always reaching the unknown

Sometimes she wasn’t so certain of the power she wielded within the world. Ashen was a strong pack, and not only because of her own prowess but it was the connected power of her and the packs that wove together as the Empire. Venom did not assert herself over her partners, but treated them with the respect that one of her peers deserved, because that was what they were. She did not lord over anyone, but held her pack together and respected her fellow leaders that called her their ally. Venom was strong when she was on her own, but more than that she was the strength of herself and those she trusted. Venom trusted in the mortal realm for her strength, when once she would have looked to the otherworldly.

Being an Abraxas meant so much to her in her younger days. Archon was her whole world and she wasn’t more proud of anything as her name. Time changed all things however, and after a while the Empress felt like she was betrayed by the very god she idolized. Perhaps the disconnect with the spiritual world was the real cause of her devotion to the celebrations this season. She missed the ways things once were, when Archon was there to care for her. She could easily picture her father standing before her, and Obi next to her, running his strange paws through her fur. When life had been so much more simple.

With the veil lifted Venom’s mind often shifted towards her father, the beyond, and if she had taken the right path in her life. There were many pivot points she could look back on, crossroads that would change her life forever and bring her to the place where she now rested on her haunches in quiet contemplation. She was seated on the tallest hill that the pitfalls had to offer. After carefully navigating her way here so she could see both the volcano and the shrine simultaneously. The subtle glow of lava in one direction, and the shrine’s magical glowing waters the other.

Her memory was foggy, and she couldn’t recall either the herbs or ceremony Toxicity or Obi would have performed to actually meet with the Abraxas patriarch. She felt some kind of blessing upon her after her gift to the statue, she felt the curtain pulled back at the bonfire. This might have been her best, and possibly last, time to contact the spirit of Archon. She had confidence the task could be done, the real struggle was the question of if it was a good idea. She had banished her own sister and took her name, the real blessed child in their litter. Would he admonish or scold her?

The thought brought her right back to her childhood. Back in the before time, when they lived in the ravine and ruled the western lands. A time that was foggy at best after so much had happened since then. The child-like awe and respect of her father hadn’t really left despite the trials that she had faced since then. Losing him, essentially losing her mother, and one by one watching her siblings slip away or be forced out. She watched her family change and shift to the product she beheld today. Ashen was something Venom was deeply proud of, and there was a part of her that still yearned for that fatherly approval. Their god totally forgotten, Venom sought her father’s approval of her life, not the religion that he had commanded her to follow. Maybe this whole thing was to prove that making her own way had been the better choice, when she would forever have the gut feeling of having failed the life’s mission she was given by her sire.

Before she could talk herself out of the act, the Empress began to hum. Again, she had little to no idea what she was doing, but the sentiment was similar to words she had once heard. A language she had once been able to recite. She closed her eyes, but instead of inducing a forced sleep she summoned the image of Archon in her mind. Every detail that she could remember from life, the tone of his fur and eyes, the curve of his cheekbone and the rigid lines of his ears. All before reopening her sunset gaze, and staring between the two places that so strongly held Archon’s presence. The place where he died, and the place he coveted.

She took a deep breath, resigning herself to this task to call her father from the beyond. "Archon!” She called out into the empty fields, her voice echoed over the flat grounds. "Father!” Again Venom called out. "Hear my cry.” She uttered softly while struggling to keep her mind clear and her emotions under control.

"Venom"