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It was a depressing, dark subject to pursue, but Jael saw no need to avoid certain subjects of reality simply because they were distasteful or unpleasant. The world was a cruel, evil place and he embraced it, even if with a grimace. He wished to seek the truth no matter where it was and how he had to obtain it rather than live his life in ignorance. Kaena acknowledged that in the past she would have attacked him on sight, attempting to or succeeding in killing him regardless of who he was or how they'd met. The evidence was apparent on her features in the scars carved into her flesh and the eye that remained a hollow socket now where one had been. The eye that remained turned away at his words, replying in a manner that didn't scream of a genocidal maniac. "I know," he responded. "But I guess it's the same both ways then, 'cause not every coyote hates wolves. It just depends." She went on to mention Ahren, Vitium's father, whom was a full-blooded wolf, and then, unexpectedly, her own father that Jael knew nothing about.
Pain breathed in her voice, close to breaking when she mentioned her children that had been murdered by wolves. Family was obviously very important to this woman, even in the way she spoke of Vitium, her traitor son, and to have had her own offspring killed would haunt any dedicated mother, leaving a scar that would never heal and a burning desire for vengeance. She had her own reasons to despise wolves, though attacking innocents would do nothing to help the children she'd lost even if it helped the wounds and hatred ease within her own soul. "So you have personal reason then, not just blindly following someone else's word and beliefs. You're not just going out and killing for the fun of it, but because you've had a lot stolen from you, and you want to make them feel the pain you've felt," Jael replied, pale features awash in the golds and crimsons of the sunrise that reflected in his fiery vision. [/html]
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Wolves had long hated their smaller, more fragile cousins. When they walked on four legs at all times, wolves were known to kill and eat coyote kits when they were youngsters in the den—simply because it meant less competition for smaller prey in the area. Coyotes were never much of a threat when it came to hooved prey or anything much larger than a rabbit, but still—many wolves had dispatched them all the same. She supposed it was the same reasoning that they had killed her children—they were kids close to a coyote clan, therefore they were competition to the meandering wolves who had taken their young lives.
"It does. Some wolves have been perfectly civil—still dumb enough to walk across Inferni's border, but nice," she said, though their nature had mattered little—a trespasser was a trespasser, regardless of their personality. The coyote nodded her head in response to Jael, though she was still partially lost in thought. Her life might have turned out very differently if Sabryne hadn't killed Andre—chances were slim that she, the hybrid child of an ostracized packmember, would have been accepted to the Lykoi pack, her father's pack of origin, but she might have survived longer in the Falls pack or elsewhere, had she tried. She might have ended up settling down in a real wolf pack, among real wolves... who knows? She was admittedly far more coyote than wolf, but there were packs sympathetic to hybrid types, and perhaps she wouldn't have been permitted to breed, but she would have had a quiet, peaceful existence.
Her single eye focused on Jael, and her thoughts turned instead to what she had: her grandchildren, a strong, powerful clan, her son the Aquila, her children, wherever most of them roamed. She wouldn't trade any of it for all the quiet peace in the world. Jael again spoke, and again Kaena could not determine anything from his features or his tone. He commented on her existence, it seemed, and she shrugged her silver shoulders. If it helped him to look at it that way, she supposed she could live with it—indeed, she did take because she had been taken from, but she had also killed indiscriminately many times, and not from any in particular who had stolen from her. "I have reasons, yes, and I have a score to settle. But I can't justify it all, and I don't pretend to be a good soul for a moment," she said, though there was no longing in her voice. Pacifism and goodness were not a part of Kaena, and they had not been since the night her father had died. She felt no ache in their absence—terror and violence had allowed her to survive thus far.
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Jael wasn’t completely naïve. He knew Kaena had killed for no other reason than pure malice in her life. This had even presented itself in their previous statements about his possible death at her hands, had he somehow not been aware before this conversation. He knew in the past she’d been a vicious, bloodthirsty creature that killed simply to kill, but he’d lead himself to attempt to reason without even being aware of it. It wasn’t in the boy’s nature to be a murderer despite the foolishness his sire had attempted to pass onto him, and so he tried to reason it in others and see the purpose. He saw the potential source of his grandmother’s violent streak, but as always he wished to hold reason behind action rather than simple madness or indifference.
