Sorry if this is a double post; the site made me do it after editing a bit. D=
“You can drop your defenses, can’t you? Allow me to show you what you did.”
Kari’s shining amber eyes fell to her tails, and she sniffed back her tears. “Okay.” She whispered.
“What? You really think you can handle it?” Sora asked, the spite in her heart increasing.
“It doesn’t matter … if that’s what you want, then—then I’ll do it. I said I’d pay any price for you to heal Holonie and Braelyn.”
Her teeth started to hurt as they tightened, and she watched Kari’s defenses drop; there was still a layer of resistance, but it was just her natural resistance, and she knew she could break past it. It’s fake … it has to be fake! There’s no way Kari would sacrifice for anyone but herself!
Yet, Sora was dumbstruck; the evil that had plagued her for years was leaving herself wide open. If she wanted, she could easily attack her Core, destroy her.
Fox Fire lit across Sora’s fur as she glared past Kari’s Spiritual Network and how weak she was in that moment. She felt the warning and knew she shouldn’t, but everything she’d fantasized for years was in front of her eyes.
She attached an emotional thread onto Kari’s Core and fed everything she’d felt, pumping her despair, pain, and hate through the link. The sadness on Kari’s face only fed her search to find every event scarred on her spirit.
Yet, at the same time, she realized her mistake and why she’d felt those warnings; the link went both ways, and she’d opened herself to Kari’s own life in equal torrent with the width of the tether she’d attached.
She understood Kari’s emotions as they surged through the opening. Kari truly felt regret and the emotions that returned cut at her heart, the desperation to find a path through a splintered world.
In separate folds of her Intelligence, in spite of her efforts, the balance was far from equal. Kari was struggling through a blizzard of cold pain, lost in an abyss of doubt. The constant search for catharsis to stem the flow of fear and suffering.
“What should I have done?” Kari whispered, tears falling to the cobblestone beneath them. “Should I have killed them? Should I have left … but then I wouldn’t have known … I should have just died with my mother.”
Sora looked at the mist around them as the world faded; nothing else existed but them in this black emotional space that existed between their Cores, linked by her magic. She found it hard to swallow as common ground opened inside her heart with the pain they shared. Even though she was the cause of that pain, she realized that in sharing Kari’s misery, she might have saved her life.
She shook her head, feeling the contrast of Kari’s emotions before and after her desperate escape; it hit her like a wave. “You did die with your mother,” Sora whispered. It was different, but the pain Kari felt was even greater than her own. “I’m—sorry…”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” Kari asked, eyes reflecting her anguish. “I ruined your life … hurt so many people. All—all for myself.”
Sora took a long breath as she sat down on the dark floor, looking at Kari’s feet. “No … Eric ruined our lives. I glossed over that and blamed everything on you—but you’re even more broken than I was … you were so strong.”
Kari slowly sat with her, looking to the side. “I’m not strong. I don’t know what to do … how do I build something—do I deserve to create something? All I’ve done … I’ve hurt so many people.
“I just—didn’t want to hurt … I wanted what everyone else has, but it was—it was all fake. I would have died for Lori … she hated me, though … feared me. Everyone feared me—no one really loved me. I don’t believe Eric ever loved me … I don’t know what it was, but not love … love’s supposed to be warm…”
Sora was silent for several seconds as their emotions swirled around each other. “I—thought Jenny liked you?”
“No—she feared me too … her whole life was fear. I realized that watching you and the others … the bond you all share. I knew it from watching humans, too. Why … why couldn’t I have just been born a human.”
Brow creased, Sora’s eyes lifted to study Kari as she hugged her knees. “Is that why you always stay in your human form? You don’t want to be a Fenris Wolf … you really want to be a human?”
“Humans have so much … they build so much, but all wolves do are devour and destroy … tear each other apart. I don’t want to hurt anymore … to destroy, but—how do I build? You can do it—without even trying. It’s—amazing … just watching it feels … I feel bad because—because I want it.”
