Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Repeat. Birth, life, death. Repeat. Dawn, day, dusk, night. Repeat. That had been the way that her life had been running for years. From when she had first emerged from her mother and been set upon the earth, through all of her training, through her years stumbling through the different packs. Athene had been so set in her ideologies and morals that she had been blind to so many things that were in front of her. When she had been dubbed a master, she still had been open to the teachings of the other masters, but what she had failed to recognize here in Blossom Forest for the longest time was despite their differences, there was still a lot of stuff for her to learn. A wolf did not need to be a singly focused being in order to be able to teach another wolf something. For each of them had their own experiences, and why shouldn’t she learn from the mistakes and errs of others so that she would not have to face those herself? But now, for the most part, that had changed. Kershov had changed her.
Her parents, her teachers, they had all made her believe that love was for the weak, that it exposed your weaknesses and put cracks in your strengths. But Kershov made her stronger. The thought had been that if you loved another, the thought of losing them could make you forget your training, send you spiraling down a destructive loop. But she had no fear of losing Kershov – any femme who tried to steal her would be rejected by him or murdered by Athene herself. In battle, they would be at each other’s sides, their style and skin only augmented by the other’s presence considering that they trained together nearly daily. And if Kershov went down, Athene would as well, for it would have to be the fucking apocalypse in order to bring the pair of them to bear. And so, stronger, wiser, she had finally come to a single realization – that although she hated and despised Kari, there had to be respect. In order for there to be hatred, there had to be a similarity, and if there was a similarity to Athene, well then there had to be some strength within her. And even if nothing else, Kershov respected Kari, and Athene trusted her mate implicitly.
So by the beach she had gone, tracking the long strided path she knew belonged the maned wolf until at last she came upon her, the faint scent of fish still upon her lips. Athene leapt down from the crags, her tail flipping to and fro as she stared at her with a knowing smirk, waiting for the fountain of spewing words to erupt from Kari’s volcanic maw.
WC 468
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