Hideaway Strath Dreadful Happenstance

It started as a Tease...

         ...It should have been a down and dirty kill. Something with enough of a mess involved that Krynn could lose herself in the chase though not plan the afternoon cleaning up after her habit. A wild hare perhaps? Nonsense, there were far too many of those to hunt and one could only reap enough excitement, and meat, from a creature with a head no bigger than a apricot. So what was next on the playdate hits list? Skunk? At least Krynn could annoy Novae with that one afterwards. Maybe Krynn could set herself on a bird then. Wrong again as that kill was far too quick. Like strolling in the woods and happening on a shiny stone. Intrigued at first, maybe even excited, but there after it was still just another rock and now you are the foolish one for spending time on it at all. 

Just like the bird... One lucky pounce and it's gone. Excited you got it and foolish for spending time on something you'd need 12 of for a decent meal. Krynn couldn't help thinking maybe the size of the bird was where this analogy went all wrong...

Be all that as it may the Black furred Canine did find something well enough to distract her. Priest...

Another Wolf she knew only in passing description. His strong scent raked around the area as if just his passing was enough to mark trees his own. Krynn eyed him from afar, when she could snatch a glimpse, sweeping in his features as if she were stalking him today. The way he walked was that of a viper, if snakes had legs, perfectly coupled with a strut only the All Father was known for. -or there was that marvelous coat that caught the shine of the sun just right to shine red. He was strong, he was confident, ....he was so.... -so, boring.

Krynn didn't care anymore to see what was on his agenda than to decide exactly what was to register as her own. Instead she found the shade of a long dead tree she, herself, didn't much care to identify and suffered a large yawn. Completely abandoning her pursuit. Groaning as her maw surged open and clamped down even more suddenly. By the Ancestors Krynn would kill for a moment to tease Novae by now but instead she laid her head to the stone and allowed her mind to plague her with endless nonsense. 

​"I think I shall wait for nightfall. Then I may bless the Owls in a game of wit and riddles..."

---

Eyes on him went unnoticed. He was caught up trying to find where Vehem had gone off to, as opposed to paying attention to his surroundings. He hadn’t even contemplated Vehem could have plotted his downfall over something petty, waiting behind him to pull him under, or even that Krynn lurked with such a nefariously apathetic outlook on who he was. The brother grew concerned about his brother, whether he liked it or not, as Priest was trying to conjure up his Family and take there to a place further off to the side of Teekon that a past scouting trip had stuck in his mind. 

Sleeping Dragon. And should it prove worthwhile, they would stay there. 
So mindful of all of the wrong things, he kept his snout down until his impatience overtook him. A short series of barks left off of an inken maw before ending in a low howl. Nothing returned to him, Vehem disappearing on his brother for the millionth time in his lifetime. 

Indigo sapphires sought the treeline for the motion of his possible littermate, but neither Hum nor Vehem were found. Maybe he did it, finally. Maybe Vehem got his paws on Hum, and swept her away to live his dream, and start his own legacy. 
Vehem had no idea what he had gotten himself into, in that case. 

How contemptuous...

      It was all so sweet the way her fantasies teased her coming night. A breathless chase of one Shadow Wolf behind a trail of fear and false hope. Bolting after a fox she felt the cold breeze of the night's air split her fur sending tiny tingling bites to the back of her brain. Numbing all those pesky destractions about place, clan, and tomorrow. Then and only after she could break away from her high and let the smaller animal, this mortal, duck into a hole and struggle to calm their rapidly beating heart. Krynn could taste it's labored breath in the air and feel the panic of that beating chest. Louder and louder that heart would plague the Fox; she could see it now harboring fearfilled thoughts, "Can she hear me?  Please be still my heart. Please be still!" Krynn drones off until the manly stench of Priest foiled her daydream dragging Krynn back into the realm material.

A low growl then rattled the field of green. Krynn hated him now and dared to curse Priest for damning that beautiful dream of evanescence.

Krynn's form stood high above Priest now. Lurking silently into his blind spot until her Silver eyes narrowed on him with disgust. She had had it now and could not wield the shadows fully so long as he remained disturbing her calm. Krynn never said a word but could utilize her maddening aura like a monkey wields a stone at range. When her scent washed over him she stood motionless with the black of her fur melting into the shaded wood atop a boulder on high. Even the sun beamed down on Priest as if the scold him for daring to gaze upon Krynn. The niece of the sun, The Moon's daughter. 

"Save me from yourself... And fumble your blunder elsewhere."

