Indifferent [Liadan]

[Emerald]

"I'm- I'm so sorry, I wish that I could have done better... It was an accident... Please, come back; I don't care anymore! I just need you to come back, please, I'll do anything..."

Emerald's maniacal ramblings were mere whispers, getting progressively more and more urgent until she collapsed into an exhausted heap on the cavern's ground. She was tired, always tired, forever tired, always had been, always would be. A frightened whimper escaped her maw accompanied with a low growling of her stomach; when was the last time that she had eaten? Sometime before Kairos had taken over her home. She did not want to suffer anymore! It hurt, it so hurt... At first, Emerald had felt nothing, blocked it all out, but now it was just pain. Pure, blinding pain. She felt so lonely, so desolate, so despondent... Before the simple instinct to drink had defined her, but now she was tired. Tired of water. Tired of being alive. Tired of just being. Occasionally Emerald would go to drink to ease the pain, but not as often as was healthy, not as often as she would otherwise have done. She just wanted the pain to stop, her heart to ease and to die in peace... But she was a coward. She was too afraid to kill herself. What if it hurt more? It was best to let fate kill her. Maybe, now that she had given destiny the reins, it would be more merciful to her. Maybe it would be nice to her. She could die a relatively painless death, join Leaf and her family...

Oh, Leaf, her family, her friends... How stupid was she, so stupid as to let them go, to abandon her loved ones? She had allowed her most recent litter to drift away from her and now she would likely never see them again, never! Emerald curled up in pain, wondering how on earth living could hurt this much. The pain in her chest, the one caused by thinking too much - it was unbearable and it had tempted Emerald to just end her life quickly more than once. Tears forming in her tormented, golden-yellow oculi, she whimpered one more sentence:

"I am so, so sorry, to Leaf, to Poseidon, to Lei, to Jasper, to Mint, to Silver..."

.: OOC :.
This is so depressing yet I found it fun to write... What's wrong with me? XD And in case if you're confused, Poseidon and Lei are the pups from Emerald's first litter.
Liadan

[Liadan]

As Liadan grew into her body and mind, she became more and more aware of how hard she would need to work in order to be treated as an equal by the males of the pack. It was clear to her now that she was odd; she recognised herself as being different to most of the females of the pack, even if her size could not rival that of her brothers. Liadan wanted to be a fearsome warrior like her father, and not a huntress or a consort like her mother was. Roka was so strong, Liadan couldn’t understand why she settled for catching prey to feed the rest of the pack. Liadan’s ambitions differed greatly from the duties she’d heard that other females performed: hunting, mating, and… priestessing. Liadan hadn’t asked her parents for more details about being a priestess, she knew from what limited information she had that she wouldn’t be the slightest bit interested in becoming one.

Frantic muttering distracted her from her thoughts as she passed by the caverns in which she had spent the larger part of her life thus far. She was loathed to return there except to sleep, particularly when she was now free to explore the lands as she pleased, but something about the pathetic noises drew her closed. It sounded like the weak sounds that small prey animals made as they lay dying; resigned to its fate but desperate and pained all the same. Curiosity always got the better of her in the end, and this was no exception.

The gloom of the cave felt like an oppressive force, her eyes blinded very briefly before adjusting to the darkness. The whispers continued and Liadan’s ears swivelled toward the source, following them deeper and deeper into the cavern until the scene appeared before her. A white she-wolf lay sprawled in the dirt, and Liadan would have assumed she were dead if it weren’t for the noises she was making. Immediately, Liadan was filled with revulsion.

“What’s wrong with you?” the adolescent demanded. “What are you doing?” Liadan moved closer to the ivory body, her lips parting in a quiet growl of disgust. A wave of excitement ran through as she loomed over the fully grown female, the power she felt over this wolf was completely new and exhilarating. Never before had she been the stronger one, never before had she felt control. It was incredible, and a fresh wave of jealousy washed through her. Was this how her father and brothers felt all the time?

A familiar scent caught Liadan’s nose: her father’s. It was faint, and immediately she thought it was lingering from the time he spent in the caverns himself, but when she sniffed the air again she became sure it was nestled in this female’s fur. Stepping forward in an act of naïve courage, Liadan buried her nose forcefully into the white femme’s fur and inhaled. Another growl erupted from her chest, not as intimidating as she’d hoped it would sound but her aggressive intent obvious. “Why do you smell of my father?” The idea that her father might have mated with this pitiful mess was grotesque, but as far as she knew Roka was her father’s one and only mate. She was sure that her father was loyal to her mother. They were made for each other. This wolf was below her father, he would never stoop to her level by mating with her, but his scent was evident nonetheless.

