In The Darkness, You Are The Light I Need

Being here, with Zuriel, in the land where dreams and the dead meet and mingle, the Fatalis pup is fully able to voice her feelings without having to hold anything back. The motherly woman keeps her foreleg around the young Andy’s shoulders and, while this place might not be real, the love and tender touches that Zuriel offers are as real as her own mother Zee’s had been. She feels the gentle squeeze that the woman offers, strengthening it in her own mind until it is as strong as it would be if she was sitting beside her in the waking world.

Zuriel talks about her father and how messy love can be, understand both what she is feeling and what her father feels. A sigh rolls past purple lips as she offers a nod, glad to have the woman’s impartial viewpoint while still having her own emotions validated. The dead wolf’s gaze turns distant for a moment and the girl gazes up at her, wondering if her own struggles parallel anything in the woman’s own past life. With a shake of her head, Zuriel pulls herself back to conversation, asking about Isa and Andy offers her a loving smile.

Reaching up, the purple pup offers a gentle nuzzle to the woman’s cheek, hoping to convey in that simple gesture, just how much Zuriel’s kindness and guidance means to her. Settling back down, Andy leans into the ghost and says, “Well, uh, it is kind of a funny story. My dad is the alpha of our pack and he rescued Isa. She was put into the rank of ‘Slave’ which, honestly, I hate that word.” She pulls a slightly disgusted face as she explains, about the name of the rank.

There are so many negative condemnations associated with that single word and she has tried to talk her father out of using it. Ah, but that is another can of worms. A smile tugs at the corners of her lips as she continues on, happiness entering her voice, “Anyway, she was injured and I thought she would be scared so I took her some food and a small gift.” A shrug of her slender shoulders lifts the woman’s ethereal leg slightly before settling back down.

With a small, shy smile, Andy finishes her tale, “After that meeting, well we just kind of… hit it off. She is teaching me how to read and write and I have been showing her around the pack!” With a happy sigh, the girl snuggles a little tighter into the crook of the woman’s leg. There has always been something that she wanted has wanted to ask Zuriel since she met first met her out on that star lit plain.

Her voice softens, she looks up at the woman and asks, “Zuriel… what happened to you? I mean… why did you die?” Her voice takes on a pleading tone as she follows up the question with an even softer, heart wrenching, “Why do good people have to die?” Since her mother’s untimely departure, young Andy has been trying to understand the deep why of that death. Zee had been older but still young by the standards of wolf life.

And then… here is Zuriel. Yet another kind woman, too young to have left on her own accord, offering her comfort when she should have been able to live her own long, healthy, happy life. r In that moment, Andy feels the bitter sting that death often leaves in its cold wake.


"Andromeda Fatalis"