Madness didn’t present itself now in the grayscale woman, and so he didn’t believe that to be the true cause for homicide. “Murder doesn’t mean your soul’s corrupt. Morals, maybe, but deep down I think you’re a good person. I’d be dead on the floor now if you weren’t. Obviously, you’ve killed just to kill. I know that. But who do we answer to in the end anyway? God? Ourselves?” In many ways Jael was the nihilist, believing in nothing but himself and living simply to live. Morals were a fabrication of the mind, created to justify oneself and to control, preventing others from bringing harm onto each other for no apparent reason. But they were still nothing more than fantasy just as religion and law were. They were all nothing more than simple, primitive animals killing each and every day to further their own survival.
The boy again allowed a false smile to grace his pale features as he asked, “Do you believe in God?” God was a fairy tale created by those afraid of death, wishing for an intent to their life—for they all know deep down there was no true purpose to existence and everything alive dies in the end, turning back into the dust they’d come from, forgotten and worthless as so many others before them. He wouldn’t push his own beliefs onto others, but he would discuss them, bringing them into light and voicing his opinions. If Kaena wished to kill just to kill, he’d do nothing to stop her, but he’d mention how pointless he himself thought it was, given the proper chance.
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The ashen hybrid did not tend to think about completely abstract concepts such as the afterlife, but this conversation threw the topic into a harsh light, and Kaena found herself wondering what waited on the other side for her. Surely, Salvaged would be there. Would they continue their epic war until the end of time itself, trapped in the mists of purgatory, bleeding forever but unable to die? The thought sent a chill up the sable-dusted spine of the coyote, and she quickly pushed those thoughts away, listening to Jael. There was disbelief and shock in her features—if he weren't her grandson, she might have mocked him for suggesting she was a good person. Coming from anyone else, such a statement simply seemed sarcastic. But there was an honesty lurking in Jael's tone that had struck the elder coyote off-guard.
She mulled over this suggestion for a long moment, taking it seriously. The one-eyed canine sorely wished she had a window and a mirror into her own soul, some test of purity which might grant her the answer. Anymore, she didn't know herself—the old desires to roam wild and entertain brutal fights were still there, but Kaena had not felt that urge to mindlessly destroy for a long, long time. Inferni had given her purpose—prior to its inception, Kaena was a short-circuited machine, set to kill and turned loose on the world. Anything and everything was fair game, and she was just as disrespectful of borderland as the wolves she railed so hard against. Certainly, that part of her still lived, but the burning love she felt for her family was far stronger than any competing urges in her head and her heart. There was no conflict or question—faced with the choice of family versus anything else, Kaena would invariably choose the former. Did that make her a better person? She did not know, and she did not want to ask Jael.
The canine had simply failed to realize that the mere presence of such an inner debate, and the fact that Jael's suggested had aroused curiosity and thought rather than immediate derision did indeed mean she was a different creature entirely from the coyote she had been in her young, wild days—perhaps that in and of itself wasn't evidence enough to hang a halo over her head, but it was at least a start. His question stirred something in her, and her grizzled head looked away for a moment before she answered. Her words were slow and she was clearly speaking very thoughtfully, considering each word before it left her mouth. "There is... something else, something that controls parts of life," she said, careful to make her own distinction. Omnipotence and omnipresence were ideas she outright rejected; if Kaena were to openly acknowledge any specific God or gods, he would have been limited in power and without his fingers in daily life. "Whether that's fate or God, I can't say," she added, though she did not know if even "fate" was the accurate term—she had never believed that life was any sort of set path, that the line one walked from day one was the line written in stone from the beginning of time.
