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Chosen

Chapter Seven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Chirmaya Nashaar

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Tayna sat cross-legged before the carefully struck embers of a fire, the tip of her tail flicking as her mother hummed a tune and boiled tea over the fire. Stirring the herbal concoction with a long, wooden ladle, the older fox smiled through her brown bangs and murmured polite conversation that Tayna numbly and automatically responded to. Yes, the weather was rather grey. No, she didn't think it would turn any time soon. Words rolled off her like water and Tayna could not have said even five minutes later what they had spoken about.

She shook her head. To be having tea, of all things, with her mother in a random cave in the middle of the mountains warranted far more than idle chatter. When had she even last seen her mother? It had been years since she had left her on the estate. Tayna frowned. How many times had she wished her mother and father would come back for her? They had had their reasons for leaving her on Lord Barreth's estate, but were they enough for her to forgive?

She supposed the fact that she was asking herself that question was answer enough.

Tayna sighed, the tiny exhalation of breath enough to raise her mother's eyebrow. The vixen ignored her, studying her covertly out of the corner of her eye. It could have been a nightmare, if twisted just so, yet she certainly was awake, despite the surreal nature of it. But there was something different...something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Coughing lightly into her paw, Tayna swept her gaze around the cave for what felt like the umpteenth time, feigning interest so that she did not stare overtly at the true object of her attention. It would have been understandable if she had. Who could ever say they expected to find a parent in the middle of the mountains when they were on the run from two factions?

The vixen shivered. It was best not to think of that.

"Where have you been all these years?" Tayna muttered, looking down at the steaming ceramic mug clasped between her paws. "You left me on the estate."

The older vixen tucked a strand of hair back behind Tayna's ear and she flinched, staring at the paw so close to her face as if it was an entirely foreign object. She couldn't remember that touch. Her mother sighed, brown eyes sad. Some had said before that Tayna was the spitting image of her. The vixen, however, had never before felt so vastly different to her. They were from completely different worlds now.

"It was the best I could do for you," she whispered, letting her paw drop soullessly to her side. "Everything... You know that we lost everything. Lord Barreth offered your father a deal. He would take you on and..."

She swallowed.

"I thought it was the best for you. To be safe and secure in a household where you could learn and grow. I know that seems like so little now, but -"

"Yes, it seems little!"

Tayna snapped, ears flicking back.

"Yes, you lost the farm - but why? Why did you leave me? And why didn't you come back? Do you think a letter or two was enough for me? Was I really worth so little to you?"

Tears welled up in her eyes and the vixen furiously blinked them away as the pitch of her voice rose and rose to a shriek caught in her throat.

Her mother reached out a paw, but Tayna slapped it away with a snarl. Jerking her paw back, the vixen looked her over disapprovingly.

"Tayna, if you think you can speak to me in that manner -"

The vixen scoffed.

"You'll what? Punish me? I think we are far beyond punishing, mother."

She licked her dark lips, though no amount of moisture could soothe the cracks forming in the dry, hard skin there.

"As a matter of course," she continued, slipping into a more formal tone as her paws trembled. "I don't think I can call you my mother anymore. Not after you abandoned me."

Her mother shuddered as if she had been slapped across the face.

"Tayna, please!"

"No."

Tayna sipped from her mug and looked her mother over coolly as if she was seeing her through a fresh pair of eyes. What was really the same about this vixen sitting before her? Even her mannerisms seemed to have changed. She didn't pick at the fur around her claws like she'd used to. Maybe she'd been more stressed back when they owned the farm. Maybe her time as one of the Chosen had made her colder.

"Do you know what I've had to go through? How many nights I spent curled up in bed crying myself to sleep? I only had Reline to comfort me - one friend. That was all. That was all I ever had."

She put the mug aside, the grey pottery slashed through the delicately painted blue flowers. It was ostentatious and she longed for the simple moulded clay of Fayla and Tuck's drinking vessels.

"And if time on the estate wasn't so bad, what about whatever came after? You must know all about it - church knows that everyone else seems to know."

Her mother nodded, lips sealed.

"So, Lillian," she said, using her mother's true name, "how do you feel about your daughter being one of the Chosen? How do you feel about everything I've done?"

She laughed, a wild cackle ripping itself from her throat.

"Maybe I wouldn't have done any of it if you'd been there to protect me. Maybe you could've saved me from all of that." She shook her head. "If you'd been there. But you weren't. You never were."

She paused, building up her words for what she had to say.

"Lillian, you have failed me as your daughter."