---

Word count: 582
Muse: High
Notes: Okay I hadn't intended her to be QUITE so horrible yet xD
Tags: Emerald  

[Emerald]

Promptly after Emerald had finished murmuring with urgent intensity, a voice cut into her thoughts. She was tired, so very tired, and had no reason to listen, but she was forced to. The painful vocals cut into the fae's mind as a stranger faintly enquired what was wrong with her and what she was doing. What was wrong with her? Kairos' new prisoner was faintly reminded of her father and how detached he had seemed. Was Emerald that now? What if her children were really there and she was neglecting them just as her father had? A spike of terror stabbed Emerald's heart as she pondered the possibility of not only having her pups with her but returning the favour by hurting them.

"M-my father... I... What's wrong with me? It hurts. I'm doing." A mist had clouded the ex-mother's thoughts, hindering them to the point where her sentences were incorrectly formed and incoherent. She knew how to speak, so why could she not do it?

Invasively, the stranger who Emerald could not pluck the energy to look at shoved their nose into Emerald's matted fur. Emerald felt hairs being pulled as they were sucked by this inconnu's nose, the stronger wolf inhaling Emerald's dirty scent. She looked dirty, smelled dirty, was dirty, in every sense of the word. Even her crime record was dirty. Nothing could cleanse her filthy record of abandoning her first litter and best friend and for neglecting her second. She was a dirty failure, so dirty, so worthless, so stupid.

Yet again, a sharp knife of noise was being driven into Emerald's head. Something like... She could hear this more clearly... “Why do you smell of my father?” The intruding words were accompanied with growls. Emerald just wanted to sleep... She wanted to tell this wolf to go away, but she did not dare. Maybe this wolf was merciful, maybe they could end her seemingly eternal pain... A faint memory told Emerald that she had met two wolves—their identities were forgotten, but they were there; they did not help her. They tried to heal Emerald, with good intentions she was certain, but she did not want healing. She just wanted to stop suffering, to stop hurting. Was that too much to ask for? The femme had endured so much and all that she wanted was peace, rest, a break. Perhaps this stranger would pity the deserter and kill her right there, on the spot. They could be so appreciated, so relieving, but Emerald dared not ask either. She was cowardly beyond belief, and instead responded to the question asked.

"My... Your... Your father... Do I smell of him? Who is your father? What do I even smell of?" This time, her sentences made sense, although they were still a mess and not an answer that might have been expected of an ordinary wolf. Limply, Emerald dragged her heavy head to sit atop her forepaws and shuffled slightly to view the visitor. A whiff of their scent hit Emerald's nose, although she was too exhausted to sift through the smell to take in who they were. She could see their silhouetted form, but her weary vision was blurry and her mind could not comprehend what it was seeing. Who were they? It would help if Emerald knew, but she did not push it. If this unknown wolf could provide Emerald with the cowardly escape that she wanted then she would not risk speaking out of turn.

---

.: OOC :.
Apparently Emerald has every mental illness in the world XD

WORDS: 609 | TAGS: Liadan

[Liadan]

A mixture of confusion, horror, and fear bubbled in Liadan as the female reacted to her presence and questioning, babbling nonsensically, her eyes unfocussed and unseeing. A small spike of pity ran through the pup, having never seen another wolf in such a state before, but she quickly pushed it down, along with the fear. This was no time to be fearful. It was a time to be strong. Setting her jaw, Liadan attempted to make sense of Emerald’s garbled words and unfinished thoughts.

"M-my father... I... What's wrong with me? It hurts. I'm doing."

What? A fresh wave of irritation overcame Liadan. Why can’t it just speak normally?

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” she answered coldly, glaring down at the heap of matted white fur. “I don’t even know who you are.”

"My... Your... Your father... Do I smell of him? Who is your father? What do I even smell of?"

“My father is Sabaoth, General of Kairos,” Liadan replied, lifting her head proudly and fighting against the waver in her voice. Another growl tickled the back of her throat when the female began to move, reading herself for a fight, but still the stranger did not seem to see Liadan. She could be anything, anyone, and this female wouldn’t know. Her sight seemed to be returning, though it was still poor, so Liadan began to move. She circled slowly around the helpless wolf, in an attempt to be menacing as well as avoid it getting a clear look at her. “You smell disgusting,” she commented, “but beneath that, you smell of my father.” Liadan continued circling until she reached the wolf’s blind spot, and paused, leaning closer to the wolf.

