moody” since getting the boot out of Eterne, but since returning here to Inferni, that feeling had only intensified.
The coyote woman had held this canine between her forepaws, tiny and helpless and blind, and she had contemplated killing her. Kaena was not a fool—seeing Eris next to her littermates had been almost a dead giveaway. They were smaller and lighter, and even at birth Eris had been darker and significantly larger, almost the opposite of a runt. Those suspicions were confirmed as the sable-shaded coyote had grown, and now, peering into her chartreuse-colored eyes, the ash-colored hybrid could see the ghost of Salvaged in her face and her features, shining brightly through from this canine's very blood.
Kaena had not been watching Eris closely, no—but she had seen no signs of his personality thus far. Maybe she had been spared from her father's nature, maybe not. Eris was already at a distinctive disadvantage, what with her father's heritage and her mother's combined, but the elder of the two coyotes shoved these thoughts from her mind. If nothing else, Eris was her daughter, and she deserved something. Knowledge of her father was not that something, however, and Kaena's face hardened at the younger canine's apology, and sank slowly to the ground, settling herself on crossed legs. She looked at Eris expectantly, and the other canine settled down to the ground as well after a moment, a few feet stretching between the pair.
The ashen-hued Centurion swung the bag around to her front on its strap, and opened it, pulling from it one of the only objects in it. It was the knife, still half-wrapped in cloth. She drew it from its resting place at the bottom of the bag and into the moonlight, drawing the cloth off of it and holding it up to the sable-shaded woman. “You know who this belongs to,” the coyote stated matter-of-factly. Eris's chartreuse eyes grew wide at the sight of this familiar object, nodding mutely to agree that she indeed recognized the object. “Then tell me about him. Why did he take you away from me?”
The sable-shaded hybrid had not been spared the story of Astaroth's involvement with Kaena. She had heard it from both angles—her mother's version, short and clipped and nothing more than a vague memory from her youth, and Astaroth's version, far more vivid and alive than the tale her mother had spun. What was this sudden interest in the red-eyed coyote? Eris did not know; she did not remember what her mother and Astaroth had said to each other upon meeting in that meadow where the coyote man had died, where she thought her mother had died. Kaena had only attacked; she had not been interested in answers then.
Eris reached for the purple object, and she was delighted to find that Kaena did not retract it; instead, the object was in the sable-shaded woman's hands now, held between them and stared at in awe. This was something she knew very well. Eris herself had possessed numerous knives so similar to this, yet entirely different and unique. No two were the same; the materials from which they were painstakingly made ensured that, as did the specialized canines who made them. This object had come a long way, and the sable-colored woman ran her fingers over its edge, finding it still rather delightfully sharp. Her chartreuse eyes looked from the object to her mother, and she frowned.
“He told me I was his child, but we both know that's not true,” the coal-hued hybrid began bitterly. This statement earned her a look from Kaena, but the scarred woman did not interrupt, and so Eris continued. “I suppose he knew it, too. He told me I was anyway, and I believed him. He took me because if he did not return with a child, he would have died.” the sable-colored coyote said rather matter-of-factly. Astaroth could have never returned—he could have roamed the wide world forever, inflicting his curse over all of it, but the desire to return home, the desire to make his family proud—this had been strong in Astaroth, and it was his description of the beautiful oasis in the desert, Eterne, that had carried Eris forth after he died. The Centurion's confusion was apparent; the eyebrow over her remaining eye was cocked with a question. “Tradition,” Eris said simply, shrugging her coal-colored shoulders.
“In Eterne, the even-numbered boys are sent away on ehecatl. The point is to make babies, and the first of these—the tiacapan—is the most important. Your children by Astaroth were just too big and too old,” the sable-shaded woman explained, growing brighter as she described this tradition of Eterne. There was obvious pride in the coyote hybrid. “Without bringing back a kid who wasn't a slave, he would have shamed his family and maybe been put to death,” Eris explained. She might have been more combative if she did not believe telling Kaena all of this would help her, in turn—perhaps this would prompt her mother to tell her about her real father.
