Something about the way the moon moved across the sky, the way the earth tilted and the shadows lengthened, was different than it had been before. Even the air, which before had been invigorating and fresh, tasted more potent, less playful. Pain had become a constant bedfellow, stalking her with all the relentlessness a lioness stalks her prey, forever dogging her pawsteps and contorting her once pretty muzzle into a grotesque mask of agony. She lingered uneasily in the shadows, not wearing them half so comfortably as the one who had visited her that fateful night. She had carried the darkness as though it had been tailored for her, donning it as a king does a crown. Fiammetta snarled at the thought, her canines gleaming white as ever beneath charred lips. Not a trace of the naïve puppy she had been remained in her eyes, nor a glimmer in her soul. Instead, where once there had been a pile of smouldering coal, there was now a blazing fire. She was a huntress, stalking the undergrowth, driven by anger, hatred and the desire for revenge. It was a blinding light that seared her vision and drove out all other thoughts from her weary mind.
The trees rose above her on all sides, callous and uncaring, looking down upon her with neither pity nor curiosity. She was to them as insignificant as an ant, integral to the ecosystem but meaningless as an individual, a smaller part of a bigger story. Overhead an owl hooted and she shivered, remembering her mad dash through the forest and the blinding pain that had drowned out all other emotion, purging her of weakness. It was rejuvenating, to be free of all the baggage she carried, free of the everyday struggle of life and death common to all mortal creatures. Instead, she had been chosen to walk as one blessed, marked by the fire that was her namesake, called out to stand apart from her fellow wolves. She blinked her single red orb triumphantly, and flicked her last remaining good ear, catching the sounds of the forest around her.
The undergrowth to her left stirred and she paused momentarily, only continuing her onward amble when the shaking stopped and all was again quiet. She was not hunting tonight, at least not her normal quarry. The moon bathed her white pelt in an iridescent glow as she flitted twixt the tree-trunks but, far from highlighting her beauty as it had before, it only showed her for the monster she had become. A crusty mass of oozing flesh and scar tissue criss-crossed almost her entire right side, leaving her body naked and exposed. Her legs retained patches of fur, as did her belly, and her tail was intact, but she wore no other garments. The right side of her face had been destroyed, her lips burned away to show the teeth underneath and her eye swollen shut. Her ear was torn and had furled inward from the heat, leaving something akin to a wilted tulip attached to her head. Her right side had escaped the worst of the damage thankfully, leaving only a few patches of charred hair and burnt skin that would eventually recover. Her dainty frame had been small beneath a thick layer of fur, but now that it was fully visible, it was almost pathetic. If only there were a wolf in Moladion brave enough to tell her so.
Far from damaging her self-esteem, the injuries she had sustained only seemed to feed her fervour, as wood feeds fire, so that the look in her eye and the slash of russet fur down her face made her the spitting image of her grandmother. And, just like Jaylah had done so long ago, Fiam now stalked the forest searching for the one who had marred her, making herself a silent promise. She would make that ebony hellwraith pay, even if she had to die to do it.
Fiammetta - Female - No Home - No Family - 4YO - 28 inches, 32 pounds