[Crow]

The maze lay open for him as though somewhere within these holy gates had been someone who'd awaited his untimely arrival. Where did you go? the ferns did not question. Will you stay? the fallen tangle of trees did not nag. They only stood, silent beautiful barricades that separated here from there, allowing he and his charge passage where they might have confounded and entrapped someone who did not belong here.

It was in the dead of night, upon the saplings still budding from the charred corpses of their ancestors, that Crow emerged from the grave that could not quite hold him to finally return home. Like a warrior, filthy with blood and slime and digestive fluids, who was swallowed whole by something titanic

and plunged all the way down into its great belly

and cut his fucking way back out.

He sat upon his lean haunches, setting down the burden he'd been carrying and throwing his head back to stare at the night sky, into housands of pinprick stars painted over a black canvas. Tilted his sharply angled head to the little body bringing up the rear, his blind eye registering only snatches of mottled, moving brown. "Stay," he told it, not at all unfondly... just before he peeled back lips and teeth to usher forth a jagged, ripping, throaty screech of a howl, wrathful and bestial to its core. It was a summoning, and even more than that, it was an uncompromising demand of recognition.

Even in spite of all his wildness and monstrosity, maybe Crow still needed someone to be here for his return. If not only just to stare in wide-eyed awed horror as this wolf crawled back intact and strong from something that had destroyed gods.

I know you all missed me. The cheers turned to cries when /they/ stopped listening.

But I've come back now. And I've learned so much.

Let me show you.

She had never met her great-grandfather.

But as the howl reverberated over Oukoku-Kai, even Anamelech knew to whom it belonged. A ghost had rose from the grave.

She honestly considered just leaving Crow there waiting for her, possibly asking a Jin or two to dispose of him, make it look like an accident. Oh, what a tragedy, how the ex-White Seour was found lying on the borders! An unexpected snag in her plan was that she knew Ink was devoted to her former Shogun, so she would never procure the Captain Ni's cooperation in executing such a scheme. In the years Crow spent terrorizing Oukoku-Kai, he had somehow, either through charisma or intimidation, accumulated a respectable number of lackeys that could have defended him from her wrath, and as much as she was loathe to admit it, she had to take that into account.

Anamelech was still queen, and she had more than a few tricks up her sleeve.

The situation was not unsalvageable. Between the possibility of Aglacea and Crow returning, this was the more favorable outcome. She was a queen who wielded many masks, and the one she chose for today was the facade of a delighted grandchild, her effervescent smile beaming as she rushed through the forest maze. Anamelech stopped as soon as Crow's black, hunched silhouette came into view, eyes immediately honing in on the tiny child cowering in his possession. Oh, so he had brought a snack with him. No matter.

Anamelech made a show out of looking him over, as if she were actively comparing his features to her own, but it was not entirely a charade. He was truly her father's progenitor, his darker, skeletal shadow.

"Welcome home," Ana giggled, wearing her most radiant smile. "Great-grandfather!"

Welcome home, indeed.

Crow had a fearsome reputation, but he wasn't White Rose. Where her father had hesitated to dispose of his favorite attack dog on the many occasions he overstepped his bounds, Anamelech would condemn her great-grandfather to death in an instant if he threatened the balance of the power she kept. What Crow had done to Lazaret - what that mob had done - the carnage, all of it, would pale in comparison to what she would inflict on him. People were so very malleable, so obedient, and all of them so desperate to appease their queen without question.

Crow wasn't the only one who could work a crowd.

Zephaniah had met the world and deemed it good. The whole of creation burned with radiance - it was Father and him, seeing everything as they traveled. The boy was quick to learn, healthy of body, and similar enough in appearance to Crow (and not at all to Azuhel) that Crow had apparently not felt inclined to do anything too terrible to the boy, at least not yet. The little creature was oddly perceptive towards his father, learning quickly his moods, and wisely knowing when to cease his barrage of questions in exchange for obedient silence.

The came upon a maze, and the boys feet began to tingle, his blood began to feel as though it were static. Their pace had slowed, he knew that something exciting was coming.

"Stay," Crow said, and his little bright eyed nestling stayed, would always stay. Father's lips parted in a ferocious howl, and Zephaniah, though obediently staying, was still young enough to want to mimic all of his father's mannerism, to be like him. He lifted his own chin and a gave a tiny, eerie replica of the howl. Come and greet my father! For he is great and terrible. He looked to Crow and offered a shiny milk-tooth smile.

