Spirit Animals One-Shots Vol. 1

I Shouldn't Miss You (Shaneke)

    Growing up, Abeke had been introduced to a lot of folklore. The village elders would tell story after story, reciting legends and myths and children's tales to her and the other young residents of Okaihee. And of course, that was all they were; stories. Nothing in them was real. Yet, a wise woman once told Abeke that every legend has a kernel of truth. Every story told to her had a moral, a lesson to be learned.
     One of Abeke's least favorite stories had been called "The Cheetah's Blind Love". In the story, a pretty cheetah had fallen in love with a handsome lion. He was nice at first, but after a while the lion changed. He was always mean to her, taking her food and stealing her hunts and saying mean things. One day he and his pride left to find a different home, and even after all he'd done to her, the cheetah missed him.
     Abeke had always found the story ridiculous. After all, who would miss someone who betrayed them like that? But now Abeke understood. That story had applied to her life more and more over the years.
     Take her sister, for example. Soama had a habit of putting Abeke down, making her feel lesser, insignificant, inferior. But when Abeke was away on missions she still missed her sister. Same went for her father, who certainly didn't favor her and tended to make her feel like she was always doing something wrong. But the aspect of her life that she connected to the story with the most was Shane.
     Shane was in a completely different field in comparison to her toxic family. He was her first ever friend, and led her to believe he was on her side for nearly a full year, even when he was with the Conquerors and she was with the Greencloaks. She had even led him into the heart of Greenhaven willingly. Happily. Only for him to snatch almost all of their talismans and tear apart all the hard work they'd put into collecting them and keeping them safe for the sake of Erdas.
     What was really baffling, though, was the fact she missed him. After all he had done, after he had put her entire mission in peril and ripped her heart to shreds, she still missed him. Dying for her wasn't even close to enough to make up for what he'd done, yet she still found herself wishing he were alive. Was she crazy? She didn't know. But what she did know was that she was just about as blind as that cheetah.

(434 words. I got this idea out of nowhere, but I hope you enjoyed the story anyways! I don't know who I ship more... Shaneke or Coneke. I've always been a Shaneke shipper but I've been accepting Coneke... what do y'all think?)