---

He froze.
He knew not only the voice, but the manner in which it was held, delivered, and it was cold. As cold as the crypt, a graveborn express of devil and demon alike to drag you into the nether. Into the void. And into nothingness. The voice was a warning that was what frightened children away from the riverbanks of seemingly shallow waters back to unaware parents, a call of rise against foolishness that would only bring you past the brink, should you not heed, not obey. 

Slowly, much more carefully, Priest gave her the respect she should have deserved, but not the respect she wanted. He straightened up and faced her, his childhood crush who seemed to know so much more than he of the unknown. That was the other reason why he couldn’t simply have Hum as his chosen mate; Krynn had taken his heart and probably knowingly held it hostage. No matter how vile she thought his existence, he could feel the fall all over again. 

She wasn’t fond much of the living. And she definitely had no warmth in her frozen heart for him, the Sahira who had deserted his brood family to make his own, stealing members from them to see this dream and set right the Sahirian name. 
Krynn wanted no part of it, it seemed. And it would be even more damn hard to get her to join his journey. 

“Krynn,” his murmur slid to address her in a greeting. While his inner voice told the Agony that this was a mistake, he wanted to hear her voice over and over again. To even stand near her-
“What’s up? How you been?“

He tried to remain calm, to be the pinnacle that everyone expected him to be, but his pillaresque manner only cracked and drifted abrasively in a hurdle towards the ground. 
As much as it hurt, to stand against such a strong aura, he kept himself neutral. He would not flee as many others who could not stand her unwavering demand- 
he stood.

And he stayed.

A still breeze…

       It had swept between them gifting the only motion to their scene. On one side stood Priest brave enough to look upon a forbidden tower where the other side glared down from on high.

Krynn shivered when he froze realizing who stalked him now. It was a grand display of recoil as Priest’s form shifted to oblige Krynn’s and his own happenstance, their awkward meeting in this place. That alone set the Night Wolf’s fur to stand.
Then there was the stillness that followed her name. Krynn’s scowl deepened in that moment and purified herself of any and all attraction she held for the much larger Wolf. Of course, he couldn’t say anything! Of course, he wouldn’t listen! Such a simple request tittering on the verge of a demand but Priest the stout Male that he is wouldn’t heed it. Couldn’t abide to it! Krynn’s maw twisted and those silvery gems that were her eyes narrowed.

It was an unrefined pair of questions. How was she? What is up? Krynn physically began to shake with anger and still wouldn’t be able to brutalize his arrogant body as she was now. A daydream flashed across her mind to pounce upon him and rip out those eyes, turn them into a treat, and laugh as he wondered the world dumb AND blind.
However, what she did not realize was that she had blushed all the while her rage stirred. For as much as she hated him Priest held one commendable attribute and that was his idiocy.

Only a fool remained unhinged when she nipped at the air with words to brandish that warning. That simple request to leave; -and here he was. So she answered, “The sky…” and, “…adequate. “


The wind whistled between them now. It was his turn now that his moronic nature kept her seated.

---

Indigo sapphires laced over the face of the skeleton woman, her cursed features of highlighted bones by pale alabaster fur that detailed the exact origins and whereabouts of her skull, betraying that this lupine was so much more into the morgue than what any other could inherit. Her Affinity was so clear, so obvious, and Priest felt so much at home with her for it. Almost as though she were the piece he needed to stabilize in his own misery. 

“That’s cool; glad you’re making it-“ his ears stuck to her direction, ignoring the squirrel that tried to steal his attention as it scampered behind him for possible edibles. “It’s been a good minute. Maybe we could chill or somethin’ or maybe catch a bit to eat together.” He didn’t ask; she would say no. Well shit, she could still say no. And he couldn’t exactly fault her for it. The Reapette wasn’t exactly smiling at him, or welcoming him back with a hug or kiss. 
She wasn’t easy- 

 

Like the rest...

He had his standards. They were whacked out sometimes, but still was considered a standard, right? “Is quail still your favorite?“

It had been veiled...

      ...yet it was there all the same. Krynn stirred at the invitation but only on the mention of her most favored meat. The feathers of those that roamed the sky were an annoying token of what true flavor these tiny creatures harbored. An annoyance Krynn enthusiastically cast aside when gifted with one or more as a dinner.

So of course Krynn showed nothing resembling happiness facing down the arrogance of this male. Such a duplicitous gender thinking of the score and never the path ahead. Still... -her form faded as she stepped back from view without a sound. Only as the moments rolled on she finally appeared on his flank sitting idle but not as open to send a smile across his face. Not that he deserved one with just words anyhow...

