Living in the Memories

Evening light glinted golden off the back of the grey-toned girl. The light was dull, black-on-black as the fading tones hit the ebony sands of home. She knew long before she reached the beach that it was a shell of what it had been. There was no borders against the outskirts of the territory, no familiar scent of the great, big family she had once known. Her head was bowed, and she would not see the light of the fading sun as it danced across the blue of the gently rolling waves. She had eyes only for the shadows, the length of the sandy shore, and the chill that blew through the trees of the forest beyond. If she raised her head, she would see the ghosts of things long gone, she would see the blue of her Auntie as she fished against the rock cropping that juttered out from the beach. She would see the golds of her Uncle as he watched his children play against the sands of their home.

There was no Gale in the wind of this world, no Caeli in the stars when the light faded enough for them to shine. She wanted to rage, she wanted break the shells that decorated the shore, and lash out against the ocean. She hated her father in that moment, she hated him more then the mild disdain that had made her choice to leave him. She wanted to lash out at him, to berate him for ruining all that had been brilliant, and shinny, in her world. She forced her anger inside of her her, smothering it into a cold rage, and forced herself to take another step forward. She didn't want to enter the dens of the wolves she had once known, she didn't want to find the stones of Voltage's collection – because she did not know what would be worse. Finding them, here, without him, or finding them gone like her Uncle had never existed.

She walked like a dreamer, not seeing the world before her, but seeing the past. The world was brighter in those dreams, and she paid no heed to her paws as they took her through the territory. She ducked into the cave entrance that opened up onto the cliffs she had once loved to explore. She remembered her uncles and aunties, always watching her when she took this path. They had never liked her to come here alone, and she could almost, for a breath, feel their eyes upon her again. She exhaled, and the sensation was gone. She tore through the other side of the cave, and out into the open, beating her way up the curved path to the top of the cliff. She didn't care for safety, and more then once her paws skidded on loose dirt close to the edge. She was breathing hard by the time she reached the top, and it wasn't from the exertion of the run. She stepped onto the very edge, the tips of her paws hovering over onto the other side, and tipped back her head. She howl was a roar, it was anger and pain, it was memory and loss.