The first to come was a black and red and white wolf. "Welcome home," She giggled, and Zephaniah returned her greeting with a swelling grin. It was easy to like her. She had...something. "Great-grandfather!" The woman was lovely and her smile was toothy, and Zephaniah felt drawn to her. This was his relative? He felt a swelling of pride with his association with her. She looked like someone important.

"Home..." He said in his little puppy voice, eyes wide. Eyes hungry.

[size=10pt]They were moving, constant writhing shapes of heat and shame. They screeched and clawed, in pain and desperate… they cried for more, thirsty and starving… These shapes, so wicked and ominous, flowed from the darkness demanding their pound of flesh and blood in a manner so strongly it was nearly tangible. She choked upon it, felt its weight crushing her, invading her, changing her until their screeching canopy became more like a song of praise.

The darkness had swallowed her.

The darkness had chosen her.

And now it wanted her to learn.

A whirlwind of color then, followed by the theft of oxygen before a smear of red and black broke the horizon. They cracked the endless black, shattered it with a flickering light. It brought with it a sense of power, overwhelming, alluring, enchanting and to her—her—they beckoned!!

With a howl that shattered the dream.

She came to wakefulness with snarls and snaps, her teeth saliva slick and ready moving to bite into flesh, her clawed digits spread to rip and tear. There’s a squeal at her side by a heavy body, a scrambling, an answering snarl as Canaan found her mouth full of soft fluff and wide nearly unseeing eyes. A beautiful song had torn her from such sweet dreams and now poor Enix had paid the price. It’s not long that she’d hang onto the ear she’d managed to snag though, not when the older wolf in her den rumbled with the rage of the god she had once been. Still, as soon as she’d let her mother go it was Canaan’s turn to squeal as open muzzle and screeching words chased her from her own sanctuary.

“M-mommy…” Canaan wavered, soft smile in place as she gave a nervous lick of her lips. Fortunately the irate Enix did not emerge from the den and soon, with a slight swish of tail Canaan moved away, her mind once more focused on the call, her heart still beating with the excitement of a short tussle and a wild dream.

One she would cherish for quite sometime.

Her arrival is swift, her approach a smooth walk of confidence. She’s eager, her gaze bright with a newfound adoration for the male who had returned to them. Returned… to her.

She allowed Ana her speech while she looked over Crow, admiring his broken form, amazed at his newfound scars that no doubt told stories she desperately wanted to hear. She breathed a bit faster, her tail set to twitching… This was not Grendel that had returned to them, but Crow. The wolf who had been no doubt taken by the Red Dragon.

And lived.

Canaan knew, she knew that he had to have been taken. Though she had digged and toiled under the suffocating smoke of Azuhel’s most precious gift when Crow had not returned to them covered in sot and reeking of exhaustion she’d somehow known that he had left them, left them for the glory of the beast that had struck them originally. That selfish creature, that wicked twisted filth that haunted her waking thoughts like an obsession left uncured.

“….yes.” She whispered, soft and pliant. He had left them and returned with another, a small child, a gift. Was it… could it be… She could barely think over the howl of her feelings, over the rising bile creating uncalled for envy that made her knees feel weak and her breath come out in pants. She’d taken him over her, she could only assume could only… could only believe that that had to be true! There was no way he could have survived the warmth of her fire… the hot slaughter would not have passed him over if he had not been… been CHOSEN.

“….yes…” She whispered again, looking down to the child that spoke. That called this licentious valley and the fanatical lunatics within it his home. It would be his home, his paradise, until he found himself screaming and struggling in the tar… until he found himself coated in the blood of those that sought to oppose him… until he found himself alone and empty….until… until… this space became his hell.

That’s when she smiled, something nasty, something thrilled, with her chest pushed out proudly and her muzzle open to whisper the name of the being who had once brought so much terror across this pathetic landscape. Let him see the power of her knowledge, let him know in the wide shimmering depths of her gaze that she knew what others would never understand, and let him see her hatred of him for being the one that left unshackled by the very authority she had once toyed with until it had become all that she could be. It had consumed her, the very duty of her father’s namesake, until nothing was left but the urge to burn and the hunger for worship.

And let him see her love of him for being able to survive and for coming home.

“Welcome home...brother.” She finally croaked, her cheeks wet from the tears she’d shed, that seemed so abnormal against the backdrop of her sudden perversion.

