broken windows and ashes are guiding the way
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(519) For Element! Basically ignore all but the last paragraph. :3


If she had intended to go for trinkets, as she had considered lying, leaving Salsola on four legs might have been seen as peculiar. She had, instead, told Siv that she was going to take a few days and travel south. She had given no explanation, no reason, and reaffirmed her place by doing so. Salvia did not think her mother might be foolish and attempt a coup while she was gone, and was certainly glad for the added loyalty of the Helsi woman—she recalled the very near open hostility between the witch and Eris early on, and while Siv now seemed incapable of disliking anyone, Salvia suspected that she had not forgotten.

Her true drive had been one of a far baser nature. She had felt the urge while in Freetown and ignored it, but some things were beyond reproach. For nearly two days she traveled in the old way of things, wolfish and unwavering. She ate when food presented itself but made no excess effort to do so. By the time she reached the edge of the city, she felt the faint twinges of hunger; the largest thing she had caught was a rabbit, and that was more bone than anything else. Still, the hunger did give her an advantage—it sharpened her mind considerably.

She crossed paths with two strangers. The first was a woman, and Salvia had only seen her from a distance. Though she had trailed her, the nonsensical singing and scent of a male had turned her away. Thus her hunt went on until she found the man. He was a sooty blackish-brown, with dark amber eyes and a nasty looking scar on his face. Something about him had settled right with her, however, and so she went about the game with a queer sort of eagerness that should not have come for what she intended.

It was very much like hunting, though required more of her. She stalked the man for several hours before revealing herself, feigning ignorance to the place and acting like a fool-headed girl. He had been coarse and unkind before turning vulgar. This time she had tried a new approach; by acting frightened and cowering she provoked him into it. Salvia had let him pin her against a wall, let him grope her body, let him call her all sorts of foul things. Her performance was marvelous; she almost fooled herself. This had lasted right until the hard knot between his legs tried to enter her and then she ripped his throat out. As the afterglow faded, her hunger found itself doubled by the hot blood on her face.

Meat was meat.

She had scrubbed herself clean in the bay, swam closer to the shore and then, satisfied that no trace of her crime remained on her person, began traveling home. Four legged and moving with the easy lope of a wolf (though her movements were oddly fluid, almost feline in nature) she traveled down abandoned roads and past crumbling buildings. Satisfied in more ways than one, she looked content and was indeed in a rare mood.

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