Dedicated to ChocoChick87, who wanted something about Nanaki and the war with the Gi. This is what I came up with.
o o o
Shella padded across the rocks, velveted paws silent on stone. Her keen yellow eyes searched, hunted- there. Sitting on the cliff, looking out over the darkness of the Canyon and the distant fires of the Gi. She leapt up the rocks, a fleeting red-brown ghost in the dark, and approached her mate.
Even with his attentions on the distant fires, Seto wasn't one to be caught off guard. He turned, relaxing when he saw Shella approaching. "You should be with Nanaki." He growled, turning his eyes back to the Gi camps.
"And you should be asleep." Shella replied, sitting beside him. "Staring at them will not make them leave, Seto. Come back with me."
Seto glared at her for a moment. "I cannot sleep while they sit there, defying the Canyon into warfare, taunting us with every new fire and every arrows' gleam. They will attack, and it will be soon, and it will be hard. I will be here when it happens."
Shella sighed. "Seto, this is foolishness. You have not eaten properly in weeks, and you have not slept by my side since the Gi started their approach and this was months ago! Come, the Gi will not attack tonight. Hunt with me, and come sleep beside me and your son. He misses you as much as I."
Seto snorted. "Nanaki is a cub still. He misses only the warmth of another to snuggle between."
"He misses you." Shella emphasized softly. "Cub or not, he is old enough to know and miss his father. He will not be so small forever, would you miss your last cub's infancy?"
Seto tensed, and Shella knew that she had struck a blow close to home. "How many, Shella?" Seto asked, his voice rough with grief. "How many of our kind are left in the Canyon? Nine? Ten including my son? How many were lost to the Gi, hunted for their fur?" His body shook, holding back their howling equivalent of a sob. "How many of my cubs cover their shoulders and warm their beds? How many have left the Canyon under the cover of night and may never return to their rightful home? How many will die when the Gi filth attacks?" His whole body quivered in grief and rage, his claws extending and digging gouges in the stone beneath his feet.
Shella didn't answer immediately, only shifted so she was closer to her mate, her muzzle dropping to his shoulder, rock-hard beneath her jaw. "If I knew the answers, cub," She said softly, using her own pet name for him. "If I knew, I would say, but none but the gods know. Mayhap, when you reach the clearing at the end of the path, they will tell you, but not before. Before, you should eat and sleep and enjoy your last son while he is around."
Seto didn't answer, but Shella felt some of that tenseness creep from his body. She sat there, shifting until his back pressed against her stomach, warm and large with milk, even four years after Nanaki's birth. Seto sighed, relaxing against her, comforted by her mother's warmth. "I hate that name, you realize." He murmured. Shella laughed softly. She was a century and a half his elder, the first female of the Canyon, and he had won the right to leader when he won her in a fierce fight against her other suitors. For two hundred years they had led the Canyon together, raising their children among the rust-colored stones. War, famine, flood, and plague had all come and gone, but never had they faced such a dire situation, never had the number of their people dropped so low. Nanaki was the last cub born to the Canyon in the last fifty years, and some humans were already saying that he'd be the last ever, that the age of the Vy had passed, and the age of humans had risen.
Seto shifted, tense again, more nervous energy than the rage he'd held before, and Shella realized that whatever he said next, she wasn't going to like. She waited, wondering what he was going to say, and was shocked to hear "You two should leave, Shella."
Shella froze in shock, and Seto hurried on to explain. "You should take Nanaki and go north until this is over. Some of our kind went there months ago, you should be safe there. Nanaki is strong enough to make the trip, and if you get to the Nibel mount-" Having heard enough, Shella clouted him in the head with one heavy paw. Seto, caught off guard, fell sideways.
An instant later they were facing each other, teeth bared, hackles raised. "I will not leave." Shella snarled. "The canyon is mine, and YOU are mine, and I will not just sit aside and let the Gi attack without tasting their blood. the others may leave if they wish, but I will stay until my death or victory, or why am I the first female?"
Seto growled in the back of his throat. "The Canyon is unsafe for a mother with a cub still on the tit." He said. "Bugenhagen and I have talked it over, and he has promised to help you leave."
"Bugenhagen means well," Shella said. "But he is still young and rash. Humans are set in their minds, that a man should protect and a woman should hide. But we are not human, we are Vy, and I can fight just as well as you can, nursing or not. I will not leave, no matter what."
They glared at each other for a long moment, then Seto dropped his eyes, consenting defeat. "If nothing I say can stop you, so be it." He growled. He turned from her, again watching the Gi fires, his head and shoulders drooping slightly.
Shella felt her heart knife sideways. She hated this, seeing him so vulnerable and down spirited. She sat beside him again, briefly nuzzling where she had struck him earlier. "Come, cub." She purred gently. "Come, hunt and sleep. We need our rest, so that we may protect our home." Seto turned towards her, green-gold eyes gleaming in the dark, and let out a sigh. But when Shella turned back to the Canyon, Seto followed her to the hunt.