Bitter disappointment filtered through Kaena, and she sighed heavily. So she had gone halfway across the world and chased him to the far end of this country for someone else's ridiculous tradition, because he was a coward and a failure in all aspects of his life—the sable-shaded woman before her did not speak of him in such a manner, and Kaena could not readily discern how Eris felt about the dark-furred coyote. The hybrid woman did not understand these traditions; they were completely foreign to her. “Why? Do you believe this?” the silver-shaded hybrid asked wearily. Astaroth had never been specific with her; the silver-shaded coyote had never known what he'd fed to her over the years had been truth or lies. She could not even be certain of her sable-shadwed daughter here—yet she knew it was in Eris's best interest to be truthful; the silver-shaded coyote knew this well, and she hoped her daughter did, as well.
The sable-shaded woman still marveled at the weight of the thing in her hands; she had never expected to see one of these again, and here it was in her hand, carried by her mother. Her chartreuse gaze drifted to the scarred woman and she wondered—had her blind mother been able to sense the power inherent in this object? The coal-colored woman pondered this absently, considering—she did not know her mother well, but what she did remember of the ashen-hued woman held no hint of religious flavor or even spirituality. Kaena had never instilled anything of the sort into her head. “That is the religion of Eterne, and I suppose I do,” she said, though she rolled one coal-colored shoulder in a shrug, looking down to the knife again.
“They taught me to embrace my coyote side, and then they threw me out when they figured out Astaroth wasn't my father.” Her voice was almost dismissive; in truth, Eris did not know how much stock she even put in Atotoztli anymore. She could not deny the things that Ometeotl had shown her, of course—these were visions, and there was no doubt about that. But their tradition, their history? What was that? Perhaps she was merely losing faith in the institution surrounding that religion, and not the power and faith that kept her tethered to it? What did the Mamexi mean, really? Had Ometeotl ever deigned to show his face at any of their ceremonies? Had any of what the Xochitl ever done amounted to anything? What they actually practiced, their peyotl rituals and tezcatlipoca and tecocol—these things were far more powerful than the religious institutions that fostered them. These practices were far purer, and Eris lifted her head back up with a renewed faith, shed of the adornments linking it to Eterne.
The ashen-hued coyote hardly reacted to these words from her sable-furred daughter. She did not know how to react—the closest her children had ever come to professing religion was Samael's Angel and Gabriel's God, maybe both one and the same or maybe both opposing forces; anymore Kaena could not tell. The coyote woman herself could be lead to believe that maybe some force controlled the world, maybe it was fate or maybe just a higher power, but she had never paid deference to it and she never would. It had shown her no mercy throughout her life, so why should she? The hybrid woman stood suddenly, deciding she had heard enough to satisfy her. There was simply no explaining Astaroth—his world was something that the silver-shaded coyote would never understand. “Thank you,” she said simply, and turned away from Eris. She could see well enough that the woman was feeding herself well now and at least settled in—beyond that she did not care. If she met no one of Inferni it was fine with Kaena; if she never found her place in this clan it was fine with Kaena.
As the scarred hybrid thanked her and stood, confusion and anger both flared on the sable-shaded hybrid's face, and she too stood for a moment, her muzzle wrinkling. “I told you what you wanted to know,” she said to the sable-shaded woman's retreating back. She still clutched the knife in her hand, but there was of course no desire to swing it; Eris was not a madwoman. Only sheer luck would bring about her mother's end, even if Eris was armed... and that would mean that Kaena would take the secret of the coal-colored woman's ancestry to her grave. This was something that Eris simply could not have, but she was tired of hanging around here and waiting, waiting—she had thought tonight would be the night, when she'd first seen her mother approach.
The elder hybrid stopped for a moment, turning around to face the sable-shaded woman. There was a smirk on her roan-splashed muzzle, and the scarred woman tilted her head to the side, indicating the knife with an extended finger. “And you have something in return for that.” This was a fair trade; useless knowledge for a blade that the silver-shaded coyote had no real use for. There was curiosity where Astaroth and his origins were concerned, but the hybrid thought that she finally had the truth now, and it made no more sense than the concocted story she'd heard two months prior to Samael and Ahemait and Razekiel's birth. There were parallels, of course, and they were undeniable—but the silver-shaded woman did not think there was any logic behind any of it, and she was satisfied with this at long last. “When you're ready to learn, maybe I will tell you.” This was not a promise—she did not trust Eris, she did not think Eris deserved this knowledge. At least not yet, anyway—the girl might yet prove herself useful. The coyote turned and continued to walk away, and the Equites did not protest again, though the hybrid heard a faint growl of frustration in the shadows somewhere behind her.
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