[SRP] Complications (Kamiya) | Page 1 | Shaoilin Woods ~ Guild Version 2.0 | Guild Forums

fenshae
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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:30 pm

(this is backlogged slightly)
1303 words

Kamiya liked to be in control of her life.

Everything had been perfect, once. Well, actually, it hadn't been. That was the worst part. It had never been perfect, and she knew that. She was totally aware of the self-delusion, but she couldn't stop. The nostalgia was like a deep-seated gnawing pain in her heart, like a disease of her mind.

Being a slave had been just fine. The sweet simplicity of working under another's paw. The security of pack life. The rules, all of them laid out before her. If she had been curious about the outside world, the curiosity had been pleasant.

It was so much worse to chase after something, only to catch it and be disappointed. She couldn't even remember now what she had been expecting when she first left. She had thought the world would be beautiful. She had expected some sort of great adventure.

What she hadn't expected was to fall in with the most utterly useless group of tag-alongs. She hadn't expected her prince to be ineffectual. And she certainly hadn't expected to arrive back home -- home! at long last! -- only to realize there was no home to go to.

Did she feel sorry for herself? Terribly. And she would tear apart anyone who suggested there was a damn thing wrong with that.

--

If she had sought comfort in the wrong ways, who could blame her? She had wanted an adventure. Cyclone...Thable...Lalita...they had made her feel alive, for a little while. The sneaking away, the random tryst, the adventure. It felt, for a short while, that maybe this whole adventure hadn't been such a failure after all.

But then it was over, and she felt as empty and withered and miserable as she had before, and her mood soured as she crawled away. There was nothing that glittered in this world. It was hard and cold and filled with fools,and now that she had entered it there was no escaping.

--

The pups were an accident.

It had never been her intention. She should have known better, of course. It wasn't like she didn't know what would happen, eventually. Inevitably. They still caught her by surprise, and she kept them quiet from shame and fear and embarrassment and misery.

She had been prepared to love them.

That was the worst part -- she had planned to love them. Even as she kept them secret from the others, even as she carried on with her daily habits without so much as a hint of her condition, she privately planned for her future with the puppies.

She would take them home with her. They would be bright, she hoped -- bright like herself. She was fairly certain that Lalita was the father. He was handsome enough. They would rank well, in the pack. They might find their way into a favored position -- the king's harem, or one of the personal servants.

She would raise them, and love them, and they would be a happy family. It would be something good to come of this whole horrible botched affair.

--

But that was before. Before she came to the pristine beaches of Kapu'Moana. Before she saw the blood, the carnage, the rotting flesh of wolves slaughtered and left to fester in the sun.

Someone had murdered everyone.

There were no words for it. There was no consolation. There was only horror, and misery, and sickness that overcame her and washed through her and made her stomach heave. She couldn't share her grief, not even with her stupid prince. Especially not with him.

And so she pulled away from them. They all stood around, lingering amid the carnage, and Kami couldn't handle it any longer. She pulled away from the others and drug herself away into the woods that marked the territory's northernmost border and threw herself down into the grass and sobbed and retched and trembled. The pain in her heart swelled through her body and threatened to consume her.

It wasn't until much later that the pain was more than her broken heart.

The pups were coming, and they were much too early. Everything was wrong.

Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 7:59 pm

The pain was not as terrible as she had expected. She bore it, the way generations of wolves had borne it before.

Afterward, she lay curled around the pups and tried to weep with tears that would not come. She was alone: Just her, and these two infants, and all the terrible secrets that had brought them into the world.

The parentage was unmistakable. The little girl looked exactly like Lalita. Well. That made things easy. He was a pack wolf. Young, stupid, but secure. That made the inevitable easier to bear.

But only barely.

They were too small. She had never had pups -- had never been around pups before, really -- but she knew, instinctively, that there was something wrong with them. The little orange one was larger. He seemed strong enough, if still impossibly tiny.

But the little girl was...thin. Newborn puppies shouldn't be thin. And her chest hitched, occasionally, as though with dry sobs. She gasped and trembled and for terrifying stretches of time she hardly breathed at all.

She'll die, Kamiya thought with curious detachment. She'll die in a few minutes and it will all be over.

But the pup didn't die. She suckled, though without the fierceness of her brother. Maybe she would die tonight. Or next week. Or never. Whatever happened, it was out of Kamiya's paws -- the same as everything else had been.

Kamiya closed her eyes, and tried to think of how she could possibly escape this nightmare that had become her life.

fenshae
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Beloved Codger

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fenshae
Crew

Beloved Codger

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Posted: Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:35 pm

Eventually, the others came for her. She knew they would.

She couldn't remember which it was, first. Roshan, maybe. He had soft, gentle eyes and he trembled like the leaves that adorned his pelt. Or maybe it had been Marion. Maybe Marion had come crashing in through the undergrowth like a buffalo and said something and Kamiya had dragged her body to her paws out of weary self-defense. She couldn't remember. It didn't matter.

It wasn't Kailani. She remembered that much. He was...gone, somewhere. Praying to the sea, probably. Laying the spirits of the dead to rest. She should do the same, but she was...occupied.

Once, the thought occurred to her that she could drown the little brown puppy. She could save it from a life of pain. Pain from whatever was wrong with her lungs...and pain from disappointment at the life she was bound to lead.

The feeling disappeared as soon as it had come, leaving her feeling miserable and destitute.

They didn't go back to the beach. They moved, eventually, further into the wilderness. Kami carried both pups together by the scruff; they were so small, she hardly felt their weight. The others talked. They said something or another. She hardly cared. Everything was a blank buzzing in her mind, a blanket of white noise.

She had to take the pups away.

Someone had killed everyone. They might come back for her...come back for the pups. They would be safe with their father. It was the only thing she could do.

The thought occurred to her, briefly, that she might be able to stay there, but the thought was too repulsive to consider. She didn't want to live with other wolves. She didn't want to see any other wolves. She wanted to be alone, forever, until the pain stopped.

So as she lay there, listening to the white noise buzzing of conversation that didn't matter, she decided.

She would take the pups back to their father.
She would leave them there.
And, in the night, when nobody was paying attention, she would slip away, and go...somewhere....and try to find her path once more.

Welcome to Gaia! ::

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~Shaoilin Woods Guild Archive #2~

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