Reisx looked to the full moon, and listened as various pitches and tones reverberated through the canopy above her. There was silence then, besides the wind rustling the branches, making them creak and moan in disapproval of being awoken from their slumber. The others were not far off, they were not far by the sounds of their voices.
However, she knew well, that their voices could travel far distances and deceive the sense.
She let her paws carry her towards them, over the damp grass under paw, but it didn't matter. Their was determination in her eyes and heart. The pack, the others, were not far, surely they had news, some message.
As she came to a stream, the scent was gone of where they had traveled. They were careful, wise, and sinister tricksters when they had to be. Their lupine manners were resonated in their beings completely, making them formidable and strong in heart, spirit and mind. She wanted to learn from them, become like them, but she had disadvantages.
For one, she remembered, the first time she spotted an other, they were taller, more lithe, sleek and slender, their muscles not built the same way hers were. But it made no difference, she had determination, a fire and passion, surely, that had to account for something.
At the stream she tried to let her nose pick up their scent again, but it was lost, sighing, she let her head down, closing her eyes. Her ears flickered, listening to the undergrowth sway around her.
She was not alone.
"You know this land, but you do not know yourself," a voice spoke, female, dark and elusive in the night. Reisx could not place where it came from, for a multitude, or at least that is what she believed she heard, of paw steps struck the ground around her in circles. "You must give in to your instincts, let them run through you, do not block one in favor of another, let them course through you like your blood, remember."
Reisx turned, trying to catch a glimpse of the speaker, but she merely saw shadows, the trees bending under the gusts of wind.
"Where are you? Who are you?" she asked, and she heard a soft laugh.
"Find it, find me," the other voice challenged, still running, still deceiving. "I am one and no one, I am friend, and an other, but we are wild, both you and I."
Reisx was getting frustrated as the seconds passed by. She couldn't focus, she felt like with everything her eyes, ears and nose were telling her, there was too much, she was suffocating in the information being pressed upon her. How could this other, this other female, be able to be so calm, so collected and speak so freely about something so difficult?
"I cannot help you," the voice spoke out to Reisx, "if you cannot help yourself. This is our way. Everyone has a job, if you do not do it, you cannot be part of the pack, if you cannot survive on your own, listen to yourself, your instincts, you are not ready, you cannot be one of us."
"Please," Reisx spoke, "help me be like you."
"I cannot help you become something you are not, if you do not have the will, yourself," the voice spoke on the wind. "You wish for so much, but being wild has much more meaning when you are a part of something, not alone. You mistrust others, and have for a while, why, I do not know, but you are alone, and a lone mokai is a vulnerable mokai. I cannot let those I care for, those I protect, fall into weakness, vulnerability of being caught if one who wishes to join cannot make the effort."
"BUt I can!" Reisx said turning around in the small clearing, trying to let her eyes settle on something, anything moving, but it was growing darker, the moon behind clouds. She grit her teeth, jaw clenched, and she stifled a snarl. She didn't need to start an onslaught of fangs and fur by miscommunication.
"You let your emotions control you, drive you, but where does it take you, dark one? I see no happiness in your gait, I see no smile upon your maw. Only angry, confusion, mistrust of the world and those around it. Surrender to the wild, where you were meant to be, and let it wash over you like the rain, or you will fall."
"What?" Reisx said with a snarl, and then all went silence. The wind seemed to die down at the raised tone of Reisx's voice. Nothing moved, no branches, no leaves, nothing in the undergrowth. She was still, her heart beat thrumming in her chest and she gulped, opening her mouth slightly, trying to see if she could catch the taste of something a scent, anything, off the stale, dead air. But there was nothing. Only her, the darkness, and her thoughts.
The words the other spoke were still in her mind, how could another help her, when she could not help herself. How could another even trust her, if she herself did not trust this world or the humans, or mokai within them. Her ears perked when they heard a low sound, and as Reisx turned, everything became black.
Reisx woke from her dream with a start, breathing heavily, chest heaving. She panted, looking around herself. Cellen must have gone somewhere already and let her get more sleep. However, her dream made her remember that moment, that other, before the blackness that encompassed her. That night, because she had been careless, and not listening to the warning the other was obviously giving her, she had been caught, and brought to the settlement. That night had changed everything.
Reisx stood, shook her fur, and looked around herself, the wild, the freedom, and took a breath.
It was time to become more than what she was.
It was time she let her instincts take hold, and guide her. She needed to learn to trust herself, her mind, her body, and the choices she made, good or bad.
It was time she became what she was all along: wild.
