Nepenthe • Something that can make you forget grief or suffering.
Never feeling like they belonged was a feeling that Lissa Dragomir lived with, even with her family and life long best friend, although they aided in that feeling not being so strong...
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Lissa knew that she had to keep running, she couldn't stop, just in case everything went wrong, never stop moving. That's what Kate always told her.
'You stop moving you're dead, if you keep running, you'll live longer.'
And Lissa wanted to live, by Vladimir did she want to live. She wanted to explore the world, she wanted to be free, she wanted to live, so she kept running, even as she heard growling, yelling and sound of fighting, even if her heart begged her to turn around and fight alongside Kate.
Kate, on the other hand, never felt more alive, she moved and attacked as she could, dancing with the psi-hound as it attempted to kill her so that it could go after Lissa. And Kate loved every step of the dance.
It felt like she already knew it, the dance of life and death - and in a way she already did- but it made her feel alive, alight with purpose and need, alight with responsibility. She skillfully evaded each jaw snap that the animal made her way, and dealt her own damage by kicking it away.
She could deal with one psi-hound without issues, she trained herself to do so, even if she didn't like injuring animals.
It didn't take long before both the psi-hound and the girl to draw blood from the other, as Kate was now supporting a bite-mark on her leg, just about the end of the hiking boot, that was already beginning to heal, and the psi-hound now could only use one eye as Kate had stabbed the other while trying to get away.
Still the deadly dance continues as both of them know that only one can leave with their life.
Lissa had started to divulge more information about the world that both girls belonged to, its history, its important locations, animals that usually had more loyalty to Moroi. So Kate had began to do her research, always having an excuse ready if they couldn't go somewhere, learning about the animals and their natural instincts.
And while psi-hounds were natural to the Moroi world, they still mostly functioned as wolves did, running in packs and having the same mannerisms, which was how and why Kate knew that she had to kill the psi-hound she was dancing with before their backup arrived.
The psi-hound, potentially annoyed with the fight that Kate was putting up, tilted its head up and began to let out a howl, one that Kate ended swiftly with hefty, forceful and quick stabs to the throat and thorax, effectively killing the psi-hound while leaving her covered in the animal's blood.
It didn't feel right taking the life of an animal, even if it was a literal case of life-or-death. But before Kate could apologize or say a prayer for the animal, she was thrown to the side with a jaw clamping down on her right shoulder painfully, breaking through thick clothing, skin, and around her shoulderblade, making her let out a pained and terrified scream.