"Please call me 'mother'," Lillian whispered, her voice so soft that a breath of wind would have caused more of a disturbance.

The vixen leaned back on her paws, spreading her fingers out on the softness of a sleeping blanket. It was finer than anything she could remember sleeping on in many, many years.

"It still doesn't make sense..." Tayna pressed. "Reline had her mother there, although she hates me now. But she always had someone to turn to when she needed."

She stared accusingly at her mother, fingers tightening around the mug.

"And where were you? Where was my father?"

The vixen's eyes grew guarded and she looked away, bringing her paw to her heart.

"Your father is dead, Tayna."

Tayna gulped, anger suddenly chilled. Her head spun and the shadows from the flames seemed to dance higher on the cave walls.

"What do you mean?" She asked, a tremble in her voice that had not been there before. "That can't be right. He was... He was healthy. He was well. Your letters..."

She trailed off, the wind taken out of her sails. Her mother extended a paw to Tayna's shoulder, but the vixen shrugged it off, scooting back on her rump so that she was out of easy reach.

Hugging her knees to her chest, Tayna rested her chin on top of them and exhaled deeply. In her mind's eye, she saw the smiling, old fox as she'd remembered him, hard at work on the farm. Then that had all changed and the only contact she'd had with him had been through letters penned by her mother's paw. Not a word from him. Her heart ached, yet the time seemed inappropriate for grief to take hold.

"How..." The words were thick in her mouth and she had to work to force them out. "How...did it happen? Was it..." She didn't want to finish the question, but made herself do it anyway. "Was it peaceful?"

"Yes, my daughter, though it was not pretty." Her mother rubbed her throat, tucking her chin down. "Are you sure that you want to know the details?"

"Yes. I'm not the cub I was when you left me, you know...mother."

Lillian gave no indication that she'd taken note of Tayna calling her 'mother' and rolled her head back, eyes glassy with memory.

"Of course, he was in perfect health, he always was..." Lillian struggled to begin, eyes darting from one spot to another. "We were in the city by that point - you had my letters from there. We could have been healthy in the country, if we'd stayed there, but illness sweeps through cities like a swarm of flies."

Lillian scratched her neck with one finger, lips pressed into a tight, thin line. Tayna stared. Hadn't her mother hated when her father had done that? Had she picked up on his little quirks in his absence?

"I learned that too late."

Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself, paws trembling.

"When the illness came for him, it rendered him bound to bed in the small inn where we stayed. I could barely make him comfortable and it was only with the most expensive potions that he was able to exist in a state of semi-consciousness."

She looked down and held her paws to her muzzle, trembling.

"I held him on for far longer than any vixen had the right to," she whispered. "He lingered because of me. When I knew he could hold on to the thread of life no more, I sent him into the deepest sleep that coin could buy."

She swallowed, shoulders slumping.

"He never woke up again."

Tayna listened silently, twisting her paws in her lap.

"I should have been there," she said, at last breaking the silence as water dripped from the stalagmite into the pool, the only other sound in the cavern bar the snap and crackle of flames. "Why didn't you tell me he'd passed?"

"I didn't know how to tell you." Her mother spread her paws helplessly wide. "How could I tell my daughter that in a letter? I was, in all truth, travelling to see you when I heard..."

Lillian gave her daughter a strange look, appraisal fleetingly passing over her gaze.

"When I heard that you were with the Church. That you had become one of the Chosen."

Tayna looked up, rubbing away tears with the back of her paw.

"You were going to tell me?"

"Of course. But then everything changed."

"How did you afford all the potions to keep father going, to keep him alive?"

Tayna clung to the only sensible thread, something grounding, in the recollection. Her stomach roiled sickeningly and she gulped lungfuls of air, fearing that she was about to see her breakfast all over again. Oh, breakfast had been so long ago. And that had been a better time.

"I had to work..." Her mother rested one paw delicately on top of the other, upper body tilting towards Tayna. "It was nothing like what I'd done before. I can't say that I was not used to hard work, but this..." She shook her head. "This was the hardest of all."

The vixen wrapped her fingers around her muzzle, though it was not her words that she wanted to stop from spilling out. Everything her mother said sent a fresh pang through her heart. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. And the pain was only just beginning.

"It was difficult to explain the potions away to your father too," her mother continued, avoiding Tayna's gaze. "I didn't want to tell him, not at first. I knew he wouldn't approve."

"What wouldn't he approve of?"

Tayna's words sounded hollow and the vixen flinched from them, throwing them out into the air between her and her mother as if she could rid herself of the recently acquired knowledge.

