Nihil Timeo! I Fear Nothing!

Things with Nymeria had always been easy. Not in the most general of sense, but the way we flowed around each other. The way we understood, accepted, agreed upon life. She had taken time to spend with her mother in the first throes of our relationship. Whatever it had been, undefined then. Looking back on it, I had always known that I was hers. We had hit it off from the first and I stuck to her like glue from then on, excepting the times such as these, when greater things came between us.

It never broke us.

Duty to family was an important aspect of both Nymeria and myself. I had failed in my duty with my missing sister. Even failed in finding her. I vowed I would never fail Nymeria.

My tail wags slightly as her eyes peel open, bleary from sleep, and I smile at her. Just locking eyes with her makes my heart seem to explode. I wait for her reaction because it is obvious she is still half asleep. Confused, disoriented. I haven’t been home in many moons and for a moment I feel a splinter of worry. Then she explodes into a burst of movement. With a yelp I fall backwards, back hitting the ground, her figure atop me as she buries her head into my body.

I laugh, the deep belly-shaking kind, but it tapers off into a sigh of ecstasy as I bury my face in her scruff in return before licking her ears. Nipping them gently, tugging, before lapping at her face any moment she raises it. My tail beats against the ground as my legs cage her in and her’s cage me. I could stay like this forever, her scent mingling with mine, only the joy of us together forefront in our minds.

”I missed you,” I say gently to her, pulling my head back so that it rests on the ground. ”I didn’t find her but I couldn’t stay away any longer. I was worried something might happen to you in my absence.” I frown slightly, eyes pinching shut, but when I inhale I relax. Her scent is rich, spicy almost, changed from seasons before. Rich and enticing. A sort of haze comes over me as I lie there, a burning in me, a need for more. It is too quiet in this den, even with our shared breaths. ”Nym,” I half-whisper, half croak. ”You… I.. let’s start a family?” It comes out a question more than a statement, my orange eyes searching her’s.