“We missed you so much.”
[/size]

The dead of night was always when she could be found wandering around her homeland. Sleepy eyes heavy with insomnia often closed as she entered a trance-like state of mind; Virra had traveled these lands far too many times, all of it imprinting like a map inside her mind, causing her to be unable to become lost no matter how long she casually walked along. In fact, ever since they had returned from the outside, she had found herself sleep walking through the forest maze. Was it her subconscious trying to get her back on the other side of the burnt trees? Was it out of habit? Either way, it was rather fortunate that she did this.

A howl ripped her from this state and she snapped her eyes open wide, blinking in the moonlight as she turned to look back in the direction of the voice. There was something familiar about it, like a bad dream that stuck with you years after it woke you up. Ears perked, sapphire eyes still dull with sleep, but as she hesitated her mind kicked back into full gear. They'd said he died, lost somewhere among the flames. And yet part of her never believed it. Crow was not the kind of wolf to just roll over and die. He would have crawled out of the flames with them still on his back, walking away as if he didn't feel the burns scoring his flesh, fur falling like ugly ash in his wake. No ... he never struck her as the kind to be burdened by death and despair.

Virra wants to turn, wants to walk away and pretend she did not know. And yet it was her job to see him - to see where he had been. That call would undoubtedly call others to him, and so perhaps his focus would not be on her. Though she had grown out of the initial gut reaction of running away when she saw his dark shadow, Virra still felt her stomach twist with dread at the very idea of him. How was it a wolf she hardly understood could cause her so much raw fear by thought alone? Maybe she understood him better than either of them thought. Paws moved of their own accord, taking her towards where he would be waiting, regulating her breathing so she would be calm when joining whomever had come before her.

She arrived on the scene silently, feeling out of place among the meeting of Goddesses, eyes falling instantly on the small figure by Crow. Ana was there; always flashing that grin that would be genuine on anyone else but her, lips and eyes not quite matching and giving the Captain an unsettling feeling. Ever since her demands Virra was anxious to see what else the godling would ask of her, how far she would be willing to push the bendable girl before Virra snapped and was unable to pick up the pieces. And then Canaan; there was little to think about, of all three Virra felt more at ease with this one, and yet there was still a sense of danger that made her weary of saying the wrong thing.

"Are you hurt ...?" She blinked, looking at Crow as if she could read the answer on his face without him speaking. Though her voice was even and friendly it was quieter than it could have been, reminding her grudgingly that she wouldn't ever fit in with these people. These wolves who had the power to rip someone down to size with words and fangs. Maybe if she were crueler she could do the former, but her weak resolve for violence made the latter absolutely impossible. "Welcome home." Said this time with more confidence, looking back at the Rosas. "Good ah ... morning," was it morning, was it evening, did she say the right thing?

Eyes settled finally on the child and she moved closer, noticing the twisted grin spreading on Canaan's face. Her instinct was to protect, to drag the boy away from the dangers. All three of them - not even his father could give him the protection she could. Shakily she motioned for him to come over, drawing closer to meet him half way, remaining a distance from Crow. She couldn't deal with his fangs in her throat today, not with the kid here. Some other day, she resolved, giving the boy a more genuine smile, full of nerves. "H-here," she coaxed, nuzzling him on his head if and when he wandered to her, "you are home, now. We will take care of you here."

I. I will make sure you survive.

The grey stained raven wolf lay on the outskirts of the maze, gazing expectantly into the thicket of trees. Her instinctive urge to switch into watch dog mode kept her alert, back legs crouched and her front toes spread to help pads spring up in a moment.

When the howl finally would come, reverberating off the trees echoing from well within, she jumped into immediate action. Ink sprang up within an instance and bolted into the maze, sliding along the moist forest floor, diving underneath the gnarled heavy boughs as she ran to answer his call.

She was not the first to arrive, and she pressed her ears flat against her skull for a brief moment. Ink felt the familiar painful twist in her stomach. The back of her neck was growing hot and she raised her hackles half way. She flicked her ears back up and stepped with purpose from the maze, tail raised high enough to say she was of high rank, but not higher than an alpha's raised tail. And there were a couple of Gods present, the white rose, with an eager look on her face; she was hungry for chaos.

But despite there being Gods present, she would stride past them and approach Crow, a wicked grin on her vicious mouth.

"It's about damn time," her cruel voice chided.

