we could share the kingdom

BACKDATED. set right after this thread

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Sreda stomped home, her paws heavy upon the dark earth as she processed everything. Yes, everything, that her Mama had told her. For Mama had given her much more confidential information than perhaps many others knew. And Sreada would treasure it, yes, and process it deeply. She would hold onto this information for ... a far more relevant time, perhaps.

A time when it would benefit her, maybe.

The story of the gods.
  Of The Five.
    Of her siblings.

It all processed in a deep way within her juvenile brain and she felt so inclined to talk to her Auntie about it. Auntie always seemed to know something, seemed to know ... everything, really. She had an answer for it all, which Sreda may not have. And the youth liked to give away a lot of her ignorance to Harper's generous teachings.

"Auntie?" Her voice sounded, bold but soft against the midnight air as she approached the dens.

There was an urgency there.
 A need.

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^^As of late, Harper had been thinking about childhood and the mistreatment she had gotten from Dimas; how her own mother had dealt with the situation. Every time the man had breathed into her direction, in a way that was deemed inappropriate for children, Mama had always said: it’s okay, dear; everything happens for a reason.

When Hatchet had been stolen from them, and they had lost not one, but two of their brothers, and her Mama had lost half of her first litter, she would weep and pray to the gods. Everything happens for a reason, she had said.

Here lately, Harper realized that the death of Crux had brought her closer to her sister. She would have ultimately chosen to leave her sister and Elysium behind, for Crux. Then she would have never gotten to know her nieces and nephews.

A voice broke the silence, and Harper turned to smile towards her dark niece, who called to her. It was in the late evening, so she had just put her kids to bed, and had wandered outside to look at the night stars, in wonder to what she’d find.

“Good evening, my angel.” She cooed softly with the wag of her tail.

^^
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The shadow emerged from the den with little prompt, the extra-large form her Aunt pouring forth toward her beneath the moonlight. Harper was so reliable, so perfect, so in-tune with her environment ... it was a wonder that she could keep up with Valeska's children as well as her own, really. But Sreda moved toward the shadow with intent, as if willing to meet the Devil herself: "Auntie," Sreda whispered. half-secret in her relief as the larger warden appeared from the stygian depths.

It was always a relief to see Auntie Harper. For no one quite understood the strange little child as she did ... as Auntie did.

Sreda smiled softly, moving with a brisk trot toward the woman before rubbing her smaller body between Harper's legs in greeting. Dark tail coiled between Harper's larger limbs, and it was almost feline in the way Sreda approached her ... as a soft rumble of a greeting escaped her lips, a mixture of gratitude and frustration as she gazed up toward her aunt with twin, amethyst visages. "Auntie Harper," she stated again quickly, her brain vibrating with all of the information her Mama had told her.

She needed to know.

"I need to know," she started, emulating her thoughts perfectly, her gaze hard and penetrating and somehow ... still ... unreadable.

"Can you die and come back again? And how?" Sreda wasn't one to beat around the bush. And she never would be. Her gaze tore into her Aunt, determined for answers.

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^^Sreda and Harper had always had some sort of dark connection that could never really be understood, not even through a microscope, but Harper liked it that way. She liked coming to learn about her nieces and nephews, and being a part of their lives. She liked that they came to her, knowing that she possessed knowledge; they came to her to learn, and that was just fine with Harper, but she worried for the day when she could teach them no more.

Like an author who had written their best work, and could no longer write anything as perfect as their latest novel.

She came to lower her face, sniffing and licking in a semi-grooming fashion as Sreda came to her legs, like a cat, in greeting, and Harper would smile and nuzzle into the deadly demon with ease.

“Hello, dearheart,” Harper cooed softly, and happily, brows arching with a curiousity, as her darling Sreda stated that she needed to know something. “Well, dear you’ve come to the right – play..ace.. ” (pla - ce) Half of Harper’s words died right there in her mouth, just like her husband had died right there, in the forest.

For the first time within Sreda’s company, a chill ran down her spine, and her hackles quivered. But she was not unsettled by this, but rather the opposite.

“How do you know about such things, my dear girl?” Harper whispered, now, in a hushed tone, with the nervous lick of her lips.

