Turin, radji Cradle ecologist.

Date [standardised human time]: April 27th, 2118

(18 years, 4 months before the invasion of the radji Cradle).

The gun is in her grip. The growling reverberates through her chest, seeming to overpower her terror and exhaustion. Her breath catches in her throat, she fumbles with the lever. The gun primes in her paws, a two second eternity. Braq looks up as the predator advances, looming over him as it opens its great jaws. No! NO! NO! Turin can’t bring the gun up quick enough, and she fires it into the ground. Braq looks at her, betrayed, and the monster descends on him–!!!

Ki-yu sat at the table not touching the kibble in front of her, and Turin swallowed as the waking nightmare broke. For the past few days, Braq and Turin had finished their meal only to find that she had not eaten anything. It had been a week since Ki-yu was attacked by the roht, and whilst physically she seemed to be healing well, something had changed in her. The normally buoyant pyq had become lethargic, at first resistant to bring herself to leave the house, and then struggling to leave her room. And now she was struggling to eat, no matter how small a portion they offered her. Braq was beginning to doubt whether that was merely a symptom, or a cause, but they both agreed she needed to start working up her appetite, and soon.

Imdi sucked greedily at Turin’s swollen teats as they still sat at the table with the dark little predator, his feeding making the radji feel quite sluggish as well.

“C’mon sweetheart,” she cooed pushing the plate toward her, “you’ve got to eat something. This can’t go on.” The youngster just grumbled, pushing the food about with idle claws. “Something, let me see you eat something. Please?” She looked up at her morosely, and languidly scooped a handful of kibble into her mouth, hardly chewing it before swallowing. She fell from her chair onto her paws, the trio of nasty grey scars stretching across her dark hide as she made her way to her room.

“Don’t you want to stay up for a little bit?” Braq called after her. “We could play a game.”

“No,” she said glumly, her claws clacking against the floorboards. “I feel tired.” The hall light glowed a dim orange, before flickering out. Turin rested her head on the back of the chair, Imdi gurgling against her. Turin’s partner stood and made for the countertop to wash up.

“Four days,” he grumbled as the cutlery clattered to the counter, “she’s not eaten anything in four days.” He threw on the tap, ignoring how the pipes groaned at the sudden pressure. Turin watched Braq’s broad back tense as he leaned over the water, the spiralling vortex holding his full attention.

“It must be from the attack, some trauma or something,” Turin remarked, shifting Imdi to another breast. “Nothing else has changed.”

“Must be,” Braq grunted, running his claws beneath the tap. “It’s not like we want to force her, but we have to feed her something!” Having had his fill, Imdi began protesting against her. Turin pulled up the caramel-coloured babe and rested him over one shoulder as she patted flat his matted pelt.

“Oh, if only she fed like this one, wouldn’t that be a relief, hm?” she said absentmindedly. Braq had not moved from the sink, the water now gushing over his paw. “Braq?” Turin called out, but he still gazed into the middle distance. Finally making its way up the pipes from the generator, the hot water shot out in a scalding stream.

“Shit!” Braq cursed as he pulled his paw away, turning the water down. He shook the burnt digit.

“Are you alright?” Turin asked, standing as Imdi whined on her shoulder.

“No,” Braq said bitterly. He trudged over to the gun case that sat by the back door, and flung it open irritably. “I’m going out,” he announced, taking the rifle. Before Turin could stop him, he marched out into the night.

~*~

Turin awoke to Braq crawling into their bed close to midnight. She had been worried she would wake to find him still absent come dawn and would have to choose between caring for the kids and looking for him. He collapsed musky and spent beside her; she would have found it rather appealing if she was not also miffed with him.

“Where did you go?” she asked him.

“The woods,” he rumbled, and she scowled at him. It was a reckless thing to do, even if there was not a roht nearby he could trip and break an ankle. There was no sign of the predator she had shot. Part of her vindictively hoped she had killed it; the image of that monster bearing down on her mate, her son almost killed, her daughter clawed… She had cried herself to sleep that night. It played through her mind when she did not focus, the forest and their desperate sprint. Braq, so vulnerable, and the gun priming in her paws.

“So late? What couldn’t wait ‘til morning?”

“You won’t like it, just go back to sleep.” What?! I’m not some child that can be cowed with a dismissive word. Irritated, Turin sat up and flicked on a lamp, Braq groaning and covering his eyes at the light.

“No, I don’t think I will. What did you feel you had to do without me?” Where I couldn’t see you, couldn’t protect you…

“I… was setting traps… for stiplets.” Turin looked at him wide-eyed.