The assassin would walk toward her true bond, and attempt to latch her teeth onto his lip. Crow would not have appreciated anything too affectionate. Ink would pull back, her tongue tracing the bottoms of her teeth, feeling each sharp tip. Her eyes dropped beneath Crow, spotting the small morsel settled beneath his underbelly. Ink would think nothing of the child, for a moment.

It was only after she would turn from Crow and the child, although she didn't stray far from Crow's side. Captain Ni would nod to each Ana and Canaan, but would not address them with words, suddenly distracted by the Captain Iti coaxing the small child from beneath Crow to what Virra perceived to be 'protective' care.

Ink sneered at the brown mottled female crossing in front of the child to stop it from approaching the other Captain. If she was slow to reach the child, she would attempt to catch the child by it's scruff or tail and would take him back to Crow.

"We are well equipped to care for this child, Iti," she gave Virra a short snarl then smirk would rest easily onto her maw.

She turned back to Crow and, should he object her choice to stop the Captain Iti from poisoning the child then she would challenge him with glowering gaze. But if he approved she would give her tail a lavish flick. Ink was drawn back with curiousity tugging at her lips, desperately wanting to ask 'what happened', but she kept her mouth shut and would wait for him to speak for himself without the hindrance of prying questions.

He would have welcomed that jin attack without surprise or offense. It might have been funny to drop the body at Anamalech's feet and tell her solemnly that this unfortunate soul had clearly gone rogue, but don't worry, I took care of it for you! Or maybe they would manage to kill him instead... that would have had a gruesome poetry to it, the new flavor-of-the-week deity felling him just as he'd felled her kind in the past, just as he'd considered turning a mob on Enix as she returned this very same way.

How alike these two were at the crossroads. Childish wants, childish needs. Savagery. Selfishness. Unpredictability. Yet the one crucial difference was that Anamalech was so very untested. So very alone. Even as she vowed to inflict upon Crow a fate worse than poor ickle Lazaret's should he threaten her new rule. Even as she faced the possibility of being forced here and now to back that hilarious little promise up. With what, exactly? Her crippled slave? Her pregnant priestess? Her own yearling fangs?

Settle down, baby girl. Don't embarrass yourself. Let's talk friendship instead, shall we?

He smiled back, a truly sharkish expression, and pushed the prize he'd brought (the other prize mind you, not the live one lurking nearby) toward Ana. There was no gentler way to describe it: it was a human arm, severed somewhere at the humerus, mostly bone at this point, some of the phalanges broken off but otherwise in decent condition. One might wonder how Crow got hold of this, but the answer was rather unglamorous: it had only been scraps scavenged from some Alteronian lunch table.

"I meant it to be for your father," explained he, with an odd, unsettling cheer in his inflection. He'd called for Grendel, she had shown up in his place... it wasn't hard to connect the dots. "He liked bones, you know. They don't do anything for me. But these ones, they're a little interesting to look at, aren't they?"

Canaan arrived next, and oh, didn't someone seem dangerously excited? Blue eyes burned into him, his own seared right back; in the end maybe he knew that she knew. Let it be a private secret shared between he and this obsessive maiden who looked so very much like a wolf he'd used to call mother. Never looking away, he leaned down to nuzzle the spotted cub, roughly and possessively, smearing little Zeph with his acrid scent.

"Chinensis! Ah, it's good to be home." He humored her dutifully -- it was only proper, after all, given the special responsibility he had over her now. Deftly he moved from his son, regarding him with a flick of his snout. "This is Zephaniah. I usually kill whatever I find outside. I thought this time I might do some teaching instead."

Lo and behold, it looked like someone else had a similar idea. Here came a gentle flower amidst all these unbalanced barbarians, doe-eyed little Virra, who Crow looked upon with a strange predatory tenderness. I can't decide if I want to protect you or eat you, said that look. His smile widened at her concern and broke into a quiet laugh as she tried to claim the child... but he allowed it in the time it took for his true bond, his favorite bond, to enter the scene. He accepted the taunt, accepted the chomp even, moved his own muzzle as she drew back to inflict his own (harmless) bite at her throat. It was just their way.

"I'm terribly late," he crooned, playfully apologetic, to Ink. But she looked so hungry for something (hopefully not Zephaniah, who might at this point have been in her mouth...) and he supposed it was time for some kind of explanation.

