Fafnir and Bets
Fafnir hooked his head over Bets's gaunt side and sighed quietly, a world of pain and desolation in the simple exhalation. She twitched an ear and roused slightly to nose gently at him. He nipped her ear between his teeth, and then lay his head back down. They hadn't been eating or drinking much, gradually sinking into a near death state.
Their sides were hollowed with starvation, eyes dull, fur matted and limp. They looked like what they were. Animals who had given up on life and were slowly but surely descending into the eternal night. They hadn't moved since Vulpe had left. Curled up around each other, they ignored the Hansons's worried conversations over their heads. When one breathed out, the other breathed in, bodies in unison as they died together.
Lost and drowning in the absence of the Pack. Fafnir didn't have the heart to stay alive without Mouse, and Bets didn't have the heart to stay alive without him. Any anchor to their world had been ripped away, and they were lost inside their dark despair. Living with humans had changed them. Otherwise they would've bucked it off and gone on to live. But they had become too human to let it pass. They mourned in silence, mouths closed tight, eyes flat and dead already.
The fur from their coats lay in heaps around them as their condition worsened. Noses dry as their bodies lost fluid. Mouths bone dry without a hint of saliva, tongues thick and heavy against their curved teeth.
They blamed themselves. If they hadn't of left, if they had listened more carefully, smelt better, been quicker, been more alert, if, if, if...It was their responsibilty and they had failed. Failed the Pack. As the Pack Alphas weren't there to punish them, they were doing it themselves.
Their frantic terrified howling had continued for hours, Vulpe sitting with them, petting and soothing until they quieted into whimpers and whines. She'd stayed, the fox girl, curled up with them like puppies of the same litter. She smelt like a fox, wild and untamed with a hint of humanity accelerating the scent of danger. Foxes killed pups where they could. They were competitors in time of hunger and starvation. But Mouse had trusted her. And she was oh so close to being Pack. So very close. She numbed the edge of the wanting. But then she had left and they'd slipped deeper into the black funk.
They knew the humans were worried. Fafnir had shown his teeth to them more then once to get them to back off. They were going to die, and that was that. They hovered on the edge of death and felt themselves going stiller and quieter. The blackness lapping at their minds, like icy cold water numbing them to the fear of death. Just a nice quiet slipping away...Bets shifted her shoulder slightly and Fafnir inhaled her scent.