Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2015 17:42:18 GMT -5
It had to be today.
The idea had been ruminating within her skull for weeks now. In hushed tones, she had conspired with her sister, ever grateful for Nimue’s existence as she planned her escape. They couldn’t live this way for another day, let alone an entire lifetime – trapped on a tiny island still crawling with the youth spawned during the last breeding season, fated to exist as the mate of a warrior or other brute deemed worthy of claiming a daughter of Goliath. No pack like Kairos had ever existed before. Maybe there would never be another like it again. Morrigan had heard the stories of conquering and power. She, like the whole of Anikira, understood what Goliath was capable of.
”If we leave quietly in the night…” No. Morrigan was not a coward. She had feared her father in awed respect in her youth, but she had never forged a bond with the brute. He was too busy to dedicate much time for someone like Morrigan, who had easily faded into the background in the chaos of the mothers’ den. She still respected him. But Morrigan would never be the daughter she was bred to be. She was born to be a disappointment to her family, to her pack.
Soon, it would be too late. She was nearly grown. Soon, if not already, one male or another would notice her within the pack, and then... Well, it was no great secret what would come next. Litters of enormous pups. Blind submission. She had remained carefully hidden away from the pack as she developed. Morrigan did not consider herself a beautiful wolf. Fawn was beautiful. Her younger half-sisters, Castalia and the rest, were all beautiful, blossoming into lovely adolescents as the months crept by and each of Goliath’s offspring grew – some more than others, as their sire’s unusual size had been passed along to many of his children, while others more closely resembled the diminutive stature of their mothers, each of whom was humorously small in comparison to their noble mate. Morrigan was one of the fortunate ones, towering over her dam and the smaller siblings that surrounded her on Ina’mos. Nimue was similarly blessed, but she looked so much like their father… too much, but neither female could help their ancestry.
And now, they had decided that their shared heritage would no longer dictate the path that stretched endlessly before them – winding and shadowed, uncertain, the girls understood that the only way out was to walk away from everything they had ever known and believed. Away from their family, the security of the pack. Nothing and everything awaited them beyond the borders of Kairos. Finally, their lives would belong solely to them.
Nimue was at her side as the sun hung low, close to the eastern horizon, at the beginning of an endless day. The chill of autumn was a welcome relief after the long, torturous summer. She didn’t know whether her father remained on the island, or if Goliath had gone to Vor’asa. Vor’asa was a land that seemed so far away, it was almost the stuff of legends, but it was only one territory in a vast place. Anikira was bigger than she could ever imagine, and Morrigan intended to see it for herself, at long last.
An unconscious sigh escaped the fae's maw as she walked slowly, following the smell she knew would lead them to Messoria. She saw her there, ever familiar dark pelt and comforting scent welcoming her closer as it had when she was younger. Emotion threatened to wear down her resolve as she approached. ”Mother.” The word was barely a whisper on her tongue, with the hesitance of a child. But she inhaled the salty breeze, a familiar facet of her youth for the last time. She knew she would never walk the rocky shores of Ina’mos again, and she was no longer a child. Her posture stiffened, her tone hardened. ”Mother, I have come to you to say goodbye. I – we can’t stay here.”
She didn’t expect the dark female, someone who she resembled so closely, to understand why her mind was set. There was only one choice she would accept, only one future she was willing to fight for – freedom from Kairos, from the confines of the island that had been her home and her prison, a comfort and dreaded all at once. For a fleeting moment, she wished she could convince her mother to come with them, to leave the island and the harem behind, but she knew it would be a useless endeavor. Messoria would never go.
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