i will break into your thoughts

She pressed forward with wraithlike eloquence, the dead of night serving as her guide; it was getting late, and she knew she should’ve been tired, but her brain seemed to be hyperactive. The slightest sound, like the wind tugging at the branches of the trees, made her ears twitch. Everything around her was far too quiet, like she was the only living, breathing creature left on the world, and it was enough to make her skin crawl with unease. For the first time in her life, she was unmistakably alone, and there was nothing she wouldn’t give in exchange for a chance to begin anew. If she had only known that her father was going to show up that night, she could’ve done something differently. There was no reason she had to be aimlessly wandering the world, devoid of the simplest of purposes; it felt beneath her to have nothing but the sound of her own voice in her head.

Styx stopped, and took a deep breath. She could feel the way her thoughts spun out of control. A part of her was driven to give them the freedom they wanted, and to see where it took her, but she couldn’t afford to be careless when she didn’t even know where she was sleeping tonight. It was in that moment of stunning clarity, where for nowhere near the first time she favoured sanity over its opposite, that something in the air changed. She caught it as quickly as it dared to bypass her unnoticed. Curious, she turned her head to the side, staring into the wide expanse of darkness like the air was somehow materializing. It didn’t take long for her to decide it wasn’t too late for an adventure. She could sleep anytime, but once she moved ahead, she didn’t want to waste even a second wondering what could’ve happened if she pursued the change in atmosphere.

The scent grew stronger the deeper she pressed into the foliage, as if it was multiplying, and it made her fondly reminiscence of a story her mother had told her about wolves, just like the two of them, that lived in large numbers. It had been called a pack. Back then, it had been nothing but a story, but she could feel it taking shape around her as she drew towards their border. She paused, remembering from the stories that these wolves were oftentimes territorial, but it was clear from the intrigue in her pale eyes that she wanted to know what laid beyond the border. Standing on the outside, like an outsider thorough and thorough, she felt like a caged animal; she had never been exposed to boundaries, and knew nothing of the dangers that came from crossing them.

It was nothing stronger than common sense that kept her from taking another step. Her jaws parted, and she drank in the smell of the pack, but it had been so long since she used her voice. Idly, Styx glanced at the moon, and her hind legs found the ground before she had consciously given them permission. She hadn’t been tired before, and she certainly wasn’t tired now, but she didn’t expect any of these mysterious wolves from the stories to be awake. She would wait for them as long as it took.

i will break into your thoughts

She didn’t expect someone to show up so quickly. It was the middle of the night, so when she heard a faint rustling on the other side of the border, she assumed it was an animal of prey as opposed to a member of the pack. When a she-wolf dipped in golds, blacks, and whites from head-to-toe, glided through the bushes and leveled her green eyes with Styx’s, the initial surprise that the black vagabond felt was nowhere near strong enough to stretch her lips or widen her eyes. Frankly, she was thrilled that her expectations had been exceeded so promptly. Her appearance on the border had been happenstance, at best, but now she was starting to attach to the idea of joining its ranks. There was something in the she-wolf’s eyes that Styx couldn’t place, but the uncertainty didn’t bother her. She was driven by an emotion she couldn’t place to irreversibly know what made her as she was and, if possible, how Styx could reach it on her own terms and at her own pace.

Her usage of the words next time confused Styx. She tipped her head to the side, examining her counterpart thoughtfully. It implied that Styx wouldn’t be accepted or, perhaps, that she wouldn’t last long in Erenyx if she was accepted. It was a possibility, as all things were in some semblance of the word, but she would make the pack wolf—of an important rank, surely, but Styx couldn’t say—eat those words or she would die trying. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised hollowly, “but I’m hopeful there won’t be a next time.” If the decision to join this pack turned around and bit her in the behind, she would stand by it nonetheless. Chances were it would happen at some point down the road because, like it or not, there wasn’t a single thing she knew about this pack, and yet she was prepared to put her freedom on hold to gamble with it. The thought in and of itself was exhilarating to toss around. She was blinded by her willingness to take chances and, if needed, suffer the consequences.

She was asked for her name, and standing a little straighter, she obliged with a cheerful smile. “I am Styx.” I suppose. The last part didn’t quite make it out of her mouth, but that was likely for the best. She hadn’t referred to herself by name in a long time, for there had been no reason to do so when she was inexplicably alone; she could’ve chosen a new identity for herself if she had wanted, and while there was no time quite like the present, it was too late to take back what she had said. At the very least, it would’ve pleased her mother to know the name had stuck after her death.

“I seek a place among you. I have never been in a pack, but I want to learn what it’s like.” Oh, how she adored to learn. Her life as a loner had become far too repetitive for her tastes. If she didn’t experience a change in atmosphere, she feared her brain would explode; it felt like it was pushing against the edges of her skull in search of a way out.

The she-wolf of many colours didn’t drape her tail across her back, but seeing as it was only polite, and only customary if she recalled from her mother’s tales, she lowered her head a notch and flipped her ears back. The display of submission wasn’t over-the-top, but that was only because nothing further had been required. Styx had never encountered an aggressively dominant wolf in her travels, but if she was met with one, she would do what she needed to do in order to survive. Thus far, the she-wolf across from her didn’t peg her as a tyrant of any sort; she was friendly, curiously so, and Styx was bombarded by the desire to understand what she saw when she looked across the border and into the vagabond’s endearingly light and innocent eyes.

i will break into your thoughts

The she-wolf with a pelt of earthly colours offered Styx a simple response. Her resolve to join, and to not leave, was admirable but no less up to chance. She said that many came to Erenyx, but just as many left, and before Styx could ask the golden question - why - she was given the insight she sought. It surprised her, to say the least, that Erenyx housed wolves known across the land as brutal murderers. She wondered absentmindedly if the she-wolf across from her was defined by those words. If she was, she didn't seem to mind. The pack and its inhabitants were becoming more curious by the minute. The black she-wolf's pale eyes were alight with an emotion akin to fascination, watching the pack wolf's expression as she spoke in the hopes of detecting something beyond her abundance of neutrality. Surely she was not the monster that she claimed her kind to be.

"I can assure you and your alpha that I wouldn't be another mouth to feed. I may have never been in a pack before, but it has taught me how to survive." Her spirit was strong, that much was apparent, and the reputation of this pack didn't deter her willingness to align with it. She didn't think of herself as a killer, or as a sadist, but that was because she had never tried it for sport. If the alpha of Erenyx was as ruthless as his pack member deemed him to be, then she would abide by his laws for the simple purpose of keeping her head on her shoulders; there was no telling at this point if she would grow to like how it felt to be another face among the monsters of Erenyx.

She was not a monster. At least, she wasn't one right now. She liked to try new things, and this, no matter how unsettling, was something new. She wouldn't tilt her nose up at the idea of becoming a villain until she was certain it didn't suit her. "I know I'm small," she pointed out with a wry smile, "but I have the same weapons as a wolf twice my size. Your alpha may not be good, but that doesn't concern me -" If it was a warning in any semblance of the word it floated right over Styx's head. " - for if you said he was purely good and without his faults I wouldn't have believed a word. I will fight for him, and I will fight for his pack. Today hasn't been easy, nor the day before, and I fear I'd bore myself to death if you told me tomorrow would be any different."