"But love, when it has once lost the promise of friendship, will not remain and continue to cherish merely for beauty that which gives it pain, where it gives no return of friendship and virtue."

-Plutarch

Amber skies filled the air and the trees, the whole of that field seemed quiet and windy a slight. A soft step by step crackled beneath the feet of a male; a coyote named Kade Hendrix who went by the nickname Shady. Gripping his backpack he walked forward to a fence, the climbing over it was a simple trick he learned from his martial arts teacher long ago. A feeling swept over him; winter was certainly fast approaching as he could feel the cool air. He was wearing a large jacket with small spikes on the shoulders and a thick rag wrapped around his waste, much like a kilt, over his green pants.

His boots were army grade, buying them a few years before as survival gear. Far from that field he walked into the land of urban variability. The breeze blew his fur steadily as the fall weather insinuated proliferation. For Kade this was a stressful time of the year; a lot had happened in his early years being this way. Preparing for winter was not an enjoyable experience and yet he was better at it, more skilled one might expect or think. He never liked the city either for the crime was always higher than believed.

This particular place, Dart City, was a rough centre; the cities in his past years were calmer, more civil even and had better protection against vagrant related evil. Dart City on the other hand had a corrupt police force and a population of poor people who were just as corrupt. There was no end to its stray from the good it seemed; crime in his mind was always made never projected. The municipal government did little to put weight over the problems imperial in those urban regions. Philanthropic companies funded the buildings who fed the poor and unhoused; an unkind violence loomed over those establishments as a kind of evil. Made to look good in the eyes of the public, they did a lot of charity work; in towards the funding of schools, training programs, etc to make the public less lonely.

In their eyes this worked; in the eyes of those who used them, they were often bound by cultural integrity which hindered the original goals of these philanthropic groups. Rape crisis centres set up by the municipal government never did address the needs of all, only those who were biologically female. Other cities, which Kade had been to, noticed a different kind of mentality endured by the locals. Dart City on the other hand was distraught and a rather mindless city. Barring often those who were of the Third Gender or those who thought differently about love. Abasement of teenagers, when not conforming to the culture, often resulted in thrill seeking and, at worst, gang behaviour.

These problems were all throughout the classes of the city. Exclusion, at best, only benefited the rich or the vile of that place. Kade was not into the extreme nature of the relevant. He took his own path as a soul of nature; benefiting himself and others rather than the integrity of the dead life. It gave some the impression that he was out of his league, others had suggested he was too brave or acting like a little child still. A full glass of water, included into the mind of Kade, sickened those who were mainly of a passive aggressive nature.

They never followed Kade in terms of his escape into the desire for nature and his crude philosophical belief. Irrelevant Kade did feel sometimes but never unhappy. Stretching was an important thing he did, along with the mixed martial arts he had learned from his group as a lad.

Those who saw him as a group member of the state often tried to not make him feel good but a member of the underclass. The lawless fate as they called it; crude destiny of shattered hopes and putting oneself in a box full of hate, racism and discrimination.

None of that is what Kade wanted, in the end he wanted to be free; the kind of context that he then needed to take part in. Those who were related by blood or kindred to him made every effort to make him not feel so insane. As many who had ended up walking his path trembled at the sense of lonely art. A common theme it was for the bleeding souls determined to blame the world. The people who destroyed themselves this way died lonely souls, breaking their own hearts in either a lack of self care or presence of self harm.

Integrity inside the spirit was crucial as Kade had explained to many who would listen. He would connect easily with those who shared his values and several people in his life tried to cause harm to his physical well being. The lack of respect many had for the spirit flowed through the rivers of the mass media culture. Hubris followed as the leaders did roll out new laws centred around the bombastically unsound ideas raiding the culture. Kade ignored the taste of the low and despised the character of the loud; pies and sticks were not his character invigorating the strength many perceived to be a part of him; Kade's race, coyotes, were often racially profiled by the majority wolves.

in Dart City the grey wolves outnumbered the dusicyon population; since all the police were majority grey wolf many in the city antagonized them. Kade was a minority in the sense that any of his people could be looked down upon by grey wolf hegemony. Kade did not see race ever as that was historically not even a thing. He read about the times when the grey wolf and the mixed-race black jackal dusicyons, at the time being mostly black jackals, were only separated by language and custom, creating a different kind of hate historically based around religion rather than biology. This one thing is what defined race back in the old times, before the ages of the Industrial. No one saw fur, colour, shape or size and the sense of animosity that was recently created disturbed the coyote completely.