"Either way, there's always someone to answer to," she said, more quickly than before. There was some bitterness in her golden eye—she had never been offered any option or choice, as she saw it. "Kill someone, rob someone, rape someone—there's somebody who's ready to hand it right back," she said. Kaena had not been able to roam this place without looking over her shoulder for a long, long time—though she hardly feared retribution. She welcomed it; it was their right to vengeance and her right to defend herself, and in the end the two were completely incompatible and required being settled by blood. Or—the alternative; living with the darkness of a particular deed forever. There were some things which could never be squared, some things that were simply unexplainable as anything other than acts of sheer evil or cruelty—(like maeryn), a voice in her head added. Kaena would never have anyone other than herself to answer for her daughter, and she had long given up trying to rationalize or justify the action in any way.
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The old man had taught Jael many things he otherwise would not know at this age and from his upbringing. Vitium was an ignorant creature and Jael was a dreamer and a philosopher, wishing to learn and to think and to reason on his own through knowledge and experience. They had discussed issues many others avoided or simply didn’t care about, leading the boy to possess a certain way of thinking and exploring the possibilities behind and around everything. He had been encouraged to question and not to blindly believe, and so he did. In the end the old man had died at Jael’s own hand—something that lead to his desire to avoid bloodshed and murder, for sorrow still tinged his memories of his mentor of sorts. The wisdom gained through years of existence had been passed on to the child even though he’d yet to live for a single year, allowing his soul and mind to have aged must faster than his physical frame. He wasn’t a genius or a reincarnated soul—rather simply an apt pupil with a proper teacher.
Kaena believed in something, if not an almighty god that controlled everything and everyone. “Karma,” he said with a grin, having listened to what she had to say in response. Another old belief of the humans, stating that if you did good unto others, it would be returned unto to you; while if you did bad, you’d receive misery in return. Revenge and anger created a sort of karma, wishing to return the pain someone’s received to ease their own sorrow and avenge those harmed. Perhaps the humans had held some truth in their beliefs other than the simple fantasy and stories they’d imagined up to explain the things they couldn’t explain in the world. But right along with karma came reincarnation, believing one lived countless lives in different bodies and stories until they were ready to be absorbed into the omnipotent once encountering enlightenment.
“You kill someone, someone they knew and loved wants to kill you back. The only way to avoid that is finding some unloved, unwanted stray no one would miss,” the boy continued, sarcasm now silently lacing the truth and intent behind his words.
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The coyote was familiar with the term karma, though she did not know its proper definition. Her understanding of it was simpler; what comes around, goes around. Even so, this phrase and belief alone was not comfort enough to keep her from inflicting her own revenge. She was too impatient to wait for fate to roll around and bring everything back around—that long-term, slow-acting vengeance that was never absolutely certain. Some offenses deserved immediate and swift retribution. "Maybe that's it," she said wistfully, though she had no better an understanding of the underyling power in the world.
One mangled sable ear turned to Jael as he spoke, and Kaena listened, turning his words over again in her head. Was that true? She wondered—if it were, wouldn't she have an army of canines out for her blood by now? Unless by some chance she'd just killed those without friends or family—the chances of which were slim to none. Salvaged had no relatives left alive—his adoptive mother had disappeared some time during her leadership, and she did not know of any legitimate Eternity children. Even Fatin had turned against him. It occurred to Kaena for the first time that she had committed a supremely good act in ridding the world of Salvaged Eternity, and she had shown personal responsibility in pursuing the creature for so long. Even so, would she have bothered had he not made such an impact on her life? Would she have left him alone if he hadn't killed Zulifer? Her motivations hadn't been pure of heart; she hadn't woken up the day Zulifer died and seen a shining golden light, the voices of gods speaking to her. Still, that hardly mattered—she'd rid the world of a monster in the end, and maybe that didn't quite change her status, but his death had benefited the world at large.
"Maybe not. Some people deserve to die no matter who loves them. No matter who would miss them," she said, again with that indifferent, casual shrug of her shoulder. She spoke of Salvaged, but she realized immediately after the same could hold true for Vitium. Surely, Jael's mother might have said he deserved to die for what he'd done for her—Jael might hold the same belief for the same act, the very one which had formed his existence. "The world is better with some people gone," she added, unafraid that he might ask if the world was better with her gone. Was it? Surely. But Kaena was quite accustomed to warfare, and she would have almost welcomed another nemesis like Salvaged, one to goad her blood and put purpose in her step. They can try, she thought to herself, satisfaction filling her head.
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“Just because someone’s loved doesn’t mean that they deserve to live. It just means they’ll have someone to avenge them when they finally do get what they deserve, unlike the one who’s truly alone in the world,” Jael said, responding to her comment. “But you’re right—some people do deserve to die. But what gives any of us any right to inflict that justice? It’s one thing if someone’s hurt you personally, but it’s another thing to go around killing anyone they believe should die, or simply because they’re having a bad day.” Jael was thinking back on the old man again, remembering what he’d done. He’d once believed it was okay to just kill if he thought it was right, uncaring of the consequences. Vitium had told him to kill, and so he never thought anything of it. And while given the proper situation he would probably kill again, the boy didn’t hold such an indifference to the taking of lives anymore as he once had.
He’d thought he was doing the man a favor until the life faded from his eyes, final expression still readable in his features—fear and regret thrilled him to the point of no return, until he ran away, wishing to take back what he’d done, but knowing he was utterly incapable. The sun rose and he knew the man would never see another morning all because of him and not because his time was truly up. Jael wasn’t God, and he didn’t wish to even pretend to play the part. It wasn’t his place to decide whether someone should live or die. Granted, he did wish to kill his father for what he’d done, and inner conflict filled him because of this, knowingly turning him into a hypocrite. But he’d never kill another wolf or coyote for no reason—it just wasn’t a part of his nature. He thought of his sire when he thought of someone he wished would cease to exist in this world, not Kaena. Affection had already grown toward the ashen woman despite having barely known her, and he didn’t wish to see her dead before her time. Even then he’d probably mourn her loss, for there weren’t many given to the living that they could honestly come to love and adore in their short lifetime.
His own siblings despised him and voiced their desire to see him dead. His mother was missing and unknown, and his sire was.. well, Jael wouldn’t miss the man if his time abruptly came to an end.
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Kaena thought back, and she knew beyond a doubt she had killed for absolutely no reason at all. There was no logic behind Wera and Narcyz's deaths, the two alphas of the wolf pack Kaena had tried to run with what seemed like eons and eons ago, almost further back than Kaena could remember. This was the first place she'd landed after running from the land of her birth, the place where her father's bones slowly disintegrated underneath the ground. The hybrid did not ache for those two wolves, but she did wonder why she had chosen to kill them.
Maeryn had died for no reason at all—there was simply no conscious thought behind her death. Kaena had snapped, gone mad, and killed her in a fit of rage. She hardly even remembered doing it—there was just red everywhere, and at first it had been anger, but it became blood, slowly—as her daughter flailed and screamed beneath her, the hybrid woman tore her to pieces, leaving barely a recognizable corpse behind. She imagined she was killing Salvaged, Zulifer, Zarah, Arlo—anyone and everything, everything she'd known. It was a catharsis of sorts, and when she awoke the next morning bloody and reeking of death, she had known what had happened. There was only that same endless numbness, the dull, ever-receding ache in her chest. It hadn't ended for months after that, until she'd woken one day with a dawning realization that Salvaged Eternity had stolen everything from her. She'd learned that vengeance could replace love, at least temporarily, and the beast in Kaena was almost soothed as she sought the monster himself.
There was another raspy laugh, though this one was dry and humorless. Jael had voiced an irony in the world Kaena had long realized, and there was little happiness in her features as she spoke. "That's the world, though. It's just a big fucking web of vengeance," she said, bitterness evident in her tone. Certainly there was something better than that for her progeny; rare optimism dared to hope in the chest emblazoned with a crimson star. "I can only plead that I'm a creature as caught in it as any other," she said, slowly. She hadn't snapped at Jael, but her tone had gotten sharp and she'd used profanity, though her grandson was an adult and he should have heard such words by now.
There was some truth to her words—in the hybrid's mind, most of the deaths she'd inflicted, save a few, were provoked and deserved, in her eyes. Sabryne had killed her father, and for that Kaena could have done nothing less than remove her throat and condemn her and the puppies in her belly to death. Kaena could not stand that sight. Aquiliak had really just been the wrong wolf in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he'd showed fang first. There really hadn't been a need to eat him afterward, either. The hybrid's newest memory of necrophagia had been after killing Astaroth—she'd eaten his heart afterward.
