Pan <font size=1><i>Away from the edge</i></font>

The warmth of the sun didn�t reach my skin or rather it didn�t reach my heart as I gazed into the faces of ghosts. Everything looked so different, only in the shadows with squinted eyes could I see the land I grew up in and I couldn�t even work out if that was better or worse. I�d already cried my fill when my wanderer�s soul had realized that I knew this strangest of places and could still feel the ache in my chest from the heaving sobs. I�d never felt so alone, I had had everything, maybe a jumped up assassin had stolen my parents throne but that had never bothered me much, they�d been there. Heck my mother had nearly died bringing me home when I�d been swept away in a flood. Not just that, there had been a family maybe there where only three pups to the legacy of Indus and Wild Justice but surely that was better, knowing you where treasure and not having to compete with litter after litter for the attention that childhood craved. Then again, now I didn�t even know if there were three of us left or the parents to complete a family unit. No I wasn�t some raving pup anymore but that didn�t mean I enjoyed eyeing the ghosts of those I loved as my memories clouded my eyes.

Shivering, I gave my head a vigorous shake and stretched out to try and get some life back into my honeyed limbs. At least there could be no doubt to my heritage, my limbs where long like my dad�s but there was some of my mum�s bulk to balance it out, must it was most evident in the earthy brown of my ochre pelt and the honey highlights threaded through it. Even as I stood here debating my family�s demise, I myself was healthy, the loner life had not bitten particularly hard with brain engaged.

Gritting my teeth because otherwise I would mull all day; brooding was as unproductive as it was comforting, I began to lope. A ground eating pace because having stumbled unimpressively home I couldn�t leave and not know if I found no trace there was one outcome a lot more likely than the other. Wishing I was sharp enough to run with my eyes closed because the strange-familiar look of the land cut my resolve, my mother had made sure I could fight as dirty as she did, had, did but it didn�t quiet stretch to such feats. Everything was so different, it was wrong, craters shouldn�t exist where before peaceful-mostly- lands had laid. Maybe because I hadn�t seen the event, instead heard of it through whispers consistent enough to make me keen but like this it seemed a slap in the face. Look what happened, look what you let happen to you kin alone, were where you whilst the world burned?

It didn�t take long and for that I would pray faithfully to whatever God wanted to claim my soul.

Pan.

PanPanPanPanPan it ran around my head a single thought unignorable and so, so important. Tears where running down my face again, the soft fur dark with the weight of sorrow and joy all knotted inseparably together, the scent was old but that didn�t matter to my sanity. Now I had something to trace, to follow and to find. It didn�t matter that I had found no trace of our eldest brother or our parents. One was enough, one was something.

The scents ebbed and waned but Pan had been everywhere, seen everything so it was easy to pick up again... and lose. The number of steps mattered as little as the time it took to find him. So my brother had a pack, pride prickled irrationally at me: I�d done little with my life. I�d learnt as a healer and done nothing at all with it but my brother had, he was living. Pacing I realized the impracticality with this, frustrated I turned sharply back and forth cutting into the ground to vent. Sharp howls burst from my maw, a loud and consistent cry for Pan, though I was desperate to see a survivor, as an adult I was limiting the amount of time I spent wandering through strange territory to none.

��::{Five}
��::{Indus+WIld Justice}
��::{Sister to Pan}
��::{No strings}
� ::{Drifter}

.:CAZANNA:. � � ��

Username:
Password:
Subject:
Message: