She had failed.

It was with glassy eyes that she watched her destiny crumble before her, petering out like dying embers in an old coal nest, once flaring with beauty and destruction but now only blackened powder. The clash rattled over and over in the recesses of her mind, and every mistake she recalled seared her soul with fresh frustration so that she allowed herself to be driven by Tobias without too much resistance. After all, he had just proven himself more than capable of defeating her in combat, and she wasn't naïve enough to think herself immortal, even in the eyes of a murderer who, for some reason, refused to murder her. She did not know to where he herded her and she did not care. Fiam was not afraid of what might be done to her. Instead, she lingered only on her recent defeat and the repercussions it would have on the path fate had marked out for her.

Although not often given to wallowing in self-pity, Fiammetta made an exception as she traipsed along the muddied earth, the black behemoth following close behind her. Perhaps the fire had made a mistake? Perhaps she was not the wolf it had meant to mark in The Burning? All answers her earthly body couldn't conjure, and she made up her mind to seek out a wolf with some knowledge of the future for she knew, as most did, that a handful of such beings did exist. Perhaps there was even one making its home in the place that was to be her destination. By now she had worked out in which direction they were travelling, for the landscape had changed from bearded forest to wet, open grassland that glistened with residual raindrops. So, she was destined for Asteraia then? She wondered what business the dark demon had with the grassland pack, for she had never taken him for a sociable type of dog. Ah well, in time she supposed she would know all.

Beneath what was left of her once magnificent pelt, Fiammetta shivered. The wind had begun to blow as soon as the storm let up and, though the sky had filtered out to a hazy blue, icy fingers stroked the scarred and naked skin of the miniature lady, deepening her apprehension of what was to come. A low growl issued from her lipless jaws whenever the raven-robed monster drew too near, for her wounds stung and shed tears of crimson still, and she knew how the scent would drive the darkness mad with lust.

Before too long, the hilly expanse of the still green Asteraia opened up before her like a book and, had she been visiting under other circumstances, she may have found it pleasing to the eye. However, due to her being forcibly restrained, a mere glimpse of the landscape was a blight and she shut her eye, longing to be elsewhere. Still, she could not remain a gargoyle forever, and she had been brought down in a fair fight, so she heaved a guttural sigh and only paused again at the border to sniff at the scent-marks, eager to get a whiff of the new alpha everybody had been whispering about.

As she inhaled, her single eye grew wide with shock, and her hackles stood to attention on her broad shoulders. She opened her mouth to snarl but nothing came out, and the pain of that night returned with such vengeance that she struggled to catch her next breath. Of all the ironic happenings that had occurred in the life of the young female, this had to be the most terrible.

The new alpha of Asteraia and, for the next few weeks her queen, was the very wolf she was sworn to destroy. For a moment it seemed that Fiam would turn and run, taking her chances with Tobias rather than bowing to the black bitch who had maimed her. Instead though, her body began to shake violently and she lapsed into spasms that shook her entire frame. This continued for a few seconds in silence before a pretty, twinkling sound emerged from those ruined jaws.

Fiammetta, purger of wolf-kind, was laughing.


Fiammetta - Female - No Home - No Family - 5YO - 28 inches, 32 pounds