The square lies hushed under a dying lantern. Blood darkens the well stones, and the last survivors vanish into the lanes beyond the firelight. Kekona stands alone amid the wreckage, the village's fear now only a scent on the wind.
At the well's edge, the Ash-Braided Woman's body lies still, and the memory of the hooded figure lingers like a splinter in the dark. No voices answer from the houses. No feet rush to challenge her.
Kekona
The square is empty.
Kekona turns from the well and pads toward the road, her long tail trailing behind her through mud and blood. The lantern flame gutters lower, as if the village itself is drawing one last breath.
Behind her, the broken tavern and silent homes keep their dead. Ahead waits the dark countryside, and with it the unanswered questions she cannot bite apart.
She reaches the threshold of the village and pauses. The night opens before her, wide and uncertain. Kekona may leave the ruins behind, or turn back toward the last traces of what this hunger has made.
“Kekona, her stomach full, leaves the village.”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +1)
Night swallowed the square. Kekona stood at the village threshold, the dead behind her and the road before her.
Kekona
Still hungry. Still me.
She turned her back on the broken lanterns and walked into the dark countryside, carrying her hunger like a crown.
By dawn, the village was only a silence in the trees. Kekona had gone on alone, leaving ruin and fear where she had once stood. Whatever blood stirred in her veins, it would be answered somewhere beyond the fields, under the same cold sky.