"Nu amgavsi." This was a challenge to Priest if there ever was any from Krynn to issue to his kind. Prove you are more than a face containing a wagging tongue and she may start to see you as something worth of her time. until then her eyes remained cold and unchanged. Almost as if she were bored though it maybe only Novae that could see Krynn was being kind in her own way. If the smaller Wolf disliked the Male so much she would not have given him the opportunity at all. However this was far from anything in her mind as a gesture to permission that they may court one another. "However..." Her words were drenched in a tone comparable to a vipers strike. "If the night falls I shall leave you. -The Ancestors call me to action when stars ignite."

---

Inhaled by the solace of shadows, she vanished into the meld of midnight. Even in the mid of sunset, she blended in with so little effort that it would seem he was talking to himself. He almost felt dissuasion from this refusal, his question being unanswered until she had chosen to reveal she was much closer than what he could even imagine. His body went stiff, his surprise undermining his calm demeanor as she materialized behind him, dominating the space of his flank with nothing but her sitting silhouette.

Priest didn’t turn, almost wanting not to spook the specter into vanishing further away, wanting her comfort where she was with her temperamental presence. He didn’t want her to fade...

Auds flipped to catch her words, and though his tone was casual and  seamless, his baritones hid the impending urgency at her bequest. He felt it rose in his chest, his heart growing more pressed in the matter. She accepted! “Of course“, his seal cleft over the challenge. But with the sun drawing to sleep, he was going to need to act fast. They burrowed down in their grass nests for the night. 

With her last words, he turned and sped off. He would need every every ounce of time possible to get as many as possible, and with as wide of a territory hunted. So he began with the most hidden fields on the left- his brisk trot mellowed into a silenced crawl as he began his tracking. He stirred up rabbits on accident, and stepped on a passing squirrel, but all got to live this day.
His mind was centered, focused, and alert on the hunt. Indigo sapphires perused the greenery as he nares struck a trail of small and delicate wafts of feathered fowl. There soon grew to be several of them, as they, like chickens, occasionally grouped together to provide numbers and safety on their endeavors. And without protest, he stayed with the main girth of the pool of pungency until it began to break off, separating into succinct trails that he surmised would lead to dens and burrowed nests. Once the scent go warmer-

and there it was. It lay in the brushes so densely packed into a tuft of grass and branches. Invisible to a regular eye, but with a nose as lupines had, he found it without much hassle. Away to work he went, creeping up as he could, and snatched the two parented birds from their cocoon of warmth and 'safety'. A thrust of a slickly maned dome broke various things in the fowl, and on he went, leaving the motherless and fatherless chicks behind. They were coming to age soon- they would be fine without the parents for now.

Carrying the carcasses to a secluded spot, he ranged another trail and pulled free another hen, then another. Two sisters, perhaps. A little brother lay in there as well, but deciding to avoid those peckings, he took the sisters, broke them, and moved on. Another trail ran cold as the single bird lay inside the den, sick and dying of some degenerative illness. He left it, the raspy inhales echoing behind him and eventually fading before he found a much fresher and more edible bird in a different burrow. Pulling free the single growned chick, he crushed it's chest and added it to the pile. He then stacked them carefully with all heads facing the same direction for easiest transport, then scooped them up by the skulls carefully, and headed back for where Krynn was last seen. He was no expertised killer, but he, in the end, got the job done. He even saved the skulls from being crushed in case she wanted to keep them. Dropping them, he had come to see it was now nightfall- the moon leveled the flat grounds with a rather nice pond of light where he stood, only just dappled by the swaying trees. Flickered the light became before the breeze settled for a minute to allow some constant luminescence. It was almost as romantic as a candlelight dinner, he would think as he waited for her. He was a slight bit late though, and should she have been gone to tryst with the stars and Ancestor communion, he would maybe save them for her. Maybe.

Alone at last…

    …Krynn smirked and shifted to turn from Priest thinking to leave him entirely. It wasn’t, of course, something she was known for, patience. Patience in her fellow Wolf. Krynn by the very definition was a loner that took extreme comfort in her own solitude. That was always as it should have been.

It was how it all started; from the moment her ears unfolded when her litter fell to the ground and breathed in that first gasping breath for the first time Krynn knew only discomfort. Novae called out to her Mother as did all the other pups which created a choir of chaos that deafened her. It cemented an understanding that she could not be “normal” when held to the social fabric of a pack.