"I've killed to survive before, killed for vengeance, and yeah, for no reason at all. Doesn't matter what the reason was, some of them still haunt me," the hybrid admitted, staring off into space. It was an even more rare thing for the hybrid to express regret—in younger shades of the gray hybrid, such things had not existed. But now, she could look back at a long, dreamy life and see violence, swathed with blood and warfare. Most of the time, the hybrid did not mind that her history was carved into the flesh of others, but she wondered just how permanent that was sometimes, and others, she wished perhaps she hadn't acquired so many demons throughout her life. They weighed her down and were sure to haunt her long after this life ended.
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“Murder makes the world go 'round,” the boy said brightly—irrelevantly. Kaena was bitter about the way the world worked and the deaths that made up her existence. But to live a happy, sheltered life would be dull, creating a creature that would be equally dull and uninspiring. From adversity and hardship came the most interesting of souls, knowing how the world really worked and able to walk in another’s shoes. Jael didn’t blame Kaena for killing people, living her life so full of anger and hatred. But either way he still thought it was stupid to kill pointlessly and indiscriminately, and he’d already stated as much. Her life hadn’t allowed her to live peacefully, though, and so she’d done what she had to survive and otherwise. “What’s done is done. We’re here now,” the pale hybrid continued, lowering his head to rest atop his clawed paws.
His brush tail curled against his pale side, growing comfortable as he continued to regard the older woman conversationally. “Given the chance, would you ever want to live peacefully?” he asked, honestly curious. One could only take hatred and aggression for so long. Without anything else you’d simply die, withered and miserable, just as you’d lived your life. Jael wanted to live contently. He wanted to lie in the sand beside the sea, watching the sun sink into the waves without worrying about imminent death. Solitude was what he’d grown accustomed to, but the youth knew he didn’t wish to exist alone forever. He didn’t wish to care about which side he’d picked or about how he’d been born, but simply what he’d catch for dinner and when the rain would stop.
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At least Kaena had left it to chance instead of outright murdering Kerberos, and in some twisted part of the Eternity wolf's brain he had decided it was better to keep and foster the child of Kaena Lykoi rather than kill it. At least Kae had given him a fighting chance—if Salvaged hadn't been the first to stumble on Kerberos, chances were good the youth would survive. She had counted on the love for youth and children that was practically universal between all creatures; indeed, even if a full-blooded, abandoned wolf puppy showed up on Inferni's borders, Kaena did not think she could so easily dispatch him to the netherworlds. Especially not now, not after she'd already experienced the joy that was raising and cultivating a family.
His question provoked thought, though she hadn't responded to his other words. Her thoughts were stormy, flying around inside of her skull and bouncing off of its bony walls at a million miles per minute, whizzing past her ears and behind her eyes. "Yes," was all she allowed at first, stretching the silence between them for a few minutes, though there was obvious intention of adding to her one-worded answer. The Lykoi woman was just trying to find the words; they were difficult to pluck from the mess of thoughts and emotions competing for attention in her head. After a minute, she found them, lurking in some obscure corner of her head. They still seemed inadequate, though she knew no other way to say what she wanted.
"I've tried it before, and it's good, but..." Then there was another sigh, and she was speaking from the experience of loss now. She had lived peacefully—there had been a form of peace in what Zulifer had offered her. They had been vicious and violent, roaming the eastern seaboard's territories and killing like a virus what and where they wanted, and surely if they had remained together to raise children the little Lykoi and Yfel family would have been far worse. "You have to take it all in so fast, 'cause it goes away again before you know it," she said, unsure if her words were accurate or concise enough to convey what she really wanted to say. Again, there was always that someone or something, watching and waiting for the opportunity to rob the creatures of the world of their happy, golden ending. It had happened too many countless times to the Lykoi hybrid.