“My father is a formidable wolf, as tall as a bear and covered in battle scars. You’d remember him.” After another pause, she added, “I’ve been told I take after him myself.” It was a partial truth. Both she and Taranis bore a striking resemblance to their father, only her brother inherited his size, too. Perhaps the wolf could not see that, though. So far she seemed too dazed and confused to even know where she was.

“You’re obviously not of Kairos.” Despite her malice, Liadan could not contain her childish interest. “Are you our prisoner? Where did you come from?” Her threatening guise began to crumble as the questions bubbled forth, but she was curious about the lands that lay away from Kairos.

---

Word count: 408
Muse: Low
Notes: Sorry that this a bit all over the place! I'm still figuring out her character
Tags: Emerald

[Emerald]

More noise. It was more focused now. Something... Something about wrong. Wrong. That was right. Emerald was wrong. Invisible brows knitted together, trying to make sense of the thoughts clouding the sickly, pale fae's head whilst ignoring the overwhelming pain in her chest. Limp white ears perked forward, desperately listening to make sense of what was going on. Emerald was usually intelligent, she knew that—the confused wolf was not used to not knowing.

The fog that was numbing Emerald's thinking ability smoothed itself out so that words could finally seep through the barrier surrounding her succinct thinking. The stranger spoke of a Sabaoth, General of Kairos. Sabaoth... Kairos... That sounded familiar. Kairos sounded very familiar. It evoked fear and anger in Emerald, so it was probably bad, something from the life that had been locked away from the female. Sabaoth was harder to place. An image was being forced into her head, an image with a negative connotation. A gigantic brute, something to do with this Kairos... Blue eyes. Grey fur. So Sabaoth had to be a wolf... There was nothing else that the prisoner could make out from the few words supplied that Emerald had understood, so she simply gave the other wolf a, "Dunno."

Proceeding the single word spoken by Emerald, the stranger's silhouette spoke again. It spoke of smells and disgust and fathers. "Father is gone," was the elderly wolf's mumbled reply. "Thought I's disgusting. I'm disgusting." Emerald might as well have been mute for all of the sense that her garbled speech was making.

More words, more unwanted noise. Could a wolf not sleep these days? When Emerald attempted to lift a paw to cover her flattened ears, though, it only managed to hang limply in the air before thudding back to the ground again, stimulating even more noise than before. Each syllable was sharp, punctuating the weakened she-wolf's eardrums with each word.

“My." Pain. "Father." More pain. "Is." Terrible pain. "A." More terrible pain. "Formidable." Ouch. "Wolf, as tall as a bear and covered in battle scars. You’d remember him." By that point, Emerald had collapsed and was curled into a ball, tears staining her muddy fur. "I met a bear once," Emerald said distractedly, trying to reply and stay on topic.

And then questions. Emerald was good with questions. Having raised two litters, pups had often asked her about things, although her most recent litter seemed a lot more disinterested than Poseidon and Lei. First was the question of whether or not Emerald was 'their' prisoner.

"Prisoner... War..." she replied blearily from her curled up position, wondering if she should even bother answering. The repercussions could not be worse than how it felt right now. "Came from... Came from home."

.: OOC :.
I am terrible at replying quickly! So sorry D:

WORDS: 514 | TAGS: Liadan

[Liadan]

The wolf’s pathetic whining was downright infuriating to the pup, if she could even be called a wolf at all. The longer Liadan watched, the more this white femme unsettled her. It was as though she were barely a wolf at all; as though she were barely alive. Repressing the bile that threatened to rise in her throat, she kept her nerve and implored herself to imagine what her father or mother would do, or even her brothers. The weak were not to be shown mercy, which was why Liadan was determined to be strong. There was no other option.

Still circling the small wolf, Liadan’s sable ears flicked in frustration at the wolf’s meek “dunno”. Irritation coursed thickly through her blood, her paws itching to dig their claws into the her matted, ugly coat until they withdrew a satisfactory answer. The desire to act, to hurt this weakling grew stronger and stronger, her heart beating faster and faster the more she considered it. The only thing that stopped her was fear – of her father, of whether or not it was allowed. She did not know if this wolf belonged to someone. It was likely that she shouldn’t even be here, talking to her…With this in mind, she glanced briefly toward the entrance of the dens, her ears straining to try and catch the sound of approaching footfalls. There were none, but the fear only heightened the adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream.