The older vixen waved a paw, rocking her body around onto her knees. She rested there, stretching her forearms gently in front of her body, fingers clasped as she tucked her ankles to the side.

"I think he wanted to be the breadwinner, which is typical of him. Even though I worked on the farm for all those years, he still saw me as the same vixen he mated and married all those years ago."

Lillian laughed lightly.

"He didn't like that the Church oversaw my work either," she added as if struck by another thought. "It simply did not -"

"Wait, what?"

Tayna's back straightened.

"You worked for the Church?"

"Yes."

Her mother's expression did not change.

"The Church of the First Ray?"

"Is that such a surprise? I know you were on the estate, but their influence spread massively through the cities. Work is work when you are in dire need."

Lillian put her paw on Tayna's shoulder, but she jerked away, tail tucked down firmly against her backside.

"So that's how you knew about me being one of the Chosen," she whispered, voice hushed and muscles as rigid as the bough of an oak tree. "You were there. You were in the city. The city where I was."

"Tayna." Lillian blinked, head tilting ever so slightly to one side. "This can hardly come as a surprise to you... They offered so many positions. It was coin - coin we much needed."

The vixen recoiled as if she'd been struck.

"Father would never have approved of that!" Tayna hissed. "The Church was corrupt! Everyone knows that! How could you have joined them when you knew about it - knew all about it? There was no secret in what they did. You saw what they did to me! More than I ever did!"

"And yet you were part of it, my Tayna."

Her mother refilled her mug from the pot over the stove, which had been simmering gently all the while as steam curled from the surface of the water. She took her time in continuing, sitting back on her heels with her knees tucked beneath her and the cup secured in one paw. Her fingers found the soft grooves in the ceramic that allowed her to better grip the vessel and she sipped from it as if not wanting to allow her lips into contact with the infusion for a moment longer than necessary.

"You were as much a part of what you call corruption as I was, if that is how you choose to see it. There is darkness in so many corners of the world that it is impossible to tread solely in the path of light."

Lillian peered at her through the steam rising from her mug as if she was straining to see.

"And you, I am confident, had no intent to cause harm or distress for anyone you came across. All I saw of you was my daughter performing the most amazing displays and feats of magic - magic so intertwined with the scientific art of alchemy that even my eyes, so used to the Church, could not tell one from the other."

Her mother traced her fingers down Tayna's bare forearm and, this time, the vixen did not tremble away, although her tail remained fluffy and anxious.

"Tayna, my daughter..." Her mother cast her an admiring look, eyes warming with her honey-soft tone. "You have a gift. I had never seen anyone as strong as you! Not ever! There is something special about the magical potential in you... You can use your magic for the good of everyone. Take essence, store it and unleash your power on the world."

Tayna put a paw to her head, blinking away a sick feeling as if she was floating on water, bobbing as a leaf carried and tossed about eddies and waterfalls.

"This is..." Tayna shook her head. "No. I would never have chosen to be a puppet. That's all the Chosen are. Pretty figures for the Church to point at all in the name of donations. And who knows what else they are used for. I can't believe you would encourage me to go back to slavery. For that's all it is."

The vixen shuddered and wrapped her fingers around her upper arm.

"Who knows what else was done to me," she said, voice breaking. "I have no memory. All I have is recollections from others. I don't know if they deliberately broke my link to my Church when the foundations were destroyed or if this is some trick played by them."

Tayna huddled into herself, one ear cocked towards her mother. Although she could not bring herself to look directly at her, the vixen tensed her muscles, heels dug into the ground. How did she know that her mother wasn't working with the Church to take her back to them? Something wasn't right, her hackles lifted along the back of her neck. Unease curled sickeningly through her stomach and she dug her fingers into the tender flesh of her leg through her leggings. Who could she trust? Could she even trust herself?

"How can you be sure that this is not the doing of the Alliance?" Lillian asked.

As if reading her mind, her mother countered with the only thing that could have torn her mind away from the Church.

"What do you mean?" The vixen muttered, buying herself time that she didn't have.

"I mean that the Alliance could have easily wiped your memory - their mages may be able to perform a small feat of magic like that. It's nothing like what the godlike can do, but their mages may be able to warp memories still. I could not speak as to their competency."

Her mother shook her head, ears flicking. She was getting sidetracked, but Tayna was unwilling to help and clamped her mouth firmly shut as her mother struggled to stay on one course of conversation.

"Where was I?" The older vixen stroked her own hair and Tayna was suddenly struck by the feather of grey in the hairs she pushed back from her muzzle. "Ah, of course. I was speaking of the Alliance."