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Perhaps living beings weren’t meant to live their lives in peace, inadvertently seeking adversity to shatter the mundane of sheer content existence. Jael believed he wished for peace and happiness, yet he knowingly sought a clan founded on bloodshed, murder, and adversity. If he’d sought hard enough, he may have found a shelter where everyone lived side by side, exactly as he thought he desired. Maybe in some sick, twisted way he’d come here on purpose, wishing to some how change things and make a difference. But to change the hearts and minds of others so deep-set in their beliefs was nearly impossible. Only enlightenment could break past the barriers of ignorance long since engrained, and one wolfish boy did not hold that in his hands. Maybe his arrival meant more than simply seeking out his own blood, when he knew, he knew he knew for a fact blood honestly meant nothing to survival. It was a petty bond that provided the groundwork for honest, true relationships, but wasn’t the only thing that they should be founded on.
“We aren’t meant to live in peace forever,” Jael finally said, allowing his thoughts to drift on the subject, thinking and wondering where he’d never yet been before. “Nature didn’t intend us to be that way, or no one would get sick or die. We wouldn’t survive on the flesh of others or be born with hatred and despair,” the boy stated aloud, voicing his thoughts. Children are born content, but they immediately begin to tear at each other, attempting to dominate their own flesh and blood from the moment they leave the womb. Their happiness is born simply on obtaining everything they desire—warmth, milk, and sleep. But without, they immediately desire, and desire breeds all the negativity of selfishness, envy, and hatred. It’s how they’re made from day one until the end of their days. Perhaps until the end of time itself, when the world will implode into a fiery pit—or they simply die and are forgotten like the humans before them, only to have their struggle reiterated by some other poor, misfortunate species.
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Whether it was a literal monster like Salvaged Eternity or simply the passage of time like with Ahren, there was always something waiting just a few feet behind her, the jaws of death waiting to snatch happiness from under her nose the moment she turned her head. Salvaged had stolen Zulifer from her, cut him down before he'd even reached the prime of his life. He had made sure she wouldn't find peace so long as he continued to walk the earth... and now that Salvaged was dead, what was there? Contentedness. A strange calm had settled over the hybrid's life, and she felt complete. Things had come full circle, and she'd put him in the ground just as certainly as he had killed Zulifer that afternoon on the beach.
The hybrid woman's head swung toward Jael, though it was a tired motion. There was a strange look in that normally brilliant eye; a dullness had overtaken its shining gold and she appeared far older for a moment, her ears drooping halfway. "Then why bother living in peace if someone's just going to snatch it from you? I'll take it when I get it, but I won't seek it," she affirmed. She hadn't ever, really—stumbling on Zulifer and stumbling on Ahren, and Fatin and anyone else who'd ever made her happy, it had been purely accidental. For certain, she hadn't even planned any of the roots of her happiness, her children, save that litter of Astaroth's. And that hadn't even been her goddamn idea. Naturally, the grizzled Lykoi did not regret a single one of them, but still. She couldn't remember a time aside from founding Inferni when she'd actively tried to better her life; the improvements to it merely seemed to filter in at random. That was just fine by her; it meant eventual loss was far easier to deal with.
Bitterness was again apparent in her features, and she altered the subject abruptly, focusing in on Jael with her laser energy, that golden eye shining again. "I was meant for hatred and cruelty," she said, speaking a truth she knew from the very depths of her soul. "I wouldn't have been born to my mother. She made sure I am who I am," she added. If not, she wouldn't have survived her mother's torment, either. Kaena would have died in that den, and it would have become her birthplace and her grave all at once—just another tiny skeleton rotted to dust by now. Kaena felt nothing for her sisters, for she had never known them aside from vaguely warm figures that slowly grew cold and immobile beside her.
There was no hint of accusation in her tone; sometimes parents intended for children to turn out a certain way and they obeyed, and sometimes children bucked their parents heritage entirely, revolting hard against the core of their nature. Besides, she had no idea what her son had intended in stealing children to flood their minds with lies and half-truth about Inferni. There was no sense in that, and at once Kaena wished she could stare Vitium in the eyes and ask him why he had done what he had done. Why had he gone and raped a wolf, when it was a defending a wolf which got him exiled from his clan of birth? Why had he taught his children of this very clan, neglecting to mention his own treachery? Her scarred muzzle wrinkled, and her brow furrowed in thought. There was no logic or reason behind her traitor son's actions.