Now it was Harper’s turn to stare the girl down, awaiting answers. Knowledge like this was dangerous, and a lesser canine might think to tread carefully on the subject.

But Harper knew better.

^^
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gravedigger

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She felt the warmth of Harper's kisses along her back, nose edging against Sreda's smaller flank in a gentle, but harassing snuggle.

She should have loved it. Accepted it.
And maybe, secretly, she did.

But instead, Sreda pressed her spine upward against the other, her grinning maw turning toward her Aunt as her tail flicked upward in defiance — perhaps slapping her Aunt gently across the face. In the eyes. Whatever she could reach with that slight little flick.

“Well, dear you’ve come to the right – play..ace.. ”

Of course she had. Sreda would never have gone to another. She knew what Haper was capable of. What Harper could do. And she nodded gently, coiling her smaller body between Harper's limbs in a goading sort-of way as if to draw information from her Auntie with a honey-sweet grin. She was running on a high of emotions, drawing it all from the stories her Mama had told her. Unable to contain it all. “How do you know about such things, my dear girl?” She was dying for an outlet, dying to try these things for herself.

"Mama told me the truth," she replied evenly, her gaze turning upward to meet Harper's ... and she wondered, briefly, if Harper knew. If Harper was there, and if Harper saw the entire transaction of her soul between the realms. Sreda gazed at her Aunt, narrowing down upon her between the bridge of her muzzle.

"I died," she finished simply, even-toned as she ran her tongue over her teeth. "But here I am." And she lifted a paw to her chest, dramatically. "Praise be The Five."

She snickered, sinister.

"But do you know why? Or how Olive did it?"

It was not rhetorical.

She wanted to kill. And she wanted to reincarnate.

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^^There was an odd chill in the air, just then, as Harper began to wonder the reasoning behind Sreda's questions. But she need not wait for long, as Harper had confirmed Harper's suspicions.

Mama told me the truth. I died but here I am, Sreda said so proudly, with a paw on her chest as if it was something to be proud of.

And truly, it was. If she could, then Hatchet could. Then Crux could. They *all* could. They needed more.. solid evidence.

She was but the second instance of proof. Twice was coincidence, though, but three times? Three or more times was a proven fact.

Her eyes narrowed and she smiled so grimly that Sreda should be proud. But..

Oh, Valeska, what have you done? A nagging sensation, at the back of her head, buried along with her love for Crux.

“Your mother speaks the truth. I was there, ” Harper nodded softly as she lifted her head and glanced around.

“I don't know how, but it can be done. Come, we mustn't discuss it here.”

Harper would whisper, nosing her niece along, luring her somewhere secluded, so they could discuss in private.^^

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gravedigger

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The darkness among them mingled, tangible in the air. Solid. Delectable. Dark tendrils danced amidst the evening sky, tickled by the moonlight ... for they were two beings cut from the very same cloth — one could have even considered Sreda a daughter of the darker-hued woman. Harper was, after all, more of a mother-figure than an Aunt.

And although she was defiant and solemn, Sreda loved her Beloved Aunt Harper so very, very much. She feared her, too (and that made her love the woman even more).

But Sreda's frustration was just as tangible as the tendrils of turgid darkness that drifted all around them. For Sreda ... she wanted to taste death, not just imagine it. She wanted to know what holding a body felt like ... in her jaws, in her paws; whatever it was. She wanted to know how it all was possible. And she wanted to control it. (Could you imagine?)

And Auntie seemed to have the answers.

Sreda's daring purple eyes glimmered, mirroring Harper's own as the older woman hushed her. Sreda seemed to crouch lower, obeying her Auntie without question and beckoning forth her devious teachings. It was like Mother, except ... Mother always held back. Such a weakling, really. But Auntie Harper was strong. Determined ... she and her were alike in that way.

“I don't know how, but it can be done. Come, we mustn't discuss it here.”

Sreda felt a pleasing chill pass through her, rattling her deep to the very core. She blinked once. Twice. And then flattened her ears to her skull and nodded her head in a rather determined way. "Teach me," she said with finality (desperation?). Her teeth could have chattered, chilled by the anticipation.

They must never tell Valeska">Mama. — @Valeska

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