"I was shown a gift," he told them all, turning a shoulder to the gathering, so they might see the gruesome burn scars along his back. "It did hurt, at first. Now... I don't feel much of anything there." Another laugh, as if that was somehow funny.

"Twice now this evil has tried to lay claim to me. And twice now I've come back from it. Look at what I've sacrificed! My eye, my skin! BUT NEVER MY FAITH!" He bared his teeth to the roots, pale gum exposed and eyes rolling from face to face. And was this acting? Playing the crowd, as Ana had put it?

"I leave godhood to my lovely granddaughter." For the little he found it had ever truly meant to him. "I ask only that I be left to defend and avenge this place. With all that I alone have gained. I -- the wolf the Red Dragon cannot kill!"

“….yes…” Canaan had whispered twice, and perhaps she was not just a rose, but a prophet for her premonitions about Zephaniah's future. When he saw her, when she answered him, his eyes widened in wicked glee. These wolves were powerful and beautiful and it had taken only moments for him to love them. He wanted to be like them. He bared his milk-teeth in a deviously charming snarl-smile. Still though, he stayed. Crow had told him to stay. Obedient, this child was. Not out of fear but out of a distorted love.

“Welcome home...brother.” With little tears along her pretty face.“We missed you so much.”

They loved and respected his father. He knew because they bothered to tread cautiously around the black monster that the child so loved. Zephaniah knew that he would strive to never embarrass Crow in front of these leaders. He would fight to honor those who deserved honoring. He lowered his ears and head for a moment in submission to their words and teeth and beauty. Gods, then, they were, the wolves who stood around him like pillars with their long adult legs and long adult words.

And then another female approached. "Are you hurt ...?" She asked naively. Being hurt did not matter, Crow was alive and ferocious as ever, he was still here and he did not need this stranger's pity. "Welcome home." And eventually the polite girl's innocent gaze would come to rest on the child. She offered him a nervous and almost forced smile, awkward and protective and even foolish. "H-here," She gestured, promising cuddles and warmth. "you are home, now. We will take care of you here."

Zephaniah looked at the girl critically. He had no desire for her tenderness, and Crow had told him in no uncertain terms to Stay. He stared at her with cold gray eyes, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Was she implying that he needed their care? Was she implying in front of all present that he and Crow were weak? There was no room for weakness, and he wouldn't indulge in the notion of it. Wolves shouldn't be weak.

He'd survive without coddling.

It was evidence of Crow's character perhaps, that all who came to greet him were beautiful women, and so Zephaniah was not surprised when Ink approached. The child was still too young to make good value judgements, and so was not surprised or offended when Ink's teeth met his father's face. He would remember this, the impressionable mind learning about affection by watching the adults play their games. "It's about damn time," She said, and then, after Virra had spoken, "We are well equipped to care for this child, Iti,"

Was this black wolf then taking the role of a second caregiver? Zephaniah eyed her darkly, not yet sure where she fell into this new and exciting hierarchy. He'd find out later. No one could, however, intrude upon his father's role. Like a lost gosling, he had bound himself to the shadow of the first thing he saw, and that force was stronger than any other. Crow was that shadow.

There were politics here, and Zephaniah listened and learned with sharp, upturned ears not unlike his father's. Anamelach had offered her polite and exciting threat, but Zephaniah had never doubted that his father knew what he was doing.

"I meant it to be for your father," Crow explained. "He liked bones, you know. They don't do anything for me. But these ones, they're a little interesting to look at, aren't they?"

Zephaniah had no interest in bones, no, he was interested in people and their debts and goals and places, in their souls. And no matter what Ana thought, souls were not so malleable. They were tough like leather. If a piece didn't bend where it should bend, you had to either soften it by force or throw it away. Pick your battles carefully, and your soldiers more carefully. The child didn't know anything about the gods, not yet, but he knew that they could fight, and while the battle would be beautiful, would it be worth it? One day it would, but not now. There was still much to be done!

Crow leaned to touch the precious child roughly, claiming him, and Zeph responded with an affectionate nip (Perhaps following Ink's lead) and a sharp turn of gaze to each of the women before them. If you were only as good as the superior that claimed you, then this was an honor. Zephaniah still stayed where he was, even after nearly being knocked over by his father's gesturing.

"Chinensis! Ah, it's good to be home." He said cheerfully. The child learned their names and titles with every new word that was spoken. He was bright eyed and quite literally bushy tailed, so obviously pleased at all of this, at the attention his father was warranting, at being in this place. "This is Zephaniah. I usually kill whatever I find outside. I thought this time I might do some teaching instead."