“Traps?! Out there alone?!” she said incredulously.

“I told you that you wouldn’t like it.” He rested his head back, closing his eyes like that finished the issue. “But we both agreed that she’d need to hunt one day.”

“Yes, that she would. We all agreed it had to be her choice!” Turin said, exasperated. “We can’t hunt for her.”

“She’s starving beloved,” he sighed. “What would you have me do?” Snarling yellow teeth.

“The kibble has worked so far! It even worked when raising the other predators, how can we be sure this isn’t just a result of her injury?” Braq rolled out of bed with an irritated grunt, lumbering from the room. A few moments later he returned skimming through their notebook.

“Look how little she’s grown in the last few months compared to when we first got her.” he said pointing to her mass chart. “Maybe we’ve not been feeding her right this whole time, and this injury has made her weak enough to feel it!”

“Correlation is not causation,” Turin declared but knew it to be a feeble protest. Braq snorted and rolled his eyes, but she persisted. “You know how little we know, maybe we’ve missed something.”

“Well, whilst you try and find the cause I’m going to be trying to feed her.” He tossed the book onto the nightstand before placing his head in his paws and sighing. “I’m sorry, that was spiteful. I shouldn’t have wandered out like that.” He sat down on the bed in front of her; she had never seen him look so crushed and forlorn. “Truth be told, I don’t like it any more than you do. But… we need to be realistic here. If she doesn’t eat something soon, she will die.” Turin rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her paws. I know something must be done lover… I can’t bear the thought of losing either of you.

“I have no idea if it will work,” Braq said morosely. “I dug some holes, put a bucket in each. I guess I’ll just wait and see what falls in.”

“I just…” Turin considered telling him how scared she would be without him; how angry it would make her. She turned over and tried to cry as quietly as possible.

~*~

Ki-yu did not leave her room the next morning. Braq returned defeated from trying to feed her yet again, letting the bowl of kibble clatter into the sink dejectedly. Turin had resorted to rereading Barudama in a vain hope that she had missed something in the vain butchery of science that the v’rstatin had made. The man’s notes on the diet of his subjects—Prisoners, more like, Turin thought—were suspiciously lacklustre, with notes like: ‘Feeding commenced at regular three period intervals,’ and: ‘an abundant source of livestock was required.’

It all reeked of a cold indifference to suffering, and Turin struggled to make it through each page. Braq skulked to the gun case and slung the rifle over his shoulder, stooping to pick up a large plastic box. He stopped as he opened the door, his paw resting on the handle.

“Any luck?” he asked.

“No,” she said curtly, pretending to read.

“I’m… going to check the traps,” he told Turin, staring out at the forest. “For what it’s worth, I really, really, hope you find another way.” He walked over to her and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll keep my radio on.” Turin pulled her eyes from the book as the door closed behind him, and found she wished he had stayed. She pulled their notebook toward her. Maybe it’s to do with the weather? Reptiles can struggle during winter months… No… no, pyq seem more like endotherms, and the cold has never really slowed her down before…

She turned back to the V’rstatin’s book in front of her.

‘Some researchers may be tempted to reduce the allocated amount of feed when dealing with pyq subjects as a means of control. This, however, is effective only in making the subject more desperate, often attacking the first thing it sees as prey. More effective strategies can be found in Chapter 7.’

The gun is in her grip as they limp toward the overturned vehicle, blue and red blood soaks into the snow.

“Ki-yu!” Turin calls out desperately. “Ki-yu where are you?!” Braq is groaning beside her.

“Here…” Ki-yu whispers as they came around the buggy. She crouches over her brother, ripping at his face with her long snout. “I wanted the baby,” is all she says as she digs her face into his exposed gut. Turin feels the rifle come up as she aims at the pyq, and this time she does not stop it as she fires.

Turin realised she was panting, her snout a whisker from the book, her claws digging into the pages. Wildly, she slammed it shut and tore outside where she hurled it away with a shout. She did not want to hear about Barudama ever again she decided as she returned indoors. Turin wandered idly around the house, picking things up only to put them down again. Braq’s sonophone sat in the corner of the living room, he could not bring himself to play it when Ki-yu’s condition was so desperate. Funny that he can’t bring himself to play something she cannot hear. She went and sat by Imdi, the babe fast asleep in his bed. The little boy was a handsome young thing she thought, in her own totally unbiased opinion.

