The sun had just started to set on the strange purple forest-covered planet when Cressida made a camp fire with wood Eli had gathered; the three moons became more apparent and meteors continued to race through the sky. After six – almost seven – years aboard Destiny Eli had just celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday though he looked no more than thirty-two thanks to three of those years being in stasis, but still he liked to play the 'old man' card, hence was flat-out on his back with his feet by the fire and his head in the shadow of the grey-black shuttle.

"Eli, look!" Cress somehow managed to whisper and screech at the same time while shaking his leg.

He pushed himself up on his elbows but all he saw was Cress sat on her haunches.

"What?"

"Look!" She exclaimed again and leaned to the side revealing the most adorable creature he'd ever seen.

Eli's dark eyes took in the creature carefully, they'd not even heard a bird throughout the whole time they'd been there so finding a four-legged animal sat in the clearing no more than five feet from them gave him a moment of pause.

"It looks like a cat and a fox had a love child with rabbit ears."

The animal was about the size of an adult male fox with similar coloring and a fluffy tail, its paws were cat-like as was the shape of the creature's face and its eyes; bold green with thin black slits. The ears though were what drew Eli's attention, they weren't quite as long as a rabbit's but they certainly stood out with the same upright ovular shape, although the very tips were pointed just like a fox. The animal's nose and whiskers were a little bunny-like too.

"It's the cutest thing I've ever seen." She beamed before sticking her hand out for the creature to smell and slipped into her best 'baby voice' "Hey, little guy."

Cautiously the fox-like animal shuffled closer and sniffed at her hand, it looked lost and as though it would bolt but Cressida's smile must have won it over because it was soon sat happily in her lap as though they'd know each other forever. Eli was starting to wonder if Cressida's ability to befriend just about anyone and anything had been a design aspect from the Nakai. He couldn't help but watch as she petted the creature's ears softly with her right index finger, she seemed in awe and Eli supposed it was because she'd never seen such an animal, Eli himself had never had a pet so in a way he understood how Cress felt.

"You discovered it so you get to name the species."

He told her as he slowly crawled to sit by her side and tickle the animal. Despite being the size of a fully grown fox Eli suspected it was still rather young. Cress paused for a moment looking over the ball of fluff in her lap as though thinking deeply, her head tilted to the side slightly and Eli could only smile as he watched her brow furrow with thought.

"What about an 'Elcress' or maybe a 'Creli'?" When Eli just started at her in confusion she elaborated. "You know, Eli and Cressida. We both found him, at least I think it's a him."

Eli grinned. "Alright, but let's go with an 'Elcress', it sounds less evil." His fingers tickled the animal's caramel brown head.

"He still needs a real name though."

"What about Tails-?"

She cut his suggestion off quickly. "We aren't naming the alien critter after Sonic The Hedgehog!"

Some days he regretted telling Cress all about comics, movies and video games.

"... How about Vulpine?" He suggested. "It means 'like a fox'."

"Fitting." She agreed while smiling down at the little fluffball sat in her lap. "Vulpine it is, but how did you know that?"

"There's a Pokemon named 'Vulpix' that's based on the name."

"Of course there is." Said Cress in her best why am I not surprised tone as she stared at him. "I like Vulpine though, it's cute." She looked down to the critter again. "There you go, your name is Vulpine."

Vulpine let out a little noise that wasn't a bark but also wasn't a meow, it was somewhere in between and just made Cress want to cuddle the animal all the more.

Cress and Eli chatted for a while about the ship and the maintenance Rush wanted to run but mostly they talked about unimportant things, or at least the did until Cressida's whiskey colored eyes fell shut and she slipped into slumber with Vulpine cuddled up to her side. Ezra had kept his word all those years ago and never told a single soul about his big sister's nightmares which she was eternally grateful for but that night, out in the open with a warming fire and Eli less than a foot away from her on watch she slept without a care in the world. Cress knew she was safe with Eli.

