(Solaris and Heyel will be posted in a post together following this tonight)


I managed a sigh, the sound long and drawn out as if this entire conversation was a tedious waste of my time and perhaps to a certain extent it actually was. Eden seemed rather assured of his own ridiculous ideas on creation and really I suppose I should let the bother flounder about in his own beliefs until age and reality truly teach him to ridiculousness of his own sentence and yet…what sort of great grandfather would I be if I failed to educate him on everything he did wrong in his life?

“The act of procreation is easy, Eden, the birth and maintainece of the things you created are far less so. If you are going to put time and food into your children you might as well ensure their survival. Every new child takes months to create, then months to grow into anything potentially useful. They are not time efficient- children and it takes time to see if any of them are worthy of anything so yes, Eden, watch over them if you hold hope for survival.”

Idiot puppy of a boy he was. This- this is why I gave up having children years ago. Eden believed himself ruthless, believed himself immune to the touches of emotion a child can afflict upon even the hardest of hearts. That I would let him discover for himself I suppose, that ending a child is not nearly so easy as merely intending it or speaking of it. Instinct demands we defend what is ours with a ruthlessness unprecedented. He may act indifferent but somewhere within, slowly, his children will begin to affect him as they once did myself. I remembered it, still, the day my first litter was born. Reyja, Isola and Aaliyah. I…disliked children, my training had held no method for how to deal with them. I found them irritating, confusing, loud and entirely self-centred. They took all of my Zeivahs attention from me and really I am entirely so shallow as o admit that bothered me and yet…slowly, it had become apparent that these things- these tiny red and white girls born in the spring sun were…my own. Mine and no ne else’s, created purely by myself and my mate and that they alone would secure my line, continue it- carry my blood long after I was gone and suddenly they had become important. Suddenly I watched over them though I surely pretended to show little care for some years still and yet….they mattered, each and every one of them. They mattered to me and they still did. Even the one walking beside me though I saw little need to express such a fact- I never had.

To end a child, especially one of your own is perhaps the hardest of tasks, better done before they grow old enough to speak and yet perhaps the greatest gift a father can give to an ailing child is a swift death as opposed to suffering. I had ended Saintly for that reason and if Eden were true to his word as I believed he was- then when the time came he too would need a strength of the sort he cannot fathom in its existence- his assurance though is at least noteworthy.

“Yes- weakness removed when it is young is to preserve the purity of blood. Do not disappoint me in that at least, do not allow weakness to infiltrate my bloodlines. Isola should never have permitted the existence of Haziel and Serafina. I told her so, offered to be rid of them fur her yet she has always been….as her mother in that.”

I offered no further words on the matter, my mind perhaps not having seized upon the layers of meaning within his words as we walked, the path seeming longer, further then I remembered until we reached the stretching fields that I had once led the remnants of my pack too after the fall of the sky- the cave we had all lived within in the aftermath still in existence even now as I allowed my gaze to return to the grey and white boy in momentary confusion. Had he no sense of direction? He had become Alpha and yet evidently seemed incapable f actually getting from one pack to another. Maybe he drank sea water. I felt my gaze narrow slightly on the somewhat blurred outline that was Eden as he moved to seat himself, evidently grown tired from out walk. I was twice his age and still standing- albeit I truly did desire to lie down, I merely refused as a matter of actual pride as he spoke- another sigh drawn from my lips.

“I do not feel confined Eden, I feel ridiculously annoyed that we walked ten miles in the wrong direction and that we are now in some sparsely decorated field that is so badly in need of landscaping that even I can see it and truth be told I cannot see all that much.”

I was surrounded by imbeciles. How the world actually intended to function when I was gone I truly don’t know. Maybe they can name a tree after me or something and everyone can gather around it and wish they had my intellect. I like that. I felt a grin lace at my features all the same, something akin to a chuckle rumbling within my chest- amused at my own internal humour before Eden spoke again and the violet of my gaze cut firmly to his own once more. Confined by my body? If that was his way of telling me I was old it was a statement that was hardly needed. I was damn well 24 and I was well aware of it. Confined to my body….was he talking about souls?

“Eden, if you are talking about one of these ridiculous, new age religions where everyone dies and becomes reincarnated as a bug or something I really do not wish to discuss it or hear the ‘good news’- I am a little old for conversion and I…..who else is here, Eden?”

I may be very near blind but I can smell and hear as well as I ever could, the unmistakable scent of pine, of…Taviora existing within the air as I near pivoted in place upon aged limbs, white pelt aglow in the moonlight- much like that of the glowing white I could make out coming to stand beside Eden now, aged heckles lifting in response to a scent I knew far to well as I managed a hiss of sorts between bared teeth- remaining on my feet now in simple wariness. Maybe he was here simply because of Eden, because to two had always been close despite my displeasure in that- though my dislike of Solaris was surely made clear in those few moments as I attempted nonchalance once more.

“Solaris.”

It was something of a greeting I suppose, gaze flicked briefly from one to the other. If this was a religious thing it was getting a little…out of hand.



h e y e l
The Assassin King