Returning her gaze to Emerald, she found that the matted pile of fur was once again attempting to speak to her. Her strange, disjointed reply did nothing to sate her curiosity. A decision snapped into place in Liadan’s brain, and in an instant she was next to the wolf once more, her jaws closing shut mere inches from Emerald’s face. A low growl emanated from Liadan’s chest and around her snarling mouth; a desperate attempt to intimidate the wolf. Perhaps if she scared her enough, the fog surrounding her thoughts would dissipate.

“Speak sense, idiot! Or…” Liadan swallowed thickly, her mind racing to come up with a threat. “Or I’ll…I’ll make you wish you were dead!” The retort withered away as her voice lost its confidence. Someone she doubted death was a suitable motivator for this half-dead being, but perhaps violence would scare her. “Now answer my question without babbling. Where you come from?” she considered the wolf before her once more. “Or, at least…Tell me your name. It’s not ‘idiot’, is it?”

---

Word count: 415
Notes: Bleh. Sorry about the wait, I know you're eager for Em to die x)
Tags: Emerald

[Emerald]

There was something circling Emerald. Perhaps a bear. Hadn't they spoken about bears recently? The thought strained against the edge of the emaciated fae's mind but her head seemed to have made itself... Wrong, somehow, after an event involving swimming. The details were not clear in the Prisoner's memory.

Faintly, two jaw-like things snapped close to the yellow-eyed femme's face, something rumbling afterwards. Still stuck in her reverie, Emerald did not react. She was too busy thinking of her pups' sweet, innocent faces and how they did deserved only the best life, but they had a mother who had abandoned them, a father that had never existed... So many parallels between her two litters...

Jerking the petite Arctic female out of memory lane, the larger female began to speak again, making the audits atop Emerald's dirtied, white head sting. Flattening the small extremities against her aged skull, Kairos' slave did not catch her tormentor's next string of words apart from something like 'idiot'. Yes, she was an idiot... A selfish, foolish idiot, one who let her loved ones leave, one who had lost everything, and it was all her fault... Then speak of death. Death... She had a love-hate relationship with the evil yet merciful thing. It had taken away almost everything Emerald held dear, yet it held the key to the cage in which her loved ones had been locked away...

"You love dead wolves? D'you ever wish that you's dead? My answer to both would is yes, but I'm too cowardly..." she rambled, stumbling over words and mixing them up in her confused state of mind.

Then a question. About herself, unfortunately, but perhaps now that she had been thinking of her past, the answer would come more easily... Where did she come from? Remembering her pups' birth, Emerald replied, "My mother's womb. Must have hurt to give birth. Did for me. Mother's dead." And then her name. What... What was her name?

Thinking hard, colours began to swarm in the elderly wolfess' mind, green being rather dominant in the plethora of hues clouding Emerald's vision. Was her name... Green? "Name... Green?" Wait... Perhaps she had been thinking of her mother's or her second youngest daughter's name. That was mint. Mint was... Mint leaves were green and wasn't mint also as shade of green?

My father's name was Cerys. My mother's name was Mint. Siblings, Coal and Petal. Closest friends, Leaf and Kenai. Children, Poseidon, Lei, Jasper, Mint, Silver. It was calming and somewhat therapeutic to recite things like this, fixed variables, things to keep her rooted to reality despite it hanging from the thinnest thread.

---

.: OOC :.
Now on to Rak replies! Will get them all done one day XD

WORDS: 478 | TAGS: Liadan

[Liadan]

The more Emerald spoke, the more Liadan’s temper flared. It was like talking to a cave wall! Nothing she said seemed to make any sense, and the simplest of questions elicited a nonsensical rant. If Liadan could be sure of one thing, it was that she never wanted to be like this wolf. Weak, pathetic, delusional; she was like the epitome of everything Liadan realised that she despised. Every time Liadan spoke, she recoiled into herself as though she no longer existed in the real world. It was odd. Disconcerting. The fact that she didn’t understand it at all made her angry, it made her want to scream and shake this wolf until something fell back into place in her brain. Or, perhaps, something was missing from her brain. Maybe she’d always been like this. Maybe she’d been born stupid, and that was why she’d ended up here: a prisoner in a pack of superior wolves.

Superior, that’s what her pack was. She hated it at times because she didn’t quite fit. Where the other females of her pack were content to hunt and mate, Liadan aspired to something more, something that only males should aspire to. But regardless, it was her home, her family, and she wanted to be able to defend it until her dying breath.