Tayna wished she'd just get on with it. Could the old fox drag it out anymore? She could have said for herself the gist of what her mother was going to say! It may as well have been scripted.

"The Alliance are evil," her mother proclaimed, closing her fingers into a tight fist, bosom heaving in an unexpectedly deep gulp of breath. "The atrocities they have committed... Tayna, it doesn't bear thinking about. The Church is simply trying to further the way of the world. You say their performances are for donations - of course, that is so. But all goes to build further churches and improve the land for everyone in it."

Her mother took a big gulp of tea infusion, eyes half-lidded as she lost herself in the slew of words, pouring forth as if an unstoppable tide.

"You were part of it, Tayna, and you did so many great things... Why would you not want to be part of that again? There is so much greatness waiting for you! All you have to do is reach out and take it. Return to the Church and they will welcome you back with open arms. I know this, Tayna. They want you back with them."

Tayna bit her lip until metallic blood flooded her mouth, seeping between teeth and washing over her tongue. Ice trickled down her spine like water and her back pushed itself ramrod straight, pain springing up around muscles sore from her long-distance hike with Tuck.

The horse was probably wondering where she was. And there she was, sitting in a cave having tea with another instrument of the Church. Had he been right about her? Tayna's ears slipped back and she carefully ruffled her fingers through the white fur on her cheeks. Her claws caught on skin but she barely felt the twinge of pain.

"Quite simple, Lillian," she growled, her tone making her mother's ears prick to attention. "I can't tell what's true and what's not - not when it comes from you. You haven't been in my life all these years! I trust those who have shown that they are to be trusted! You are far from trustworthy!"

"Tayna, please -"

"No, mother! This is not open to discussion! I am not to be bartered like a sack of potatoes!"

Tayna's lips curled up from her teeth and she struggled to keep them down.

She stared at her mother, seeing her age in the darker fur around her eyes. Her coat had changed in the years they'd been apart and there was a hunch to her back that had not been there before. She wasn't the same as she'd been - that much was sure. If she was changed, she'd also have to accept that Tayna had changed. She rested her paws on her knees, scruffy hair frayed across her shoulders.

"I didn't think I'd have to repeat that I'm not the cub I once was. I make my own decisions now and, alone, I've learned to think for myself."

She barked a mirthless laugh.

"Maybe to my detriment, if I'm to believe what they've told me."

She missed the belly laughs she'd had with Fayla and Tuck. Where were they? Were they safe? She'd not even had a proper chance to know them. Tayna bit back a growl.

She glared her mother down, ears pinned as far back as they would possibly go. In her younger days, she would have folded her arms across her breasts and pouted, every bit the petulant cub denied a treat. As it was, the vixen steeled herself, staring at her mother until the older vixen's gaze dropped to the cave floor between them. There was suddenly more space there than ever.

The older vixen rubbed her throat, paw trailing through her fur and up to her eyes. Twisting her head back and forth, she gulped, shoulders shaking. Tayna's brow furrowed. Was the vixen trying not to...cry?

"I see..."

Lillian hung her head, hair falling across her muzzle to shield it from the questions in Tayna's eyes. The vixen leaned forward, suspicious. Her mother had never cried. Not even when her daughter had been taken away. Her father had been the one to shed a tear or two.

"You were right, Tayna. You are no longer a cub." Her mother twitched. "You have grown into a strong, proud vixen."

Tayna's eyes narrowed.

"Then why are you trying to take me back? To the Church?" She shot back, barbs flying from her tongue. "Don't you want me to be happy? Or free? Does freedom now mean so little to you?"

The vixen wrapped one paw around the other, squeezing until the tips of her fingers disappeared around the other, tight enough to cut off the circulation of blood - if temporarily. She swallowed, glancing out of the cave and back to Tayna, words coming slow and thick in her mouth.

Her daughter stared at her impassively. Was the vixen even the mother she remembered? Something had changed. Or had she changed? She shook herself, fur fluffing out across her shoulders. Perhaps it was both.

"Tayna..." Lillian found her tongue at last and rested a paw on the young vixen's forearm, eyes imploring. "This is your last chance to rejoin the Church. You are so strong and so young... We cannot lose you."

She hesitated, brushing her thumb through the fluffy fur on Tayna's cheek where red blended seamlessly into white.

"I cannot lose you as I lost Fariad. Not now. Not ever, Tayna. Please don't leave me so soon."