So she watched this fool of a male run off to do her bidding and turned to leave him. Yet for some reason she turned back to his direction. The smirk long faded and replaced by melancholy. Why should she care? With that question on her mind she turned fully to him and sat down quite confused by her own thoughts. Was this a sign of weakness? Was it her inner Wolf seeking attachment? Ancestors save her, that was a jest to be sure but for all the amusement it brought her so too did it torture.

…and so she waited. Then paced… then sneered and grumbled, “I should leave him… That Lout will be wondering the Wood all night.” Still she lingered and drew into a cold anger. “What are you doing!? Why wait for an Oaf that-…” She stopped and smirked. “Nightfall, yes. I gave him a timeframe and I’ll hold him too that. No harm in that, is there?”
Until the sun began to fade… That smug satisfaction in her of justification turned sour. It was time to damn him to her own ire after failing in his task but as Krynn stood she caught his scent. Not just that but the whiff of a fresh kill in tow at that. A sigh escaped her chest and it coiled back into her throat choking her. More panicked questions followed, “Is that relief?” She thought. “Was I concerned?!”

Krynn raced to Priest and burst from the thicket. There needed to be something wrong with this offering whether it be that he only caught one, or it was scavenged, or even sickly. Anything! Anything but his own merit conquering her trial. However, that was not the case. Krynn’s eyes betrayed her as she looked at his kills and their ripe figure darting her gaze to Priest and back again. Healthy, clean, and plump. A shallow gulp tightened then laxed the coal colored Wolf’s throat having been beaten. ..-and that’s when her fury took over. After all, how could she have been beaten?

Washing over her disposition Krynn looked at Priest stunned then recoiled in disgust and hate. “Why…”

That was all she managed. A hissed question as her ears rolled back to ward Priest away, “What are you trying to prove?”

---

He was tired just a bit; it was a smidge more taxing to catch them than simply mercy slaughtering the few who were ill and lame. They had to be perfect- just as the girl he aimed for. Krynn knew he had to have some inkling of care for her...he didn't simple take any and every girl out for a dinner date. Almost on cue with her name crossing his mind, her bone albaster markings threw her silver irises franticism through the bushes as though she fled from a bear or monster. Nothing had riled her so much before; was there something wrong? He didn't catch anything behind her, or atleast nothing he could make note of. Nothing had ever made her do more than throw a casually vexed glare through those cool ghostly gems...what was going on? 

The macabre maiden threw herself over the catch, the few fowl her had brought back lying a cornicopia buffet before her trimmed and delicately ivory tipped paws. "Nu pasaija nuo vykti mazo letas, Krynn..." His voice was a low and delicate roll of words, distinct and not without the power of their blood behind them. There was nothing but dominance in in Tsis, but for him to manipulate the sharp endings into being soft...that took genuine connection to their livlihood. Purposeful and full submission to who they were as Sahiras, perfect mastery of their descent. He only wished she forgave him, for as he said, he truly didn't mean to be late. 

But as she assessed the platter, he could see this was a different hunger in her blooming-heat timeless stare, especially as they flicked back and forth between the birds and himself. And soon the singe was felt as her steps took her from both the food he fought time itself to get, and himself. 

“Why…What are you trying to prove?”

Her voice matched the disgust in the mimicry within him, the same hellish whisper that cajoled him into much more silent torture than what he rightlessly deserved. It echoed until the trickles eluded him into some calm sense of clarity that he couldn't attribute to neither himself, nor his Ancestors. The Ancients...would they be pleased? "That I still got hearts for you, Krynn...that I wasn't wanting to leave you when I did, and that I still wanna make this right between us. That I'm still hoping there might be a chance for 'Us' when this all come through how I'm planning for it to." His silence could only listen, just as his words could only speak for themselves. Goddamn it he was mournful every waking moment for leaving her... but she didn't want to just up and leave her family, and he could understand that. But they had connected so much...he didn't want her to see him disappearing like that as an attack on what they shared what seemed like lifetimes ago. So what they were still pups then-

she had to feel it too, didn't she? That they were above the rest of this place, this world, this existence...that they were meant for each other.

"I'm not gonna leave you, Krynn. I never wanted to in the first place." He didn't want to move any closer to the fleeful apparition before him, but his heart pounded, and with it, his left forelimb took that cursed step towards the cursed girl. Her grazing glare left daggers in most, and they definitely didn't miss him-

but unlike the rest, he was full of holes, left by either himself, or the despair the bastard ruined many other souls with. He was used to the pain.
So he would stand in the face of this scalding force, and reckon with her as he always had, at his own expense. 
 