When the female spoke again, the questions almost made sense. Almost.

“You wish you were dead?” Liadan whispered, offended and appalled at the notion. How could a wolf wish they were dead? What was the point? “You’ve been gifted with a strong form and a healthy body, how could you possibly want to waste that?” Again, anger surged in the pup’s heart, in part wishing that she could give this female the death she wished and deserved, but she distracted herself by answering her questions. “I don’t… love dead wolves. How could I love something that’s dead?” Her brow furrowed deeply. Did she mean that she loved the rotting corpses of fallen wolves? If so, that was at least eight different kinds of messed up. Liadan wrinkled her nose up at the thought, trying to grasp the female’s meaning. “And no, I’ve never wished I were dead…” It was the truth. The thought had never once entered the pup’s head. “I only want to live, and to become a fearsome warrior like my father before me.” She paused to consider what she had not yet considered: that she would someday die. The thought unnerved the small female, who thus far had thought of herself as invincible. Where would she be when she died? With her family? Would she have had pups by then? Would she be a warrior, or will she have failed at that? Another thought entered her head: that her family would someday die, too. This thought in particular was too overwhelming for her developing mind, so she quickly pushed it away in order to continue tormenting this white fae.

“You’re cowardly anyway,” she muttered. “I don’t know why that should make any difference.”

The next string of words caught Liadan’s interest, as she finally gave something away about herself.

“You have pups?” she queried, her childish curiosity igniting. “What were they like? Where are they? What're their names?” Liadan wondered if her pups were dead, and that was why she talked about death so much. Despite herself, Liadan felt a stab of pity. It was sad to lose your pups, no matter who you were. She thought of how her parents would feel if she or her brothers died, and the very notion of their sadness made her sad in turn. When she mentioned her mother being dead, her sadness only intensified, as she imagined standing over Roka’s lifeless body. Liadan really didn’t want to think about that, but before she knew it she was blinking back tiny beads of warm salty water that were forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Green isn’t a name,” she sniffed insolently, angry at both the adult she-wolf and at herself for being such a whelp. “It’s just a colour. A name is like Liadan – that’s my name – or…Or Rhys, or Taranis, or Kegan. Those are my idiot brothers,” she commented. Maybe her name sounded like green, or was similar to green, or maybe it had nothing to do with green at all. Given the wolf’s previous ramblings, the last option was just as viable as the previous two.

---

Word count: 737
Notes: No idea where this muse boost came from?!
Tags: Emerald

[Emerald]

More talk of death. Perhaps Emerald would die soon. Maybe this was life trying to tell her that her own life was coming to an end, that fate was edging ever nearer, attracted by all of this death talk. After that, the stranger began to talk about cowards. The words were jumbled up in the elderly fae's head so what the other Kairos wolf was saying made little sense, although the fact that she was talking about cowards made the Prisoner think that perhaps the words were about Emerald.

Speak of pups calmed down the raging whirlwind of confusion in the yellow-eyed femme's mind, reminding her of happier, simpler times, when there wasn't something wrong with her brain. Every word hurt as if her ears were giving birth—that was the only thing that the mother of five could compare the pain to—but they were clear, unmuted by the searing heat in Emerald's audits. And she was helpless, she was weak, feeble, submissive, subject to whatever was inflicted upon her. She would have to answer.

"I have—had—pups and I'm a terrible mother. I don't deserve them. I didn't deserve them. I left my first litter; so selfish of me to return to my pack, to leave my poor offspring alone... They had only just learnt how to care for themselves... They're probably dead now, because of me... My second litter left me. I wasn't a good enough mother for them, apparently. I miss them all."

And, in that moment, Emerald hated Kairos all the more. There was something burning inside of her, something that had not been there before. Before, it was just emptiness and pain. Now... Now, there was something, some emotion or feeling or just something, defined by a hatred of this terrible pack. When her second litter had been born, she had thought that it was a blessing in disguise, a second chance at a family and at being a decent mother for once. But no, it was yet another thing to become attached to and lose, another way for life to punish her for some unknown crime. And Kairos had brought it upon her. A year ago, that male... He had just brought her pain, no blessing, nothing in disguise. She had been looking too closely, seeing something that was never there. Because she could never have happiness, never have a family who would stay with her. And it dawned on her that she would die in Kairos, the filthy Kairos of all packs. She had known that for some time but it only truly hit her at that moment. She would die completely alone, and the only time that she had ever been loved, she had pushed him away. She would die with everything to gain and nothing to lose and without hope, without any at all. She had lived for seven, nearly eight, long, torturous years, all for nothing, only to suffer, just as a plaything to hurt, for others to see what happened to someone who lost everything yet never had anything in the first place.