Her mother rubbed the side of her muzzle and looked from left to right, fighting a losing battle as tears spilt down her cheeks, soaking into fur and leaving darker streaks in their wake.

"It has been too long since I lay in the arms of my husband, my life-mate," she murmured as if to herself. "I cannot go without my daughter too."

Pressing her paw over her eyes, she clawed for her mug of tea, blindly reaching for one cup of solace in the storm.

The vixen sat perfectly still. Not even her tail twitched as she slowly leaned forward, the suggestion of movement so subtle that someone would have only noticed her motion if they had been paying close attention.

Lillian looked up all of a sudden with tears flooding her muzzle, brown eyes brimming over. Something in Tayna's heart twisted. Suddenly, she was a cub again, rocked to sleep in her mother's arms on a stormy night, comforted by the thought that she was protected from the raging winds outside their farmhouse.

She couldn't leave her.

"You shall not lose me, mother." Tayna covered her paw with her own. "But I cannot go back to the Church."

"I only have second and third-hand recollections of what I did as one of the Chosen...yet not a single one of those tales shows me in the light that I wish to be shown in. As a servant, I was nothing. As one with godlike powers..."

She paused, the words caught in her throat.

"I can only see myself as a monster." Her paw tightened into a fist, nails biting fiercely into the palm of her paw where the old wounds had scarcely healed. "And I cannot return to that. Not now. Not ever."

Her mother's fingers tightened around her own as Lillian turned her paw over and linked their fingers together in a firm clasp.

"But Tayna..." She shook her head, lips moving without words. "That is not the truth of it at all. I have only found you now because I went to Lord Barreth's estate looking for you."

She squeezed the vixen's paw, pressing on before she had the chance to process what she'd been told.

"I know what you were truly like with all your power in all its glory."

Tayna took a deep breath, stomach churning.

"Tell me."

It may have been a truth she was afraid to hear, yet her heart hammered as she wanted to hear it all the same. She'd grown sick of the lies, twists in a tale that she should have known every word to.

Lillian smiled.

"Oh, Tayna - you were divine! You played with water from the fountain like it was a potter's clay, pure magic in your paws to mould with the powers gifted to you! It was spectacular how you made the water dip and flow, defying the laws of gravity!" Her mother's lips quirked up on one side and she leaned forward earnestly - too earnestly. "You must tell me how you did it! One day, when your memory has returned in full force."

Tayna shook her head.

"That doesn't sound all that bad... It just sounds like putting on a show. Then how did I end up with the Church?"

"You were injured, Tayna - that's why Lord Barreth sent me word. You couldn't walk."

Tayna jerked her head back, jaw slack.

"Walk? I couldn't walk?"

She grabbed her legs and pressed her thumbs into them, biting back the sharp flare of pain. No, they definitely were not paralyzed. Shameful relief washed over her, even though she'd spent enough time running through the mountains to assure herself that she had no physical impairment. Lillian bobbed her muzzle.

"I think it was Jorro who took you. To the city, I mean, to be healed. You couldn't work and, well, our agreement with Lord Barreth was that you would come to no harm. I still do not know the full nature of the accident, but I am under the impression that it was during the course of your work as a servant there."

The fox's eyes hardened.

"If I ever have the misfortune to meet Lord Barreth face to face again, I shall ensure that feline does not smile again - for daring to harm one of the Chosen. He should be punished for his crimes!"

"Mother!"

Tayna scowled.

"He was as good to me as anyone could be," she growled, surprised at her own defence of the Lord. "It was more likely me trying to do something I shouldn't have been doing. I think I did a lot of that for what I can remember."

Her mother took a deep breath.

"Regardless, you were taken to the city to be healed. And that was where the Church found you, took you in and sensed the magical potential in you. They have many magic users skilled in sensing this, you know."

Tayna remembered learning how to draw and store essence with Tuck, that burning thrill that made her feel oh so alive. Setting the bush on fire had only been the start of it, the remembered scent of flowers making her want to feel what she had all over again. Although it could have only been a few hours ago, if that, it felt like a lifetime.

Absently, her mother waved her paw and the pot lifted from the fire to rest beside it, dropping to the floor with a barely discernible clank. The water within sloshed back and forth, a few drops slopping over the side to splatter the stone.

