Sela awoke in a familiar place. Yet it wasn’t the kind of remembrance you feel when you get home from a long trip and look around your house, feeling safe and cozy.
No, it was a horrible familiarity that always returned to her, just as she returned to the horrid room Kayo always left her in after she attempted an escape. Richly furnished, with a cheery fire crackling in the hearth, he knew how much she hated and scorned the room, which only served to remind her of the first day she had been in the fox’s Domain.
She pushed the covers of her bed away, walking to the very couch she had awoken upon all those years ago, and tracing her slender fingers along the wooden frame.
Reaching over, she touched the very pillow she had thrown at him, and yes, there too was the glass vase she had used as a weapon, the one that always seemed to repair itself overnight.
The fox loved coming into the room after another victorious recapture, to dole out her punishment. Most consequences she had been given were ones she struggled to forget, tortures so burned into her memory that she feared they might never disappear.
The tattoo on her wrist glimmered, reminding her of yet another time Rick had gotten to her. Even the thought of the horrid wolf sent a shiver down her spine, and the many pains and tortures he had inflicted on her in the past six years seemed to gather in the tattoo, daring her to forget… she glanced over at the hearth, eyes misting over.
So many things had happened to her since that day she had woken up, and barely a quarter of them were memories she wanted to remember. The rest stuck in her mind the way brambles do, wrapping around and clinging to every strand of substantial matter they can find.
A smile brightened her sober face as she thought of Drake. Her big brother, almost. The kind of guy you can depend on for pretty much anything. He’d been the one to take care of her after those horrible punishments. He’d been the one who’d stopped Rick from doing things so horribly drastic that she flinched just thinking about them. He’d been the one to help her learn the ancient language that she felt she’d never understand… And now, well, who knew where he was? Rick didn’t inflict as much pain on his second-in-command, nor did he hate him as much as he hated Sela. Why? Why did he hate her so much? She knew, and yet… and yet she didn’t.
Reasoning seemed to implode when it got within a certain distance of the wolf. It vanished, and its place hung an eerie laugh, a bloody smile, a sharpened claw… Her mind screeched to a halt as the door to her room opened and a red-pelted fox trotted in on all fours, speaking to her quickly in the ancient language, “Ochne seti olke Joysuhn inteu.”
Sela sighed. “Ontueye Joysuhn elkust omneto.”
“Right. I’m coming Dad!”
A little girl ran through the woods, in the direction she believed her parents must be. She hated being alone, especially in the wilderness, but it all seemed so tranquil…
“Sela! What joy it gives me to finally meet you. You’re what, six now?” the girl fought the urge to scream, turning in what she believed was the opposite direction of the voice, only to crash directly into someone.
“No cause for alarm, m’dear. You should know I won’t harm you.” She looked up, stunned at the appearance of the man before her.
He had very odd, blue… no green… no blue… she couldn’t quite describe his eyes, because every time she blinked, they changed again, and so she turned her attention to the fox ears poking out of his gold-and-white furred head.
“You… you can’t be real. You’re a fox, and fox- oh, what is it? Foxes? That just doesn’t sound right…” she kept trying to think of the correct plural of fox, even though, in truth, it was foxes.
“Foxi? No… Foxen? Wrong again!” the girl stamped her feet in frustration, her dirty blonde, shoulder-length hair falling into her blue eyes, the grey rims of her irises making for a quite an odd color.
“Oh dear, now I’m talking to a… a foxy-whiskered gentleman, a stranger! Oh, and he doesn’t even know my name!” she turned to leave, but the odd fox-man gripped her shoulder, turning her back around.
“Hush, Sela. I’m not here for any other reason but to meet you. I must go, your father is about to arrive.” He flashed her a final smile, and then walked out of sight. Just as he disappeared, her father crashed into the tiny clearing, gasping for breath.
“Oh…oh, w-where were y-you? We’ve been searching ev-everywhere!” the girl turned curious eyes at her father, frowning.
“Dad, did you see the ma- fo – ma – it doesn’t matter what he was! Did you see him?” her father gave her a strange look, and then, taking her hand, led her away, trying to get some sense out of her as they left.
“He was a what?”
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What do you think? Please review! I'm not very good at paragraphing, so if you see any part I missed, please point it out.
Thanks!
Sela
