Skoll cried, pressing her forehead into the muzzle of the long gone wolf.
She cried for Faustite, who’d run out of time and chosen his own fate.
She cried for Lysithea, who’d tried so hard to help him and achieved so little.
She cried for the plan, thrown out the window so early on emotions and grudges.
She cried for herself, unable to help and unable to save someone who needed it the most.
Skoll tipped her head back and howled, long and mournful into the canopy above her. It echoed against the ancient oaks and ancient firs, curling around leaves and branches and through the under brush. It echoed until it faded and became like the breeze in the trees.
No one answered… no one ever answered.
She couldn’t seem to help her world, what right did she think she could help others? Skoll was tall, she was strong, and she was quick to anger. She protected her allies, but it made her prone to jumping the gun, to being reckless, to getting hurt. She’d always been like this; Hati - Zev was the more level headed one. The one to keep her from beating the older kids bloody, the one to talk her down after dealing with their dad.
She talked such a big game and for… for what?
The audacity of this b***h… me… Skoll sank onto her haunches, forehead still pressed to the skeleton. A sad, self defeating chuckle escaped her chest.
After all this time, now she chose to come back to her world. Four ******** years, and what brought her back to this spot? The fact she could help save Faustite? She had no right, seeking solace here when she’d abandoned it for so Cosmos damned long. By all rights, the giant wolf skeleton should just open it’s jaw and end her for her negligence. How could she possibly save anyone, much less herself or Asmo or Hati, if she let her world stagnate? How could she say she was a stars damned senshi?!
- ’... My bonded…’ he rumbled, ruffling her hair with his muzzle. His thoughts were a product of the golden band around his neck, hidden deep in his deep blue grey fur. She couldn’t remember where they’d gotten it, off world maybe. The wolf always seemed more intelligent than the rest of the pack, his eyes always seeing into her soul. Saw past the fangs and fur and anger to the lonely girl beneath.
Skollkin bonds - no matter the animal - varied from person to person, animal to animal. Each pair found each other on their own time and in their own ways, and the strength of it changed depending on their own wills. Some just wanted a servant, others wanted a companion. Skoll and Dellingr’s was…
Different.
The senshi of Skoll did not have a bonded Guardian Cat. Given that they bonded to beasts of their homeworld (and, usually too embroiled in their territory disputes to do much in the greater universe like building a court), they did not see the need. When a senshi needed to be awoken, or if they lasted long trained enough to become worthy of more power, they would simply reach out to Silver Millenium and Mau for a cat to come to the moon. Once, it was said, the first ancient senshi had been bound to one. Yet, there were no stories of this guardian cat, nor of this senshi that survived to her generation.
Her and Dellingr’s bond reminded the elders of that ancient bond in it’s strength, in how the pair even as whelp and child moved together as if they breathed as one. As if they were two halves of the same soul, reunited once more. At some point, maybe as she aged into being an adult and not a child senshi, the gold band was gifted to the pair. It felt like so long ago now.
‘No matter how hard we try… no matter what we do… I still…. I’m not strong enough,’ she sobbed into his fur, buried in his scent. She felt him sit and curl around her, shielding her from the forest around them. Felt his heartbeat, slow and steady against her chest, the way his chest expanded with each breath. His warmth, his solidness, his reality.
‘My Faelan… you did everything you could… it is not your fault, my heart,’ he replied, a deep rumble in his throat against her. A sob shuddered through her chest, and her hands gripped his fur tighter.
‘I is not your fault.’
‘It is not your fault.’
‘It is not…’
… your fault.
The forest stood as a silent barrier against her sobs, her wails, her howls of grief. It stood as the sky began to shift from blue, to orange, to purple as night descended upon the moon. It stood as her sobs began to quiet, as she sniffled, as she breathed even in the pre-twilight air.
It stood as tiny motes of light lifted out of the grasses around her, pulsing golden yellow and silver blue as the forest grew dark.
It stood in silence, until the motes of lights began to softly chirp. One by one, the little lights pulsed and chirped, rippling across the clearing.
Skoll lifted her head from where she was pressed against the large skull, golden eyes wide and rimmed with red. She stared as the lights bobbed everywhere around her, a chorus of crickets built light lightning bugs breaking the silence.
There was… life.
A little lightning bug creature landed on her hand as she lifted her palm in awe. A little bigger than the ones she remembered from Earth, and much furrier, sort of like a moth. More lightning bugs landed on her hand until she held a palm of gold and silver light.
There was life on her homeworld.
... you did everything you could, my heart…
Skoll pressed her cheek against the skull, cradling his muzzle, watching the lighting bugs.
Faustite, in the end, had chosen his own fate, rather than let someone else do it for him. They had done what they could to help him. Her, Encke, Nectaris. Lysithea. They’d tried to get him the help he needed. It wasn’t enough… but was what they could have done as the situation exploded around them.
Nothing had gone as planned, and there wasn’t any way to change it now. She’d done what she could.
Skoll could only move forward now, pick herself up and dust off her knees, and keep moving forward.
The lightning bugs lifted off her hand. She watched the float off to the sea of other little bugs. Head rested on her long gone bonded, she simply listened to the lightning bugs chirp until the sky was black and punctuated by stars and Saturn and its rings above.
“... I hope you find peace, one way or another, Faustite of the Negaverse… Should we meet again… may it be under better circumstances,” she said to the song of the lightning bugs and the sky above. A howl joined the song, and at once the forest let out a mournful song across the galaxy and universe.
[ Insect Unlocked! Singing Lights - Small lightning bugs that blink gold and silver light, and emit a sound not unlike an Earth cricket. ]
[ WC: 1255 ]
