Fox's Glade she is collecting pieces of the broken hearts

She is a doe like woman. Petite in frame, seemingly cautious, and yet curious about the world she lives. Her observations admittedly astute. Collision offers her the warmth of a smile despite his nervous ticking at the end of his little tale. Things were simple where he came from. A leader: The alpha. Ranks descending in titles decorated as Beta, Gamma, so on, and so forth. Adjusting the way that things were done in the Teekon had become amusing. Even their sister pack, Kaistleoki held a different way of doing things. The system an ever changing lyric depending on the tune to which a band gathered. He supposed it made sense. No gathering was the same and thus could not be expected to function the same.

 A single word drips from her tongue. Powerful. He finds himself questioning it for the first time. Was powerful a word he would equate to his Empress? Of this he wasn’t certain, but perhaps the definition of the word had become stale to him. Reiko was not powerful in the same way he was powerful. She was powerful in her ways of appealing. The way she presented things and the ways in which she tried. Collision couldn’t quite bring himself to think her physically strong, however. Insulting, maybe…but he remained truthful in his thoughts regarding his leader. Presently, he noted that he didn’t think the word indulged her. Reiko had grown weak as her power had been taken away. As Takeshi had poisoned her mind, body, and soul. There was an ember glowing within her, however, and perhaps she would return more powerful than once ever she had been.

 She speaks. Her opinion on the matter becoming quite clear and, honestly, comes some clarity for his festering mind. It wasn’t Reiko who was the weak leader. It was Takeshi. A man fueled to think it was in support of him he would become great. A man who relied on his strength and his harsh tendencies to gather his power and somehow think he would keep it. It wasn’t a good method. His downfall wasn’t far off. If Yuudai didn’t bring him down then Collision would step in and do so through any means necessary. If that meant offering his own life: So be it.

 She offers apology for her speech and Collision’s eyes fall off into the distance, “No apology necessary,” He swallows, his throat tight, and his mind seeking to organize all of the words that threatened to spring forth. There was so much chaos and he sought peace among it all. This was the first moment in which things seemed to settle in so long. It was becoming clearer and clearer what his future needed, “Things change. We change…and sometimes this is against our own will–I think. We’re all exposed to situations that might deter how we handle situations. I don’t think my silence was, originally, forced. I think I became content with allowing myself to act only physically and without thought,”

 As she trills her story things become quite clear to him. Valette. Greyback. Those names….Where had he heard them? Like a cloud lifted he was quite aware they were the ones that Vespera had told him and Yuudai of in the Empire. The description due to them by this pale woman was so very different than the one delivered by the Reneian woman. He hadn’t thought that there was two sides to the story he had received that day. Something perhaps he should of, but as events in the empire unfolded he became more and more aware that he needed to consider the man perspectives involved. The story Vespera had told him being a secondary or tertiary issue and he had only accepted it for what it was. This was something new entirely.

“I’m glad that you’ve found such honorable company in a good-life. It is all that I wish for anyone. Stranger or friend,” He affirms with a smile and a nod, his eyes have fallen back on her, and his world seems to stop as she notes his obvious discomfort. The creature that rumbles around his mind screaming and yet it has become a humbling sound. A sigh drifts from betwixt inky lips and his gaze again finds anywhere but her eyes. Perhaps it is easier to speak to a stranger. Yet–he still cannot have her looking into the tattered soul. How had he become so vulnerable?

“It all started out so slowly.  A good home, a good place, with good family. It’s slowly been perverted and at times I don’t know if it can be stopped. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stop it? I don’t know if I’m meant to. I came to the Empire long ago and swore that I wanted to guard the happiness they had built….Now it all seems so fake,” His voice is reminiscent, his body soothed as though he’s waited so long to say these things aloud, “I made a promise. One I have to see through to the end, but honestly I don’t know what my future holds beyond that. I guess it’s the unknown that’s more daunting than anything else. I have to hope that at the end of the day I’ll think my efforts were, at least, enough,” That was the trouble wasn’t it: Was he enough?