by Joe Couture
If Iona were a human, crude people would have joked that she wore the pants in their relationship, and Iona wouldn’t have appreciated the joke at all. For all her loving tenderness, she had no sense of humour. All that mattered to her was protecting Jon, who was as docile as he was wonderful.
As her body began failing, she sensed Jon’s weakening spirit. She knew that Jon felt he had found her that day at the prison, but she knew better; they had found each other. Jon was not like other humans; something in him was broken. Most humans want to live forever, even those too old to be of use to their pack, but Jon was different. Jon was young and strong, and when she met him, she sensed he was ready to die. She couldn’t understand it.
The more time they spent together, the less she sensed this feeling in Jon. However, throughout their relationship, she heard the way his blood would pulse upon seeing another person, and she would smell the uncertainty emitting from his pores each time someone gestured toward him. She learned, then, that Jon was just like her. He had no place with his own people, no pack of his own, and there is no survival in solitude. Then, when her strength started waning, she sensed the return of Jon’s will to die, and she understood.
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