Sebuna - 1964
Sebuna could muster little satisfaction when the last of the Gi fell. The conflict was one that had promised only loss, and when she lifted her head to howl, the silence that answered her was as heavy as she had expected.
There was a slim chance that Seto had survived, that he failed to answer her now because he lay unconscious and wounded somewhere in the caves below. In a way, that was worse to imagine, because she could do nothing but leave him to his death. Bugenhagen had sealed the way below, and she could not make the journey to the entrance the Gi had taken.
A numbness had spread through her hind leg. The poison of one arrow wasn't enough to petrify her, but the leg dragged as she picked her way through the village. Her human allies likewise nursed their wounds. Who could go to Seto if he were alive?
No, he was dead. The canyon was safe, and he was dead.
Her gaze fell on Tohar, who crouched tending to one of the wounded defenders by the light of a torch. Tohar had come to the canyon only a year ago, and been accepted readily into their community. If the Gi had likewise come to them in friendship, then they would not have been turned away, but Sebuna understood why they had not.
It was her fault, in part. No one was always wise, and when she and Seto were younger, they had slighted the Gi. Generations now had passed for them, and that slight had given birth to a deeper resentment. Humans lived such short lives. They either forgot such things, or held them too tightly against the erosion of time.
When the wells had dried up in the territory the Gi called home, they had looked at Cosmo Canyon and failed to see a welcoming haven. They did not see neighbors. They had forgotten that only a generation ago to Sebuna, the Gi and the people of the canyon had been the same people.
They looked at the canyon and they envied. And that was how it had come to this.
"Ohna!" a small voice cried across the canyon, using a name for her that would be his and his alone to use. There would be no more cubs.
Nanaki bounded to her, nuzzling into her side, and her heart ached at the touch. They had protected him; he was safe and whole, and yet he wasn't, for they couldn't protect him from sorrow.
"Dad?" he asked, looking around.
"...gone," she said. "He has left us."
By his eyes, she knew he didn't understand. He was so young, not even a full decade. This was his first experience with death. Sebuna had never had to explain it, and he had never found his way to the question on his own.
She would have to find some way to explain it. Hers was not the only grief. Many faces would be missing come morning.
Bugenhagen approached, following in Nanaki's wake, his weight on his walking stick. He had come to the canyon an old man, and so it was easier for Sebuna to see him as one than the others whom she'd watched grow from infancy. He seemed wise in a way they couldn't be, so she had entrusted her son to him, if the worst should happen.
"I'm glad to see you," he said, and his usually easy smile was tight. Glad to see you alive, he meant.
"We've come through to the other side," Sebuna agreed. She lifted her gaze to the heavy darkness in the eastern sky. "It's almost dawn."
"Come," said Bugenhagen. "Someone needs to have a look at your wounds."
As Sebuna dragged her leg forward, Nanaki pressed anxiously into her side. "Ohna, are you gonna be okay?"
"Yes, heart," she assured him, though she didn't know how lasting the damage would be. It was the least of her concerns. Bodies healed.
She pulled herself up close to the Candle, where the light was best and several healers had gathered. She looked into the flames as they pulled what was left of the arrow from her flank. She couldn't feel it.
"When is Dad coming back?" Nanaki asked.
Sebuna met Bugenhagen's gaze above his head. She was so tired. She didn't know how to say it.
"That is something only Seto knows," said Bugenhagen. "We may not see him for a long time yet."
Nanaki whimpered, and Sebuna tucked herself around him. He could not conceive of a long time, not really. To him, a week might be long. This night was long.
He fell asleep against her side, and Sebuna dozed until the dawn crested the tops of the canyon. The colors it splashed across the rock seemed incongruous with the weariness it highlighted. They tended to their wounded, and the dead, too, were being gathered.
For the moment, the bodies of the Gi she had killed lay where they fell.
Her beloved canyon was changed. There was nothing that could stop that, of course. Centuries passed. Herds migrated. Humans spread their so-called advancements across the world.
Sebuna did not grieve for the world she'd known as a cub, but these sudden changes were harder to bear. This one night had excised Seto from her life. He would return to the Planet, and his essence would coalesce into new life, but she never would see him again in the way she had known him.
Bugenhagen still sat in front of the fire, his arms folded thoughtfully into his sleeves.
"You should sleep," Sebuna murmured to him. "Thank you for watching over Nanaki."
He nodded, but made no move to stand. "We have a great deal of work ahead of us, don't we?"
"Rebuilding," she agreed. "It will be painful."
"Not that. Of course you're right, and it will be, but I was thinking of us. Humanity. I parted ways with Shinra because I didn't like the direction they were headed. I wanted to continue my research among like-minded people, not those with a mind for the spoils of war. Ho... Perhaps I lost perspective. I was naive."
"You were, if you thought there would be no wars but theirs," Sebuna conceded. "But I have seen generations of your kind. If war were your essential nature, you would have destroyed yourselves centuries ago."
"Hmm... No, the morning after a such a night is no time for philosophical debate. I'm just being a sad and cynical old man."
Sebuna let out a puff of air. "Sleep," she repeated. "And when you have rested, continue your work. Find your own direction."
"Indeed. I can try anyway. What more can we ever do?" Bugenhagen smiled tiredly at her, retrieved his cane, and pushed himself laboriously to his feet. "Oof," he grumbled, looking up at the canyon walls. "I ought to do something about those steps, too. There's no question of finding sleep after that climb!"
Sebuna put her whiskers forward, letting herself feel a dull amusement. But then, perhaps she would understand it soon enough herself, if her leg healed badly. Scaling the canyon had always come so easily. Nanaki might have to run and hunt without her.
She settled her head on her paws. Whatever work humanity had ahead of them, she wondered how much more her kind would bear witness to. One day her time would come, and then it would be only Nanaki, and however long a life she imagined for her beloved son, he would not live forever. What would be their legacy then?
Bugenhagen was right. Sinking into such thoughts now was a poor idea. She had much grief to work through before she could see anything beyond it.