The vixen stared, pieces of the puzzle slotting into place. Her mother's presence in the mountains - as if someone had designated her to be there. The tunnel that had led her directly to her mother. Tuck would have turned up if the tunnel had led to its true destination...or would he? Had he known where the tunnel led? Or was it just an escape route? Had Fayla used it before? Tuck, after all, had been too big to fit. One with magic could easily block an old tunnel and create a new, she was sure. Her mother's link to the Church, fierce despite what she remembered of her father's hate towards it. That didn't make sense. Not unless she had reason to be with the Church. And, above all, the one glaring note she couldn't deny was that pots didn't move on their own without magical intervention.

And there was only one other in the cave beside Tayna.

Her heart raced and her breath caught in her throat, throat seeming to close up so that it was harder and harder to breathe. The cave swayed and she blinked, struggling to focus.

Realising her mistake too late, the older vixen flung her paw out for her daughter but was slapped away.

"You're..." Tayna baulked, mouth dry. "You're one of them."

The vixen bolted to her paws, swerving around to the other side of the fire. Her knees shook and she rocked her weight back into her heels, eyes fixed on the only escape route that seemed sensible. One escape route would have to do.

"You're just here to take me back!" She spat. "To make me a puppet again!"

"No, Tayna!"

Lillian jumped to her paws and her daughter leapt backwards, cat-leaping around the fire as her mother dashed to grab her. But her paws were too slow and, perhaps worried about harming Tayna, Lillian did not move to use magic. Which was probably just as well for the younger vixen - she couldn't possibly have the same level of experience with her memory lost or blocked or whichever trigger it turned out to be.

"Was this part of your plan all along?" She hissed, tone dripping with scorn. "To take me back to your little Church, a puppet dancing at your whim? Maybe it was you who blocked my memory after all that. Maybe you took me from the estate."

Tayna blinked away traitorous tears. Now was not the time.

"Everything you've told me could be a lie. Probably is a lie."

The last word came out in a snarl she had not intended.

The vixen eyed her mother warily, watching her every move as she edged closer and closer towards the cave mouth, yawning into a wind that brushed up her fur in the wrong direction. Her mother's mouth softened, yet there was not a single gentle nuance in the firm set of her shoulders, matching her daughter pace for pace around the fire. She flicked an ear - probably a disassociated muscle twitch in hindsight - and the stalagmite broke in two with an almighty crack, plummeting into the pool where it drowned down and down and down. Tayna gulped. It had been as thick around as even her narrow, little waist.

"That is only a scrap of what you may achieve with your magic when you return to your home, Tayna," her mother brushed her hair back from her neck coolly. "Come with me and you'll remember who you were, who you are now. You can't run from yourself, Tayna."

Lillian spread her arms open wide.

"To be one of the Chosen is your destiny!"

Tayna begged to differ. Throwing her body into motion, she pushed up onto her toes and streamed from the cave, tail flicking out behind. She hurled her body over the cave's lip and out into a wind that had not been there before, a blast of cold air in her face chilling her lungs as she dragged in much-needed breath.

Stumbling and scraping up her knees, the vixen forced herself to move and keep moving. She had not been lucky to escape - her mother had let her escape. And she would be coming.

She glanced back, the sight of her mother framed in the yawning mouth of the cave sending speed to her paws, despite the protests of her body and sore muscles.

"You'll have to come back sooner or later, Tayna!" She howled, letting the rising, unnatural wind whip the words from her muzzle. "It will not end here! We are coming, Tayna - coming to return you to your true home!"

But Tayna was already gone, scrambling into the undergrowth as icy breath cut through her lungs. Her mother smoothed out her cape and adjusted the hood so that it fell more comfortably over her shoulders. Raising her paws above her head, she called on the elements, bending and twisting them to the will as she drew in the storm like a fish on the line.

"You shall not flee far, daughter."

Turning her muzzle to the swirling storm clouds, honing in on her lone form on the mountainside, the vixen let loose an unearthly shriek.

One hunting party would be more than enough to secure a wayward Chosen with her powers depleted - of that, she had no doubt. Lillian's lips curled into a cruel smirk. A jagged fork of lightning seared the sky in two, striking the ground. Yet she had no fear - it would never hit the Chosen that wielded it. As strong as her daughter was, she was the best of them.

Lillian closed her eyes. Soon, the hunting party would converge on the site of the lightning strike and join her in the hunt, their quarry so terribly close that her jaws salivated at the thought of victory. Then they could race down the mountain, their arsenal of weapons within easy reach, on their territory. A quick sleeping potion, smeared onto the point of dagger, arrow or spear would do the trick. A little nick and nip of pain and Tayna would be senseless on the ground. Lillian's hair knotted about her muzzle, obscuring her vision. It was all coming together after so many moons!

Soon she would have her daughter once more.