Was there anything that she could do, though? Perhaps this stranger could be something else to love. And this time, there was no worry about heartbreak, since she was soon to die, was she not? The heartbreak would not be for long if she lost them—her, now that her mind was more concentrated. Focusing desperately, wanting to see something again, longing to have just one last look at a wolf who was alive and well, Emerald squinted and saw, finally, a young female. She seemed even younger than her latest litter, too young to fit into last breeding season's period of heat for the females. The mother then answered the rest of the female youth's questions, not out of weakness, but rather a necessity to do one last thing right, something good for the world, before she was no longer.

"What were they like? Poseidon... Eldest... Too sweet to leave. I was so young and naïve, thinking that leaving him would fix my broken beyond repair life... Then Lei. So shy and gentle and kind... Jasper, he did nothing wrong... I neglected him, didn't give him enough attention... Mint was so feisty and would have gone so far in life. But I'm not there to see her through life, like with the rest of my pups... I'm absolutely terrible... Silver, oh, she was so beautiful... For all I know, her beauty could have been gone to a bear now, though. I wouldn't know. I'm not there for her."

It was hurting, hurting too much now. It was such a relief to the knowingly selfish elder when her captor changed the subject. Meekly, dirty white shoulders shrugged at the far younger she-wolf's proclamation. How was the older wolfess to know her name? Did it matter? She was no less useless with a name than when she had been born without one.

.: OOC :.
I nearly cried writing this omg ;-; I didn't mean for her to do this but hey, whatever the muse says
Liadan

[Liadan]

Whatever part of Liadan began to feel pity for wolf ebbed and flowed as she spoke – unsure whether to be revolted by her pitifulness and self-deprecation, or feel sympathy for what could have been a terrible life. Stuck somewhere in the middle, Liadan began circling Emerald once again as she rattled on about her past and her pups, about being a terrible mother. For that, Liadan felt no sympathy. To leave her own pups…What was wrong with this female? It was no wonder the second litter left her. Liadan couldn’t imagining abandoning her own parents; Emerald must have done something truly terrible to chase every single one away. If this exchange taught her anything, it was how thankful she was to have a good mother instead of a deranged, neglectful mother as this one.

This time Liadan did not even bother to probe her. Questioning her only leading to rambling or nonsense, or both. She wanted to know why they left, but it was unlikely that she’d ever get it out of her. Instead, she listened with growing disinterest at the female spoke about her pups individually. Most of them sounded as weak and useless as their mother, and she didn’t doubt that most of them were dead.

Lastly, the female gave a shrug of her shoulders. Although Liadan was irked again by it, she refused to expend effort on trying to get the her to think. Clearly she was beyond all hope of recalling what she could no longer recall, so Liadan would not waste her breath. Liadan was quiet then for a while, as she grasped uselessly for something else to say. She’d hoped that Emerald would continue with something she knew how to respond to, like a question about her own life, or her parents, or her brothers, or what she was going to be when she was older. But it was clear that Emerald was no average wolf, and Liadan felt as though she was in over her head with this conversation.

As far as Liadan was concerned, it was done. She wanted to leave now, and never return or think about it. Still, she felt obliged to leave some parting words for the wolf. There was nothing to apologise for, so Liadan would not stoop so low as to say she was sorry for what had happened to her. But equally, she wanted to be able to offer some small comfort to her, so she didn’t walk out feeling as though she’d run away from something that scared her. I’m not afraid of her. I’m not afraid of death, she told herself.

“Well, whatever your name is…You might see your children again someday, wherever they are.” Liadan hovered in the den entrance, looking back at Emerald with a strange expression. She knew this would be the last time she saw this wolf alive, but she also knew that she couldn’t find it in her to care. If anything, Liadan would be relieved when she died. Something about her words left a bad taste in her mouth, and words were not something she could win against. They’d lodged in her brain, and right now she wanted nothing more than to run back to her parents to make sure they were still alive and well.

“Goodbye, green wolf,” she said, with an air of finality and catharsis. Then, she disappeared from the wolf’s presence, leaving her alone with her demons once again.

---

Word count: 575
Notes: Le fin!
Tags: Emerald