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“Isn’t it the happy moments that make life worth living, though?” Jael inquired, steadily growing further confidence in his beliefs about the way the world worked. He’d been a resentful, dark child when he’d been stolen away from his mother and turned against his siblings. But the old man had found him and the old man had attempted to make him find happiness in the world, no matter what his current situation. A mind full of misery seeks and gains only misery. Jael chose to overlook the cruelties in the world to find what lay behind, finding happiness wherever he could. Anyone could be miserable and succumb to despair, but it was harder to suck up and smile when in pain. Jael knew how foolish he probably sounded, but he preferred not to live his life full of hatred and anger. That would be too easy. He hated his father—he wished to see the man destroyed. But it wasn’t his entire existence and he wouldn’t allow it to consume him entirely, leaving room for nothing else.
If he ever encountered his sire he’d tear him apart with his own fangs and claws, and then he’d allow himself to remain content on the matter. What more could he do after he’d separated the man’s soul from his body? Chase him to hell as a demon, tormenting him for the rest of eternity? What would that gain the youth, allowing the man to get exactly what he wanted, having such a tremendous impact on his wolfish offspring? Of course, it would be far more difficult for Colibri Soul to overlook such an act that’d created her latest children, but there was nothing really Jael could do about that. He didn’t even know if the woman was honestly good or evil, deserving what his father had done to her, and he didn’t even know where she, whether even currently alive or dead. But he could only hope and assume otherwise as her son. Jael didn’t say anything to Kaena’s next statements. While Delphine may have created Kaena, both physically and mentally, that wasn’t all to account for the she-yote’s nature. And Kaena didn’t even seem to really be accusing her anyway, lacking any pointed fingers within the tone of her voice.
She’d survived this long only because of her “kill first, reason later” methods, standing before Jael because she’d murdered so many who’d have murdered her first. And any other poor, unfortunate soul unlucky enough to have crossed passed with the Lykoi at just the wrong moment. The sun had long since risen, warming the earth in a few brief hours without rainfall. The pale wolf’s gaze briefly diverted from the woman, seeking the blue sky and blinking against the brilliant light. Thus far, much of the time he’d been alive it had rained, and he was unused to sunny days. “At least it’s not raining,” he said, utterly irrelevant and off topic now. But he saw beauty in nature, even without using such descriptive words, and he could admire the sun and moon in the sky above. Fire-hued eyes returned to the woman’s, otherwise expressionless as was usual for the hybrid.
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Happy moments? The Lykoi matron considered this thoughtfully for a few minutes, and as her mind focused on one, that bitterness had disappeared from her features. Her mother's horror had died with her, and Kaena was too glad she had been able to avoid inflicting the same abuse on her own children. They were the light of her life, truly; if it weren't for them she would not have returned to this place, ever. Inferni or not, it was family that had dragged her back here from the other side of the country. And now, even, seeing her genes further propagated with her grandchildren. A grin crossed her lips, and she nudged him with her shoulder. "Of course," she said, that smile and her behavior indicating he was one of those happy moments—or things—that made it worth it.
The hybrid woman nodded, her mind flickering unhappily to the rains that had drenched them the last few weeks. She was glad this morning was relatively dry save for the usual dewy moistness that accompanied the early hours. Yellowed tips of her canines showed to him, and she peered at the sky. "True," she said, shrugging. It was an annoyance and a hindrance occasionally, but the hybrid woman had never allowed the weather to affect her mood much. "I don't even mind the rain so much," she said, shrugging her coal shoulders. "But it's good to be dry for a day," the hybrid added.
The silver coyote looked at her grandson, again taking in his wolfish appearance. It didn't matter—he was her flesh and blood all the same, the child of her child. Ahren's blood flowed in him, anyway. At least a quarter of his wolf heritage could be attributed to the de le Poers, and it didn't matter to Kae where the other half had come from. It didn't matter what his mother was, even. The pale hybrid had chosen Inferni, and in Kaena's eyes that trumped his canis lupus appearance by far. The silver canine's features shifted again, a smile gracing those scarred features.
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