twelve - no heart - no soul - Spirane

In a state of unconsciousness Natu dreams. Her dreams are fuzzy and yet she knows the figures that materialize - her children and her mate. All long-lost memories, yet it gets her heart racing and her mouth goes dry with disbelief. There is a joy in dreams that the real world cannot imitate. Some might say dreams were the imitation. But dreams brought forth what one most desired; she felt loved, cherished, and so happy to see them. They rushed around her and pressed against her and Natu wept. She wept because it had been so long - somewhere in the back of her mind she knew this was a dream. She didn't want to wake up. Who would chose to give up so bliss after such a long road of heartache and loneliness?

But the real world wouldn't wait. The happiness that bloomed within her was stolen as quick as her breath when she had hit the cave floor. Suddenly Natu was conscious, aware of the gripping pain that sluiced through her damaged body. She did not open her eyes because in truth the pain in her body did not compare to the sudden reopened wound in her chest. If a heart could bleed, tear, rip, shred, then hers would have done so.

A tear tracks it's way down the slope of her cheek and finally, slowly, Natu open's her ice blue eyes. She is almost blinded by the fur of Ailith, the white female a match to Natu except somewhat bigger. She doesn't know her and yet Ailith smells of the mountains - of Spirane. Natu moves to stand yet her head swims, her vision becomes foggy, and she whimpers. The tear in her shoulder burns. She can smell the drying blood, can see it all over Ailith's back. This woman has saved her, of that she is sure.

"I...." she croaks, coughing slightly before rolling her body gently to the side so that she lays upright, blinking to try and make the world focus. "Who are you?" They shouldn't have been the first words she says but Natu is disoriented. The throbbing in her head is grand, overcoming the bruised side of her body and the tear in her shoulder. Obviously this wolf was not Lillith - the vicious bitch from Iromar. If she ever saw her again there would be no running.