By the Ancestors…

            …Krynn flicked her tail from side to side annoyed and not at all amused. Those cold fire eyes burst into flame to issue her rage over a silent form she was legend for. That was Priest’s only clue as he spoke his heart to her and failed to see that sympathy and sweet talk did not reach Krynn’s high appraisal as he may have wished.

It was an apology; an apology so soon after Novae’s edict to take her own life in exchange for a mortal, a Coyote and its spawn. That fact helped to burn Krynn ever more so. “What is this mockery!?” She had thought to herself. “First one transgression and now this!?”
Her blackened maw twitched to reveal pearly fangs once or maybe twice while the Male spoke. It was all so unreal that a Sahiras knelt before her and figuratively sobbed. “US!?”  Krynn scoffed but allowed him to continue….

It was on the final words of “I never wanted-“ That Krynn finally unraveled everything that had first began to fray her calm.
“Are you not an Heir to our pack? What is this disgusting dribble of scavenged filth I see before me?”
There wasn’t an ounce of mercy in her tone. “How sick, How Vile! Contemptuous!”

Now her form was dispelling her unease by pacing back and forth as she rattled on shooting noxious glares in between her curses. “No this is not a mighty Heir, it is a welp! A half measure spit into your mother’s womb and undeserving of the legacy her Bloodline laid down before you.”

Gods above she was enraged and the fire burned from her yellowed eyes into Priest’s soul, “Take your bribery somewhere else! I’d piss on this bounty if the waste did not dishonor my name as well as yours.”
It was all a curse to show how much he had messed up in her eyes but Krynn wouldn’t leave him, not yet. There was a method to her shaded ways and a lesson to be garnered.
“No, in fact, If you did not wish to leave then you needn’t leave. Just as so if you must then you must! Because you ARE a male heir to the Ancestors! No one questions your decisions but the Ancestors alone! You do not need to explain yourself, you do not need to sulk after you made your choice, and you certainly never apologize!”  

A crazed growl launched itself out from Krynn’s lungs as her teeth sank into one of the dead birds tossing it from her sight. “Take this as example! We FEED on souls! -and yet we are responsible for them. We take what is needed with no regret or mercy. That is the way of things so the stars may continue to shine upon us all. Then after we have taken we govern the peasants so all may live and thrive. -But we NEVER answer to them. We hear them, cultivate them, defend the land, but we will never be one of them!”

A heavy breath was all that filled the air as she paused to see if it was sinking into his empty cavity. “and so you know, I am not my Sisters. I am not so fragile that I shall wilt as a flower nipped by frost. Your displacement was noted but not hindering. Nothing more… Now I see it was you who was wounded.”

She bent to steal one of the birds but halted for one final word, “There is no ‘US’ until you remember who you were born to be.”

That was all she had to say and that was all she cared to hear.

---

As every encounter, should he be alotted one, it ended in ruin. Another pound to his pack upon his back, another boulder for his shoulders. As a deer, she had skittered, flashed hooves, and left him to feel the lingering embers of her scathing words. 

His ears flashed to his rear, erect and bruised against the power of her claim. How chipped they were in common wolfspeak, how they seemed to carry the same level of regality within them as should they have been spoken in Tsis. He had molded himself to be casual in Wolfspeak, but even now, she commanded and forced him back with nothing more than just...words. His heart, offered to the woman of his most tarnished dreams...
broken. 

What little debris of his soft demeanor began to chip away and blow adrift in the finality of her words. It curled up with the heat, and froze in mid air betwixt them, before evaporating to dust and ash as all of her Krynn's corpses had. His indigo sapphires were left on the place just beneath her cheek, a place just perfect for a kiss, one he had only fantisized of being near enough to the dame to be able to bestow upon her. A place which now was forbidden, cold, and far from his grasp. 
A place he now, as she put it, didn't deserve. 

Her head dipped low to sweep up a bird, her final piece dropped on the drowning man with such weight that it threatened to harbor his breathing. All that was left was the silence. 
The silence was fine. It didn't hurt him, atleast. And he was used to it. 
An inhale. Then an exhale. 

Those depthless blues traipsed over to her platinums before he made up his mind. 

Taking a step back, he began to take his leave, allowing her to take whatever pleasures she had in her favored meal private. His own signature on the situation-

"Alright. Fuck it then. See ya." 