"I was shown a gift," Zephaniah had only known Crow with the ugly scars. The fire that had caused those wounds had lead to Zephaniah's creation. They were all born out of pain, some way or another. The pain their parents survived. "It did hurt, at first. Now... I don't feel much of anything there." Pain made you stronger. Pain made you more resistant.

"Twice now this evil has tried to lay claim to me. And twice now I've come back from it. Look at what I've sacrificed! My eye, my skin! BUT NEVER MY FAITH!" Zephaniah turned to watch his father. Crow may have been playing a part, acting to support his own strange goals, but Zephaniah stared at him with a dangerous admiration. The child mimicked his father's expression, pulling his lips to bare his teeth once again, feeling the compulsion to lift his muzzle skyward as he did so. Faith such a loaded word, a useful word. It gave him a chill. This was all exciting. This meeting, these people.

"I leave godhood to my lovely granddaughter." Godhood. "I ask only that I be left to defend and avenge this place. With all that I alone have gained. I -- the wolf the Red Dragon cannot kill!"

Had Zephaniah known the truth, known that it had only been the whim of Azuhel's mercy that had spared the yellow-footed wolf from the inevitability of death for some little while, then he might have avoided building a world-view on so fragile a notion as Crow's greatness. But Zephaniah was an impressionable child, fed the ideals of power and violence and lies. Virra, oh foolish hopeful kindness, you were far, far too late. The damage here had already been done.

What a beautiful pantheon this was - three beautiful roses, a dragon, and a smart, black bird perched atop the lot of them while everything outside this place was set aflame.

Grandfather and granddaughter plotted against one another with disconcerting enthusiasm, Anamelech's calculating and sinister brain ticking methodically behind her deceptively angelic smile. She was all sunshine and rainbows as she exalted her grandfather, but the sugar was too sticky, the sickening sweetness rotted. Anamelech was not like most little girls in that while most little girls loved their mommies and daddies, Ana could swear allegiance to her family in one instant, then in the next sentence just as easily forsake them. If it was Aglacea that returned to her instead of Crow, she would be just as readily planning his demise, all while insisting that she loved him. Maybe there was a kernel of sentimentality dwelling underneath all the sugar, like a beating heart persisting. Maybe her promises of unfaltering adoration weren't just lies.

Maybe.

No doubt, Grendel would be concocting just as many contingencies in preparation for the inevitable moment his rebellious daughter threatened his authority. Such was their relationship. How proud Daddy would be of his little girl, the tiny devil he left on the throne.

And her throne she would protect. It was hers. This was what was written. This was her story, and he was nothing but a minor antagonist.

As the two exchanged superficial pleasantries, Ana finally took notice of the little cherub smiling at her from beside his escort, and lowered her head to greet him. Oh, so Crow had brought a little snack with him. How delightful. The family resemblance wasn't immediately apparent; for all Anamelech knew, Crow had just delivered an unrelated convert straight to the Valley's doorstep. For me, Grandfather? How thoughtful of you.

Crow did come bearing gifts, but it wasn't the boy. He reached with one paw behind him and pushed an object previously unseen toward her. It was flesh; the rotting remains of an appendage that once belonged to some unknown creature. Others would have called them humans. She knew nothing of humans, their fire, or their curious and delightful little trinkets beyond the fact that she wanted them, perhaps only for the fact that they were different. She blinked, curiously dissecting the slab of flesh like it was a present to be unwrapped, turning the arm over on its side. A sliver of white bone protruded from the decomposing muscle. The strange, articulated joints (toes?) attached to the end of the arm (its... paw?) were curled like the legs of a dead insect. Any other queen would have refused this macabre gift and cast it back into Crow's loathsome maw, but Ana wasn't like most queens. Ana wasn't like most little girls.

Captain Ni and Captain Iti had arrived. Ana was too transfixed with her present to pay them any mind. Ink slipped past her and curled around Crow like she was his shadow. The two bickered over the child in Crow's possession, but it was only background noise. Ana only looked up when she heard Big Sister's voice as a reverent whisper, choked with emotion. She greeted Crow like he was a long-lost friend. For the first time in possibly her entire life, Ana was quite honestly perplexed, although outwardly she never showed it. Canaan wasn't emotional. She didn't cry.