“So much has happened in so short a time, little one,” she whispered. “Like you. I already feel like I’ve known you for years. Don’t grow up too fast, okay?” Turin’s claw traced the scar on his cheek, the one that had saved him. The memory of that birth flooded through her, the divine violation, how wretched and powerless she had felt. How only the four of them had mattered in that moment.

Turin found herself standing in Ki-yu’s room, a bowl of kibble and sylphberries in her paws. The girl lay asleep on the bed, her blankets all tangled around her. Turin crept quietly over to her shelves, looking through her collection of leaves, her feathers, her rocks. There was one Turin found especially pretty: a polished black one, seemingly featureless until you held it up to the light, where cracks of a polished amber crystal had infiltrated it. It felt smooth and firm in her paws, solid and certain. Ki-yu had said she had found it in a river, clever thing. No one would have ever seen this, if not for her, Turin appreciated suddenly. She turned to the rack on the wall that held the blood and water washed remains of Ki-yu’s slashed raincoat. Imdi would also be lost to them twice over…

Turin sat down next to her sleeping daughter, the bowl resting uncertainly in her paws. Were it not for the slim glimmer of daylight leaking down the hall, Turin would not be able to see Ki-yu next to her. Her lovely dark scales… how strange to think that a year or so ago such a beautiful creature would have scared me senseless. Turin reached over to pull the blankets up over the girl but stopped when she saw how her ribcage pressed against her gaunt flesh. The mother had to turn away, lest she wake her daughter with her tears. Protector forgive me, but what I wouldn’t kill to keep her alive.

Turin turned back to find Ki-yu looking up at her, her eyes like pools of starlight in the darkness. Turin hoped she could not see her broken, teary expression in the gloom.

“I’m sorry sweetie…” Turin offered, gently laying the blanket over the girl. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” Turin returned the rock to the shelf as she turned to leave, smothering her weeping with a paw.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Wait,” Ki-yu called out hoarsely, and Turin stopped in the doorway as the girl flicked the lights on. “Could you sit with me… please?” Turin steadied herself and turned back, the light revealing her miserable form before her daughter. Ki-yu was sitting up now, the blankets held about her, but she did not seem to look at Turin with anything other than affection. Turin went back to the girl, sitting beside her on the bed, and placing the bowl by their feet. Ki-yu snorted at the sight of the sylphberries and found the energy to pick a handful out from the bowl. Even that was too much for her to stomach however, and she dropped a few back as she chewed.

“I’m sorry,” she said, strangely calm. “I don’t know why I can’t eat. I’m hungry, but… it’s like… all the food rubs against the teeth funny. Or–” she mimed wringing out a wet cloth, “–like that horrible feeling when you chew on a soaked towel. Blah!” She rasped a chirrup at the thought.

“You used to eat it, before the roht. Didn’t you like it then?” Turin asked. Ki-yu just shrugged, bending down and picking up the bowl.

“It was food. I mean… I’ve tried some of your ve-ge-tables,” she pronounced the word phonetically, as though mocking it. “But otherwise, this is all I’ve ever eaten.” She picked up a piece of kibble and chewed it, her expression blank. “You eat lots of different things, and even if I don’t like it, there’s, like, lots of smells and tastes in that, you know? This…” She screwed her nose up and put the bowl on the bed next to her. “And then, when I do eat something, I feel sick…” A new worry took hold in Turin’s heart.

“Ki-yu… you haven’t tried to make yourself sick, have you?” The girl pulled her legs up in front of her, wrapping her arms and tail around her legs, and resting her head on her knees.

“Not yet,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” Turin let out a shaky breath. If this becomes a mental issue, then there’s no guarantee we could help her…

“Braq… thinks that it’s the kibble, not you,” Turin admitted, Ki-yu looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… it’s made from plants, not real meat. No commercial business would survive selling real flesh, the public wouldn’t stand it. So, predator pets are fed a substitute.”

“Where is Baba?” she asked. Turin swallowed.

“Out…” Turin said, forcing a smile to hide her dread.

“In the forest? Will he be alright?” Still so worried, still so selfless. Turin nodded. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s…” Turin halted, then sighed. “He’s trying to find you something to eat.” Ki-yu blinked at Turin, before turning and facing ahead of her.

“He’s… hunting?” she asked vacantly, her limbs gripping about herself tighter. The radji found herself also staring blankly at the wall.

“Trapping, technically.” Turin fancied she could hear the crescendo of neurons firing in the little predator’s head beside her. Ki-yu breathed shakily and shrugged off her blankets.