“Me, build? I—don’t think you—well, I guess building is kind of like a relationship.” Sora mumbled. “You have to start block by block, and it’s pretty easy to tear down.”
A melancholy smile touched Kari’s lips. “I knew you really wanted me to go … I’ll ask Eyia to kill me.”
“Kill you?”
Kari nodded. “I just—I want it to be over.” She cried.
Sora took a long breath, but try as she might, she couldn’t glare at her worst enemy. “I’ve known—been told what you’ve been through, but—I didn’t actually feel it. They were like empty words to me, but now—I want to know the real you.”
“Real me? What do you mean?” Kari asked, wet eyes rising to meet her.
A compassionate smile lifted Sora’s lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever met the real Kari.”
“Then … what am I? If this isn’t—isn’t the real me, then what is?”
Sora took a second to calm her own heart; she was shocked by how calm she felt as she explained it to the terrified girl in front of her. Kari couldn’t respond as they went through every scene.
She created an image of the looming behemoth she feared, ordering her clothes stripped and existence banished from her kingdom.
“The you I know was a monstrous giant, filled with hate and pain, fueled by a desperate desire to find a place where she belonged and escape the hellish past of her family. Obsessed with erasing anything that could threaten her dream.”
Sora looked to her left with Kari as she formed a magical copy of the girl in front of her, red-faced and slick with tears; her amber eyes tortured with turmoil and agony, utterly horrified by the savage visage of herself looming above them. “You’re terrified … but you’re not this person anymore. Your own face haunts you.”
Making the devilish image fade into smoke, she replaced it with a scene that was very clear in her memory; the first time she’d seen Kari hesitate. An uncertain beast, sitting with her pack in the parking lot as she watched the arrival of enemies that made her feel vulnerable.
“Eyia and Jin … two enemies that you knew you couldn’t beat, and for the first time since building your empire, you felt weak. Eric had kept his distance, for the most part, building a larger territory around the school, but leaving you alone for Jenny to cultivate the growing monster you were becoming.”
She moved to their fight, followed by her defeat at the hands of her brother before the final struggle against the thread that prevented her transformation. Next, she showed Lori’s death, followed by Jenny; the torment that coursed through Kari’s soul sent tremors shooting down her frame.
“Everything you built and tried to protect shattered; piece by piece, the world you’d created was burned away, and in the end, you gave up.”
Her lifeless eyes stared into the darkness as she was left alone, blood dripping down the golden threads binding her until a group of people loaded her on a cart to be taken to the arena.
“The last thing you had was revenge; the hate you felt for your brother drove you to move. However, he sacrificed himself so we could escape, making me promise to bring you to this realm with me.”
Sora looked at the reflection of herself as they entered the realm. “I was a different person … I changed yesterday. I learned a lot from my aunt … saw a lot, and now, I realize that you’ve changed too. You had nothing, and so, you searched for something—anything. And you found a path that brought you here … to ask me for help … willing to sacrifice your own life to find a way forward.”
A tear fell down Sora’s cheek as she looked at the shattered teenage wolf-girl across from her. “You’re not the same … I’m not the same. I can’t save you from the monsters of your past, but I can offer you … something my past self couldn’t.”
A lump dropped down Sora’s throat as she swallowed and held out her hand. “Kari, would you like to be my friend?”
Kari’s eyes widened as she wiped her red nose and sniffed. “Even—after everything I did to you?”
“You need a real home, and I’d like to help you build one—if you’ll let me.”
Her hand lifted, but hesitated and began to shake; Kari’s amber eyes locked onto her green irises with a desperate plea. “This isn’t a trick?”
A welcoming smile brightened her wet cheeks. “I’m not that nasty … even though I am a Vulpes.” She chuckled.
“Thank you—Sora,” Kari cried, taking her hand.
Sora leaned forward and hugged her new friend as they wept. “We’re all broken … aren’t we? You won’t be alone anymore.”