Stony-faced, Ana watched as her grandfather went into motion, sweeping the dismembered arm closer to her as an afterthought. Sinewy muscles rippled beneath the layers of scar tissue that mangled his back. Crow whirled about like a lean and ragged specter and howled his devotion for Oukoku-Kai at the top of his lungs, releasing a great zealous battle cry. He entrusted her with the throne in a flattery-laden declaration: I leave godhood to my lovely granddaughter. Godhood was hers. That was the only part of his little harangue that mattered.

Like that - a liability was now a potential tool. How fortuitous.

Of course, Ana would still keep her cards clutched to her chest. Crow wasn't one to be trifled with. She smiled to him, almost wordlessly saying, Of course you are. When she spoke, she instead opted for praise. Keep the beast docile, keep him compliant; trade meaningless compliments while the pieces fell into place. "Oukoku-Kai has been lost without its most devoted follower.

"We've missed you so much."

Crow’s return had become a welcoming party filled with the faces of his most intimate of familiars. From the clumps of their fanatical society emerged two more, both Captain’s drawn to the lure of the god-slayer and his fresh bundle. In some idle part of her mind, some place in her twisted mentality that was not consumed by her hungers, by her longing, by the heat of the fury that simmered in her belly, she acknowledged their arrival. Yet her gaze never moved from Crow, from the beast Mother had spoken of, from the creature that had not be torn asunder by Azuhel’s teeth and claw… and the child that Virra seemed to nervously attempt to coax from the side of the monster it had come with.

Though, such a creature needed no salvation, it was already damned in the presence of its caretaker and Ink was efficient in her reminder that Crow’s house of beasts could care for the sack of wide-eyed flesh and blood. Though ultimately, Canaan knew it was anything but some innocent eager soon-to-be worshipper… and she let the knowledge of such flood her gaze as she moved it to Crow and met his own.

Perhaps, when the dust was settled and his return was not the talk of a frightened estate they could smile wicked smiles underneath the blanket of twinkling stars while exchanging secrets of fire and—

“Humans.”

Crow, in his journey, had procured some human limb. It was nothing unknown for the child, whose travels beyond the prison she ruled with casual smile and grace were yet revealed mysteries and often remembered agonies. Her reaction was not explosive however and her belly neither churned nor rumbled for the flesh. She was impartial to the gift and understood that, beneath those new bones, had been bred a carefully constructed bribe for favor. Was Crow a simple male of gifts and humble attitude?

No, she doubted such.

Still, such thoughts of politics—whether the limbs intention was such or not—fled in the wake of Crow’s greeting and as if she hadn’t wept in her earlier confused emotional reaction she gave a tilt of head and heavy smile—“We’ve kept your den warm, Mother and I.” Hypothetically speaking. Enix had seemed stricken by the disappearance of Grendel and Crow and had taken to following their scents in several different locations in hopes of finding them again. “And Zephaniah, is it?”

She approached the small collection, Crow, Ink, and the child without fear of being turned away and the confidence of the god she mimicked with glee and regality. They would welcome her, they would accept her—her authority demanded nothing less. Of course, once and if Canaan was close enough she’d settle down on her rump and give broad motherly smile, one learned and copied and perfectly emulated from a beast none of them had ever seen….

Except for, those two that had, of course.

“My name is Chinensis.” In a roundabout way, “Though, you may call me ‘sister’.”

Because, in a way, they were linked.

That was when Crow made his proclamation, his relinquishment of the throne and his new request while he screamed his faith to the slumbering skies above them.

And naturally, in reply—“Absolutely! You’re precious and irreplaceable. Gigantea and I, Chinensis, welcome you home and bless you for your bravery and cunnings.”

Then a pause—

“You belong to Oukoku, after all. And it is not yet done with you, Indestructible Warrior.”

As if she had expected anything else, her attempt to draw the child away from Crow had failed. Virra visibly shrank back a tiny bit as Ink approached, getting between her and the child, who had not moved, and blinked. Zephaniah's eyes were cold and glaring, causing Virra to realize almost instantaneously that there was no hope of showing him tenderness. Like his father, he would not accept it. Appearing as relaxed as possible, she simply nodded and closed her eyes. "Of course, I'm sorry to imply otherwise." Lids opened and neutral sapphire irises landed on Zephaniah once more, "You have so many to take care of you, Oukoku-Kai will be home in no time at all."