“Could you find him?”

“No,” she lied.

“He shouldn’t have to hunt for me. I’m going to find him,” Ki-yu said, trying to stand upright. Suddenly overbalancing, she fell forward, and Turin caught her by the arms.

“No,” Turin said. “You’re too weak, you’re staying here. Let him do this for you.” But the girl shook her head.

“You shouldn’t hurt yourselves for me,” she said, pushing free of Turin and dropping to all fours. “I’m going. Are you coming with me?”

~*~

Turin radioed ahead to let Braq know they were coming, Ki-yu padding insipidly beside her, and Imdi strapped into the sack on Turin’s chest. They found Braq where he said he was, sitting by a stream to the northeast. He did not look up as they approached, the rifle sitting across his lap. The water was flowing in a gentle trickle, and at his feet rested a large plastic bucket.

“I was heading home,” he called out to them, “but my feet led me here.”

Ki-yu loped up beside him, and four stiplets looked up at her from the bucket. Braq’s paw reached out and idly stroked her head, turning and regarding the pyq with sad eyes.

“Do you remember when we first came out here?” he asked her. Ki-yu snorted and dipped her paw into the water.

“I’d caught a tullipet, and you wanted me to show you where.” She rubbed the back of her paws and smiled gently at the memory. “I’d been bitten by the bugs, and my hands were all stingy.” Braq chuckled and looked up at the sky.

“You asked a hard question then. I explained to you what a predator was, what that meant for you. I remember… how upset you were when you thought you’d been hurting something, just to stay alive. How scared you were of being different.” Ki-yu swallowed and glanced at the stiplets forlornly. “You caught a tullipet, and you let it go. When I took an irruta for sampling, you made me promise not to hurt it. I told you how to catch a fiirit, and you let that one go too.” He breathed shakily, running a paw across his mouth. “And whilst I’ve been the one this whole time saying that you must learn how to hunt, I want you to know… how proud I am of you.” Turin balled her fists as his voice waivered. Let him say this, he needs to say it. Ki-yu whined next to him, laying against his knee. “How hard you’ve fought not to hurt anything. But now that is starting to hurt you.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” she murmured, sitting up, and looking at Turin. “I still don’t want to hurt anything, least of all any of you. You don’t need to hunt for me.”

“But you need to eat sweetheart,” he told her, kneeling and placing a paw on her shoulder.

“I know,” she said with a sad smile. “It’s time.”

Braq kissed her on the forehead, and shakily stood beside Turin. Ki-yu let out a long sigh and reaching into the bucket, pulling out a stiplet at random. The little mammal stuck out its slender legs, looking up at the predator with curious black eyes. Ki-yu held the little mammal in her hands, petting its furry head gently.

“W-will you stay with me?” she stammered. “I… don’t want you to see but… I’m scared.” Turin took Braq’s paw. His grip was fierce.

“We’re right here,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Do what you must sweetheart. We love you,” Turin said, almost a whisper.

Ki-yu held the stiplet up to her eyes, looking right at it.

“I’m sorry,” she uttered softly. The mammal had just enough time to emit a surprised squeak when without any further hesitation and a speed that laid bare her desperate hunger, she bit clean through the stiplets neck. Ki-yu’s lips ran with blue blood as her molars crunched through the skull with an audible pop. Turin’s quills flared and her paw went to her own mouth to intercept whatever threatened to escape her. Moving even faster, her eyes firmly shut, Ki-yu bit down on the torso and raggedly yanked it from the haunches, stringy strands of gut and spinal tissue rending away. Braq stood stock still beside Turin. Their daughter emitted a short, satisfied moan as she palmed then swallowed the last of the stiplet, her long tongue licking the sticky blood from her thumb. Then it was gone. All done.

They stood there, like a strange assemblage of classical statues. Braq a monolith of silence, Turin a picture of shock as she breathed into her paw, and Ki-yu… Oh, Ki-yu… She still had her hand to her mouth, her eyes screwed shut. Imdi babbled against Turin’s chest, but the only other sound was the water in the stream.

Slowly, Ki-yu pulled her hand away from her mouth and peered down at her blood-soaked claws. She looked at them for a long time, her lips twitching as she worked the last of what had recently been a living thing from between her teeth. Slowly, her head started bobbing up and down, and tears welled in those dark eyes. She turned to the bucket, where three more stiplets waited innocently, and sobbing, staggered toward it.

