Jinju;

[Jinju]

“Hope rises like a phoenix from the ashes of shattered dreams.”

She feels a similar pang when her son’s name is spoken. It is one of the many memories and thoughts she’d tucked away, stored in one of the most far corners of her mind. Ander. Her son. Terran’s son. In her new youth, Jinju is unable to not let the emotions show. For a sort moment her ears flick back, and her lips form a thin line. She’s able to catch herself before allowing her lip to curl up and bare her teeth. No wolf, but equine, she has to remind herself.

She has heard his question, and also read the next in his gaze, knowing she could not answer the first without the latter. But speaking it out loud. The inky lady trembles, unable to twist her ears forward just yet, as she stares at him. For a moment her ruby eyes show all. Her pains, her fears, her loss. In the next second, Jinju pushes it all back, a wolf does not show weakness.

And yet, she is unable to not immediately react. The subtle movement of his body is enough for her to move forward, to cross the distance between them. Jinju does not rush to his side like she had once used too, they are both too much predator right now, and instead she moves one hoof in front of the other. By the time she reaches him, the inky girl is trembling all over.

For a moment she just stands in front of the gray wolf, watching him for a moment, begging him to read her fear and panic, and insecurities. Ruan invited her, but would he also wrap her in his embrace once again?

She reaches out, fire burning hot in her belly, and her eyes, but it is a deep sigh that leaves the barrier of her lips when her skin touches his. “Dad,” she repeats, this time no longer questioning, but confident. He is here. He is back. Ever so slowly a smile starts tugging at the corners of her lips, and when she moves, it is much quicker, more child-like and with more energy, simply to position herself next to him. Ruan might no longer have his wings, but Jinju still very much feels the need to snuggle at his side.

It is, with her head on his shoulder, that she finally replies to his question. “He.. I don’t know.. He does not need his..” mother “.. parents anymore.” Jinju could not claim having raised her son right, as Terran has done all the hard work. Together they had mourned him, but without the link Terran formed between them, their strange family could not keep stand.

“I.. died when Taiga fell.. And was reborn from the ashes.” Her own ashes. Raised by my lover alongside my own son.


@[Ruan] <3