Where had she gone, and for how long? Adonai emerged from her fugue state like some sort of swamp-creature, her mind struggling against the tendrils that sought to keep it in the murky depths of insanity. She blinked her eyes open, once-- before she closed them again. Not ready yet, perhaps, to see the world as it truly was. It was comfortable to slip back into darkness. She had to wonder, in a distant sort of way, how long she must have been under to have darkness become a familiar feeling. Months, years? Why did it feel like aeons, yet also feel like no time at all? Her paw twitched against the sand. The frigid coldness of the crashing waves was what finally brought her back to, and with a heaving gasp she scrambled upwards, half her body wet with freezing water.
Her eyes, dilated and maddened with confusion, moved along the beach. She was suddenly made aware of the strangeness of her situation-- because as familiar as the beach seemed, as familiar as it felt, Adonai could not place where she was. The woman glanced over her shoulder. She was alone. Alone with just her thoughts and the crashing sounds of the ocean to keep her company. With her mind still fighting against itself to keep aware, she supposed that she could not hope for much. She stared out into the waves, angry and darkened by winter's coldness. Winter. Adonai began to remember the colors of early Fall, she remembered the moon-- remembered other wolves with faces that looked just like hers, in a different place, perhaps. A different time.
The woman recoiled, as if the ocean held some sort of poison. Her chest heaved as if she had just run for hours and her body felt sick and weak. She could not remember the rest of Fall, nor could she remember the beginning of Winter, but she could remember the before-- Ah, why couldn't she have just lied to her mother?
Adonai reeled backwards, willing her bones to move, like some sort of old and rusted machine left to rust in the rain in some dusty field. Loping down the beach, with the freezing air stinging her eyes and her wet skin, the dimming madness in her brilliant eyes became something more akin to panic. The coldness of winter had always been sobering, had it not? Unbroken snow, tousled and then stained red. The woman gritted her teeth, pushed herself to move faster. Her mother's den came into view, sad and crumbling by the seashore. Ah, weren't they all, then? Old statues. Adonai let out a strangled sort of sound as she moved swiftly towards the densite, her toes digging into the sand.
Her mother had always ranged, sometimes for days or even for a week, but her scent was too stale. Ehiyeh had not been back since she had bared her teeth at her only daughter and told her that she was running far where the demons wouldn't find her. Where the darkness wouldn't hurt anyone, and where she couldn't be hurt by the darkness, either. Adonai's breath hitched and caught in her chest. She slinked into the den, her eyes adjusting to the dimness. The pelts that had been arranged so neatly by her mother were torn and strewn.
The woman backed out of the den and sat in the sand, just outside. She stared at the ground, at the space between her paws. Adonai hadn't seen a single soul. Perhaps it hadn't just been Ehiyeh who had left. Perhaps, now, she was truly and utterly alone.