The next morning Eli awoke to the large sun scattering its golden-red rays through the purple trees and Cressida kicking his thigh softly. They'd swapped over who was on watch at some point of the night and Eli had slept like a baby on the fluffy grass with his hoodie balled up like a pillow under his head. He stretched and reviled in the satisfying pop of his joints before pulling on his blue hoodie and standing up, his hair was everywhere and almost looked as though he'd been electrocuted but Cress just laughed and pulled down by his 'you are here' top so as she could straight it into some kind of order for him.

"Thanks, Cress."

"Sure. Now, come on, I want to go exploring." She beamed up at him.

"We should get back, Rush and Chloe will be worried about you."

"Please?!"

Cressida had developed puppy eyes and knew just how to use them, they were just about useless on Young and Camile but everyone else seemed to fall for it hook, line, and sinker; Eli included. He couldn't deny her and he knew it.

"Fine."

He caved and grabbed his bag which he slipped onto his shoulders while Cress gathered up Vulpine and chose a direction.

They wandered for a bout fifteen minutes off to the north and were surprised by the amount of wildlife they came across, yesterday they'd not even heard the scurrying of a distant animal save for Vulpine but as they continued to walk they found the planet to be teeming with deer like creatures; which Eli suspected were Vulpine's main source of food once he was fully grown.

"Hey Cress." Eli called when he spotted something in the distance. "What does that look like to you?"

Cressida, who'd been happily skipping through the woods paused and made her way back to her best friend who pointed off to the west, glinting through the trees was a second clearing filled with a huge scattering of grey-white rocks covered over with vines.

"Man-made." Came her soft reply.

"My thoughts exactly."

With that they set off to discover just what the blocks were. The whole area remained Eli of an archaeological site, Doctor Jackson would love it here, he thought when he noticed the small carved writing on some of the blocks. After about ten minutes of just looking around Cressida spoke.

"I don't get it. If this world can support life, has an abundance of clean water and food and had a civilised culture, why didn't the seed ships leave a gate here?" Her beautiful face was pulled into a puzzled expression.

"This might have something to do with it." Eli called out and Cress hopped over a section of destroyed wall before running to his side. "Look," He pointed to the edge of one of the larger blocks. "it's singed. There are a few others too and when we first entered this solar system we found that ocean of asteroids, there's the meteors as well. Think about it, if the planet was in the middle on an extinction level event the seed ships wouldn't have bothered putting a gate down here. Half these rocks are so weathered that there's nothing left so they've clearly been here a very long time, Vulpine and those deer things must be descended from the few remaining species that survived."

Cress couldn't argue that his theory was sound, full of conveniences but sound nevertheless, further evidence to support Eli's theory came in the form of large craters dotted around the area. With the amount of rubble on the ground though Cress couldn't help but wonder if there was something hidden underneath.

Vulpine scampered through the site with a sense of glee and out of curiosity Eli pulled a small branch from one of the closest trees and threw it, happily Vulpine charged off to go and get it. However, after that he started to pick up every twig and stick he found and sat them by Eli's feet, an hour later and there were neat little piles everywhere the man had paused for more than a minute; Cressida found the whole thing utterly adorable.

Eventually Cress came across a strangely void section of the rubble that looked as though it had possibly once been a huge open courtyard of some kind, Eli was surrounded by yet another pile of twigs a little to her left and she was just about to say something to him when suddenly the ground gave way and Cressida went plummeting into darkness. She screamed.

Eli's head shot up instantly and his dark eyes searched around for Cress with a sense of desperation, he'd seen her not a minute earlier and now she was just gone.

"Cress?!"

No response came and Eli found himself charging to the grassy area he'd last seen the twelve-year old in, Vulpine hot on his heels.

"Eli!"

He heard her, she had to be close. Suddenly it came into sight, a large sink hole about three and a half feet across, he had no idea how deep it was thanks to the pitch black.

"Cress? You down there?"

"No," She answered quickly from the dark with sarcasm. "I've discovered how to become invisible, yes I'm down here. Get me out?"

"Em, yeah. Give me a sec, I'll think of something."

Eli glanced around in search of something he could use to pull her up while Cress could do nothing but stand at the bottom of the sink hole in the dark; I told her we shouldn't have gone exploring. She was lucky not to have broken her legs.