“Ki-yu…” Turin breathed. The girl gripped the bucket by the edges, looking down on the prey. Blood in the snow. Turin took a step toward them but found that Braq still had a solid grip on her. “Braq?” Turin turned to him but found his face a mask, still staring at the spot where the stiplet had been beheaded. He’s in shock. She uncurled his claws and took his muzzle in her paws. “Beloved, she needs us,” Turin told him, with a glance back to Ki-yu. The predator still loomed over the stiplets, panting against tears.

“I just wanted to help her,” Braq said numbly, his eyes far away. “What did I do?”

“You fed your daughter,” Turin told him, fighting to keep her own composure. “She’s starving.” Braq’s eyes dimly went to the little dark pyq crying over her prey. She reached into the bucket pulling out a rather plump stiplet, before swatting the container over with her tail. The remaining two mammals bounded off between the trees as she turned her back to the radji. There was a squeal followed by a series of crunching sounds as she ripped the head off the second stiplet, blood splattering against the rocks. Ki-yu threw back her jaws, swallowing the corpse whole, and her body shook. The shaking became ragged sobbing breaths, punctuating Umps! like she used to make as an infant. She wandered aimlessly, crying into her hands. She bawled and howled, and dragged her claws through the dirt, before wrapping her body around herself and falling in a trembling heap. It seemed to Turin that Ki-yu screamed at the whole world, at how cruel it was, how senseless. It tore a hole in her, and suddenly she felt…

The gun is in her grip, a hoard of angry radji advances on their home.

The gun is in her grip, a roht tugs at her entrails.

The gun is in her grip, Juran is laughing.

The gun is in her grip, the Cradle is burning.

The gun is in her grip, her body tingles in ecstasy astride Braq.

The gun is in her grip, her daughter dances with a pretty young friend.

The gun is in her grip, Ki-yu plays with Imdi in the seas surf.

The gun is in her grip, the sun sets to the sound of laughter and music.

The gun is in her grip… does she fire?

“I’ve thought of a name,” Braq says, petting the little reptile as they sit by the window.

“What is it?” she asks him.

“You know the old story? The one of Kay-ut and her children? So many of our old tales have been lost or rewritten, and so much of their meanings changed. I think that the real sin of that story wasn’t that Ki-yu bumped the Cradle and let the predators into the world. I think the real sin, the one that caused the unbalance The Protector had to fix, was when Kay-ut cast him out. When he was abandoned.” Turin kneels in front of him, resting her head on his knee.

“You want to name her after Ki-yu, the abandoned child?”

“My father left us on our own…”

“Oh… beloved…”

“I want us to make a promise, and to name her Ki-yu to remember it.” He says, his voice reverent. “No matter how hard it gets, I will never abandon this child. This I swear.”

“Okay,” Turin says, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I will never abandon her. I swear.”

She lets the gun fall from her grip.

Turin tentatively shuffled toward the crying predator. Slowly those staggering steps became eager, and she practically fell over herself as she realised that beyond anything else right then, she wanted her daughter in her arms. She dropped to her knees beside her, and pulled Ki-yu’s limp, slender frame close.

“I know…” she whispered to her. “My dear, sweet girl, I know…” Ki-yu’s cried in a way Turin had never recalled her doing, that despairing, gasping sobbing that only comes out when one has no more air but must cry anyway. Her tears left wet trails across her cheeks.

“M-mon-nster!” she wailed between her sobs, her fist hitting weakly against Turin’s chest. “H-hurrt…” No more, Turin thought. No more doubt.

“Yes,” she told her as she rocked them both. “You hurt. You killed.” Ki-yu’s keening resounded against her, and Turin rubbed her scaly back as her own tears fell. “But that doesn’t make you a monster.” She pulled away from her, using one paw to tenderly lift the girls head up to her. Her shoulders shook as she snivelled and cried, her body trembling. “Was the roht a monster?” Turin asked. The girl shrugged at the question.

“R-roht hu-hungry,” she gasped.

“As were you. You needed to eat, does that make you a monster?”

“Yo-u d-don’t und-erstand-d…” Ki-yu spluttered, trying to turn away, but Turin pulled her back.

“What don’t I? Explain.”

“I-I-I-” the pyq stammered. Ah. Turin nodded, closing her eyes; she knew without her even saying it.

“You liked it,” she whispered. Ki-yu hung her head.

“T-the noise they m-made… I fe-lt so bad, but I w-was so hu-ngry, still a-am so hungry.” She looked down at her shaking hands, her lips curling down at the corners, like she could not stand the sight of them. “And it felt good… Ta-tasted so goood,” she groaned, her eyes warping as she balled her fists against her head. “Monster,” she hissed.