A smooth turn layed the bastard to head towards the woods, up through the forest, and back to the Dragon. Too many silent screams crossed the caverns of his mind, and the desolance pushed his brain into places he had tried his hardest to avoid. Places that he knew Krynn had no idea that lurked...unless she did. Unless she too was a Sinbound, sensed his own innate alignment, and urged for that terrible thing to be brought back to the light that it never was meant to see, again. For him to relive those darkly blood-ridden times, to sing to the wails and cries of those whom were sentenced to death by his fangs, for him to rejoice in the lies and despair he crafted with such- 

purpose...

He was hurt. And he needn't think like this, right now. He needen't try to disregard his mother, to disgrace her with that level of apathetic horror. She would weep and drown this place in her horror at the mess he had made, at the son she couldn't comprehend was hers, at the spawn of the Sinbound that she had tried so desperately to carve into someone respectable. This planet would drown in her woe. And he wouldn't feel any sense of failure as he too, drowned amongst the filth and the decay. He would smile, and feel his duty had been served. 

Krynn could not know-
 

unless she did.

And if she did, she surely couldn't comprehend what she demanded-

unless she had.

And even then, the bachelor wouldn't feel rest. His Affinity was currently balanced, held by a chain while pulled by another. This was how it should be. This was how he needed to be. Balanced. Smart. Logical. 
Of sound mind. 

Couldn't she somewhat see that, at least?

His trek wasn't long. The Sahirian hadn't realized he was leaning against a tree, panting and tired. Goddamn, how hard was he thinking?? Was he starving? Thristy? Looking up briefly, he squinted into the cool of the night. Time had passed, and he couldn't even start trying to figure out where the fuck he'd been walking. But he had been walking, and his paws stung. The moon washed the land ahead of him in it's perfect glow of soft white, and he felt so inclined to lay within it. Commiting to it, he fell within the orb of while, and allowed the abyss to take his consciousness from him.

“Alright”…

      …That’s all he offered her. Set before Krynn’s paws lay a banquet of bribery aligned in perfect uniformity to better not mar her order loving gaze.

Yet it appeared that this young Wolf saw through the blood, matter, and veiled intent that Priest truly offered. Disorder… A husk of a Male that plagued his own mind, a self-mutilating gestures of the psyche, all for past decisions of indecision.

He crazed over her, over Krynn, through the delusion of self-portrait fantasy. An admission given up front by his eye daring to seek her blackened coat and sully it with a wet lap of his longing. These were the illustrations of a pup, or at worse a lesser Wolf. Graver still Priest may have been no lowlier than a peasant, a raven, Coyote, or Buck wishing they held a piece of divinity in their possession. No one coveted the Gods and even the Gods understood the precious value of one another’s presence, that there was no summed value.

Krynn offered harsh word to be sure however she also gifted him insight. Though the mind of a pup knew only self. Priest coveted Priest, and to offer material in compensation for that devalued trait was only immaterial. In plainer words Krynn could not be bought but rather coaxed through deeds and a strong will. A brute’s strength got him the pick of all the females and a guaranteed litter for his legacy.
Except that Krynn wasn’t one of those breeders in search for the strongest but rather the most deserving.

Still this wasn’t even a true description as Krynn held no value on her own life, such as a life dedicated to the Ancestors, but if one stood to claim her then they had to be worthy of taking an object from the Ancestors treasure den for themselves. Whom was worthy of this? Other than a thief….

…or Legend; a God.

Priest departed her with a tone of scorn. “Alright-“  ...An admission of self... “-Fuck it then.” ...He Failed the trial of adversity....  “-See ya.” ...by cowering from the truth.

Krynn almost chuckled on the trail of his words. They meant nothing other than what was already spoken. Though some of his efforts would not go to waste as that would be too much of a dishonor for one born to the name of their Ancestors. The obsidian shaded Wolf turned to leave him but found herself looking back, if only for a second to see his form meld into the night’s embrace. That was when she sighed and admitted one thing she dare not utter aloud nor even entrust to Novae. “…why. Why do you test me so?”
Her eyes drew, lazily, to the sky and the backdrop of the stars. The eyes of all those who came before looked down on her in judgment and Krynn herself knew not if they were pleased or vexed with her trial. That is what disturbed her most of all and all that remained was to let the thought die. Slinking back into the realm of shadow she called home to mount a rock face that overlooked this kingdom of her Brothers and Sisters. Finally, after releasing the bird to the stone she reeled her head back and howled across the heavens a sharp tune of singing chimes.

…Hail to Mother Moon hear my toast. Keep him safe and protect from that which damns him most, that which is himself…