Kade did not feel right inside; far away from his kin he had to fight more often himself. The lies that the media told said that he was a bum, a lazy eared which was slang referring to the big ears of coyotes, who sat around on welfare and drank undiluted whiskey all day. It deeply offended him when folks assumed things.

'Bad emotions are fixing.'

Kade thought, the clasping paws of many who were poor or looking for a cheap thrill swept. He was a descendant of his people, a band settled in the north of the state. Having grey wolves in his family, him not so, some strong and swift itinerants who immigrated to Lylong centuries ago before the industrial ages arose. The lie that major grey wolves told to keep their imaginary place brought Kade's people into the old Residential Schools. A terrifying place filled with crosses and instigation; last ditch efforts by the Brita Imperium to keep their empire afloat. They from across the oceans looked down on the Brita with disdain.

Pancephalous politics took over in Ouropia, opposing the home of the Brita and welcoming varieties of canines into their land. Imaginations were still in the minds of the grey wolf's head where Kade was born. For in their hearts he was still Brita and would die to protect that perceived worth. Assimilation of those into their society was paramount to becoming civilized. In Kade's mind it was them telling him to know his place. He did not see a racial difference between him and them; blinded by the gifts of Brita Royalty and its church they fought with those of differing cultures, even if they were there centuries before.

A kind of passover for the disdain the majority had on the minority. The majority in Dart City, as they were in the minority, battled the streets daily. Believing themselves to be richer and more efficient than the dusicyons below them. A kind of depression these elites put themselves through, never wanting anyone else but their families names. A cold hearted failure of the rich whom affluent puppies were the bards of the streets, begging away with their instruments in a dying crime ridden machine.

'History's creativity was making us into great brothers and sisters. When folks started fighting, all the world went crazy around with that fur stuff. Lying and cheating is what's picked. Be all something and nothing, I don't like it, it'd be curses and crimes for all, I'm hearing it's a lie.'

Soil of the Earth, used only to use those who were deemed labourous until they developed, for example, cancer or a kind of mental illness. The goals of the Burg Group some called it; those more into politics though they could be someone operating from the penal system. Denying all earthly rights was a thing for many as kings in history many times had sought to perform. Kade was an adventurer; well read in the old classic novels of swashbucklers and seafaring. Interested in his spirit he believed in Nature. On the Fire more than any kind of revel one could say about his beliefs. Enamoured towards Father Wisdom, the Fire he made to burn incense as his prayers went to his ancestors. Sanity crept in his heart and the healing began later in his days.

Old traditions the Brita claimed as ancient conflicted with his worldview. A jealous god from the fields of the Galilean Vin-yards, ripping through the calls of the homogenous old. Those Other, frozen in time in the divinely inspired books ancient authors had written; corrupted in song and in writing by the church whilst made alike to demonness drawings. Kade knew these books well and was familiar with them. Reading a day kept those hating crowds of slanderous worms off of his fur and thoughts. For he had a seed he planted, far away from where eyes could see, a tree that one could not seek. Illegal to plant as it was an invasive species yet sacred on the Earth and tenderly adored by the dominant faith.

Ears went to satisfaction when the Frankincense burned all throughout the evening. It was a smell most faiths were familiar with, said to go back to the ancients long before the mistresses and wives of the overseas emperors in some antiquity elsewhere. Death to his kind dominated one thousand years of Western History, the kind of sting felt by hundreds left to rot in peace and instability. Shining down on Kade the sun dimmed in lame embrace as the evening approached with innocence. In kneeling and song he sat for a bit giving heed to the sun and its warmth. Praying, in good hopes, he did often, knowing himself.

He stayed and sat for awhile as the sun set giving black haze to the road ahead. He turned on his flashlight into the street; no buildings permeated the lots of green and brown as he fast approached the urban limits. Needing water he reached into his bag, drinking from its pace down into his belly. He felt the energy it brought and the searing quench he felt as he thirsted hard that moment. In tiredness he then fell asleep in the gape, out of the way of any house or property in shape. Heat was non existent as the summer had come to a close a month earlier.

So many other times Kade was in the South, not only did he have to put up with more months of heat but the locals too. He never drank and yet the locals thought each moment he was going to go sit down and drink the same inexpensive brand of undiluted whiskey folks accused him of.