Silently, shamefully, she strode towards Canaan's direction and remained there. Detaching herself from the conversation, she listened idly to their chatter. Eyes wandered from face to face, following each voice. The only one she did not look at for more than a second was Crow, not out of fear, but silent frustration at him. All of his children - all of them - had the same twisted lack of tenderness. He couldn't have let one of them have a heart built for more than obedience and darkness? Tail swayed behind her, a subtle little flick from right to left, an anxious twitch that wouldn't resolve itself anytime soon.

"I was shown a gift. It did hurt, at first. Now... I don't feel much of anything there. Twice now this evil has tried to lay claim to me. And twice now I've come back from it. Look at what I've sacrificed! My eye, my skin! BUT NEVER MY FAITH!"

Her eyes had widened on the ugly scars of the burns on his shoulder, swallowing hard. Fire, the flick of her tail increased and her stomach knotted. They'd all seen it, around the time that Crow had vanished and a figure in the distance had carried with them the burning energy. Toes long healed from burns and cuts ached, a phantom memory of the flames licking at her heels as she tried furiously to stamp them out. Sympathy lined her brows, pulling them closer to the middle before relaxing, deep blue eyes never leaving the single yellow. She felt sorry for him. For all his cruelty and wickedness, she couldn't imagine being put through the burns now branded into his skin - and for that she truly pitied his struggle.

"I leave godhood to my lovely granddaughter. I ask only that I be left to defend and avenge this place. With all that I alone have gained. I -- the wolf the Red Dragon cannot kill!"

His theatrics had not graced her like it did the others, questionable faith aside. There was something that bothered her, something that made her clear her throat softly after Ana and Canaan spoke. "Will she come back?" Confidence had surged her voice to be louder, not mumbled, she found a way not to stutter through her speech. "The Red Dragon, she was the one with the fire? How should we defend this place if she comes back?"

Mind whirring, she looked from Crow to Canaan, choosing to ask directly the one she was under. "I'll offer up any help I can, lady Chinensis. I'd like to defend our home." Our home. How many times had she said that now and not meant it? How many times had she said it and did mean it?

It would be wrong to say that what Ana had so lovingly dubbed a "harangue" had been purely theatrical in nature, the overwrought play of an actor good at feigning emotions he did not really feel. He was horrific in countless ways, but he was no glassy-eyed, empty-souled sociopath who did all that they did to fill some endless hole without ever once being affected by the mechanisms and products of these actions. Crow was fever, Crow was wildfire -- untamed, hazardous by nature, following the bacteria and the embers with which he'd over many years been disfigured.

He'd brought his granddaughter back a gift, because he had. He maimed and murdered and terrorized -- the gods and the mobs, the valleyborn and the infidels -- because he did. He allowed his young son's nipping little smooch, even deigned to lower his smiling maw for it... because. I am my own god, and it was no longer something he needed to prove like it once would have been; it simply was, unchallenged and indomitable. There was something so serene about his smile now and that was more terrifying than any snarl or sneer he'd ever made.

Indestructible Warrior, indeed.

"I want to see her," he crooned when the praise subsided, a sliver of something eerily sentimental threading into his voice. "It's been so long since I spoke with Heaven... I'm afraid I was... a little disagreeable last time we met." She'd crept up upon him in his den, mistaking him for Grendel, and he'd rewarded the woman who'd half-raised him with a ripping growl for startling him, never once considering that this could have wounded her as deeply as it did. Enix was the old White, an unstoppable monster. Surely she didn't feel that kind of pain. "Lead the way, my sister."

Then came Virra, sweet little Virra, whose voice he really did like, as cats enjoy the plaintive squeaking of mice. "Oh yes," purred Crow, too fond, too detached as he spoke of the devil-figure who'd burned him nearly to death. "She used the fire to weaken the gate between us and the horrors outside. To frighten us." He broke from Zephaniah (who presumably toddled after them) to hover intimately over her, his open jaws momentarily close to her cheek. "Are you frightened?"

A laugh -- apparently that was meant to be a joke -- as he withdrew. "I'll lead the attack myself, if she comes back. We'll be ready."

Crow could have told them exactly where Azuhel was, if he'd wanted to. Could have assembled a jin party with Ink with intent to fetch a head that would be crudely buried (read: thrown into the tar) with Antimache's. Could have said so much more than he was saying now. But the truth was, well --

-- he was no longer sure which side of that attack he'd be on.

Time would tell.