“No,” Turin said as she ran her thumb across her daughter’s cheek, collecting tears as she went. “I think not.” She held it out to her, Ki-yu’s dark eyes regarding the moisture on Turin’s claws.

“If you’re a monster, then what’s this?” she said. Ki-yu snuffled, wiping her cheeks, and looking down as if she had not known she was crying. Her paw left a bloody smudge across her face. There was a crunch as Braq knelt beside the overturned bucket, his face stony.

“Why’d you let them go?” he asked Ki-yu quietly. The girl blinked, as though it were obvious.

“I-it wasn’t f-fair,” she said miserably. “They s-should have a chance to g-et away.” Braq’s expression broke, and he finally seemed to see her. He choked out a sob, running his paws across his scalp. He shambled over and collapsed around them both, his great frame smothering them in an embrace.

“Monsters don’t cry when they hurt something, whether they liked it or not,” Turin said against them.

“But little girls do…” Braq crooned. Between them, Imdi reached out and placed a tiny paw on his sister’s snout.

~*~

Ki-yu had agreed to try for a minimum of one stiplet a day for the next few weeks, with the expectation that she would move up to bigger prey as she grew as well. But the specifics did not matter, not then. They had spent the rest of the day playing and exploring, Ki-yu even showed Turin the stream where she had found the smooth black rock. When it came time for dinner, she went out and returned with a fiirit, and was rewarded with a few sylphberries. She hated it, Turin could see, but seemed more content than in recent days. They played terroc, a tile game of chance and strategy, which Braq was winning until a cunning ploy from the girl outmanoeuvred him. She was so giddy from the win that Braq had to carry her giggling and wriggling to bed.

“Like she’s a different girl,” Braq murmured with a wry shake of the head as he settled into bed beside her. “You seem better as well,” he said, his expression falling a little. “Not that I helped. You’ve been… distracted since the attack, I should have talked to you sooner.”

“I… I’m fine,” Turin lied. Braq fixed her with a knowing look, his dark brown eyes like pools of rich halaka. She propped her head on her elbow, looking into his eyes like they used to as a much younger couple. “Last night…” Turin began, then stopped with a roll of her eyes. “Every night… even during the day… I’ve been having, like, nightmares? I don’t know. I keep seeing it. The roht, you, Ki-yu and Imdi. The feeling of the rifle in my paws.” She fidgeted with her claws. “Each time it plays out differently, but it always goes wrong.”

“How?”

“Different things, terrible things.” She shook her head, scattering the visions. “It doesn’t matter.”

“When was the last one?”

“Um… when Ki-yu… you know…”

“Have you had any since?”

“…” Wait, no I haven’t. “Huh. No.” Braq reached out, brushing her cheek with the back of his paw.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked without judgement. “I’ll always be here for you.” Turin chewed on her lip, enjoying his gentle touch.

“When I picked up that rifle, I was so scared Braq. Scared for the kids, scared for you. But the thought that scared me most,” she said, her voice cracking, “was that I’d have to bury you.”

“You… wanted to protect me?” he said, like the thought had never occurred to him.

“Oh, my sweet handsome man, I’ve always wanted that. Ever since we first met in that marsh.” Braq chuckled, the paw drifting to her chest.

“When we were running, I remember thinking that I was glad you couldn’t keep up, that it would keep you out of danger.” He looked deep into her eyes. “I’ve never been so glad to be so wrong. And… I never said thank you,” he cooed, splaying his digits through her fur to find the skin beneath. “My hero,” he whispered teasingly, warmth flooding from his body beside her. “My protector, looking after me.” His paw drifted lower, drifting so close before pulling back. She grinned shamelessly at him. Oh no, not tonight…

Turin gripped his wrists and pushed him onto his back, pinning his arms up above his head. She swung her leg over his chest, the mix of lust and shock on his face perfection. She clucked through her teeth at him, leaning forward until they were just short of kissing.

“If I’m your hero, that must make you, my dear in distress,” she crooned, placing a smooch on his snout. “And,” she said curling her tongue, “I think I liked the way you looked on your back…” He rumbled beneath her, his arousal evident against her rear. She rubbed herself against his chest, edging closer and closer and closer to his eager lips. “C’mon lover,” she whispered wickedly. “Why don’t you say thank you to your hero?”

---

“It’s a quality of the gods

To see a creature with its back broken

And be unmoved.”

– Suniti Namjoshi.