sucks to be you

His question went unanswered as he noticed the somberness that fell over her. This version of her was not the flippant, brash being he was so familiar with. Something was bothering her and that very same something was causing her normally quick tongue to slow. His tail lowered slowly as her thin smile suggested she was about to say something important, but also something he did not wish to hear.

There it was. That admission that he too felt given their recent failings with letting the coyotes so close to the heart of their home. Their constant patrols had failed. Their repeated efforts at keeping their home safe and secure had only proven to be an illusion that had shattered the moment those coyotes outwitted them by sneaking so close to everything they considered valuable as a pack. That they'd lost one of their own was another twist of the knife to the heart. To their pride. To everything they'd been trying so hard to accomplish.

He held his silence until she had finished. She was convinced she'd failed. In his own way, he too was convinced of his own failings at the very same thing. If circumstances had been different, he too might have tossed in the towel of his own resignation, but his children held him to this mountain. In them, he was clinging to the remnants of his pride and hoping, very deeply, that they might somehow restore his faith in himself.

Nanuk had none of that. No ties save the bond they'd forge between them. But the words she spoke? She not only wished to shed rank, but Tartok too. He understood it. The weight of this world was a heavy burden. Duty and obligation overshadowed the needs of the individual. The sense of self and self worth was lost in shadow.

He broke. He rushed her then, pressing the bulk of his weight against her as he leveraged his teeth and paws and body to pin her beneath him. His form lingered over her own, her back against the ground as he buried the flat top of his muzzle within the fur of her neck and nuzzled her with all the brotherly affection he could muster. "Don't go..." he whispered. His thoughts in that moment were purely selfish. He understood her desire to break free of these chains, but she was the one who grounded him. "Don't go..."