While Cressida waited for Eli to come back she found her eyes adjusted to the light rather quickly and was soon looking around the small cave like area she'd found herself in. A small gap she was too big to get through led out to a long tunnel and she wondered if it was part of the ruins or some natural occurrence, the walls were smoothed almost as though they'd been worked so she guessed it was the former.

She was content in her gentle searching until she found the strange white sily like substance that had broken her fall, it was set out in threads and stuck to her feet, then out the corner of her eye she saw something move. Spider. Not just any spider though this was – what she was going to call it thanks to her Daddy's colorful way with words – fucking gigantic! It folded it's long spindly legs through the gap she'd previously investigated and started to pull itself through slowly so as not to damage the creature's massive cephalothorx and abdomen.

"Eli!"

Her eyes went wide. She didn't like spiders, her mother had told her about one on a trip to Australia and she'd been freaked out by the mere idea of them ever since. She really didn't like spiders.

"Hold on a minute." He called back, completely unaware of the panic rising up inside her.

"No Eli! Now!" The spider had just about gotten its cephalothorx though and its mass of beady eyes were fixed on her. "Giant spider! Eli, get me out of this thing now!"

There was a heads up from her best friend and then a mock rope made of the thick vines that covered the ruins came down with a little loop tied in one end.

"Put your foot in and I'll pull you up." He didn't need to tell her twice.

She was about a foot off the ground when the spider finally managed to squeeze though the gap and edged towards her on its huge but somehow thread-like black legs, in the darkness it blended in with the walls but there was a shine to it that gave the monster away.

"Eli! Please! Hurry the hell up!"

By now he'd sensed her panic and knew that 'giant spider' hadn't been an exaggeration, however, despite her small frame it was still hard for him to pull her back to the surface; Greer and Matt were the muscular heroes.

Just before full panic could set in her head broke the surface and she crawled out onto the grass before shuffling away from the hole quickly. Eli had expected to see spider legs emerge but they never did, either she'd imagined the whole thing or it didn't like sunlight, Eli knew which was more likely. He fell to his knees beside her.

"You okay?" He asked with concern in his chocolate orbs.

"Yeah, I am now I'm away from that thing. Nothing has the right to have that many legs, I mean what does it need them for? How many knives is it going to pull? And what's with the eyes, is it just greedy or is it trying to stare into my soul?"

Eli erupted into laugher and tumbled onto his back, she looked at him with annoyance for a moment before his chortling infected her and she burst into laughter as well while Vulpine continued to pile sticks up – seriously, where was he finding them? - beside the male genius' head. Soon their laughing died down to soft hiccups before falling to silent and they simply laying there.

"You done exploring now? Can we go back to the ship?"

They'd been silent so long that Cressida had almost forgotten he was there, her head fell to the side so she could look at him.

"Alright, since there aren't any spiders up there."

That made him snort briefly before he stood up and pulled Cress up along with him. It didn't seem to take as long to walk back to the shuttle as it had to find the ruins not that it mattered that much.

When they got back to the shuttle Cress quickly set about making sure the water they'd gathered up was strapped down and not going to end up sloshing everywhere – that was how Greer had ended up soaking wet a few months back – while Eli did the same with the kiwi looking fruit they'd found.

"Hey Cress, where is Vulpine?" Asked Eli after a few minutes, eyes darting around in search of the cute little animal that had been sat happily at the foot of the shuttle ramp not ten seconds ago.

"He was right here. Vulpine!"

Their eyes raked over the glade in search of the fluffball but he was nowhere to be found.

"He probably decided it was time to go home." Said Eli softly. "He's only a baby and we couldn't have kept him anyway."

Cress knew he was right but she had still wanted to say goodbye.

"But he was so cute."

"Well," He began with a grin. "it's a good job you have me to look at then."

Cressida chuckled at that and let Eli shuffle her into the shuttle so as they could go back to Destiny. Once in the pilot's chair she shut the shuttle door and set off back to the ship.

XXXX

The Maned Wolf which lives in South America and isn't actually a wolf was the inspiration for Vulpine.