"Give him back!" Kip screamed into the storm clouds as another jagged chain of lightning lit up the sky. "Give him back!"

But the eagle didn't even look back as she carried the fox kit further and further away into the city.

Kip couldn't run fast enough to keep with her, and soon the flapping silhouette and the cries of the young prey it kidnapped disappeared.

The vixen let out a howl of rage. She limped down another block, turning a corner and praying to catch even a glimpse of the eagle. But only towering thunderheads occupied the sky. The fox kept running, ignoring her pained body. He's just around this next corner, she told herself. She kept telling herself that with every new block. Neer's just around this next corner!

The sound of sobbing behind her made Kip stop dead in her tracks. Her tongue dangled from her gaping mouth as the exhausted, panting fox turned to find her other kit limping yards behind her. She considered turning tail and going after the kit who needed her most, but the sight of tears rolling down Vin's silver and red face made her heart cinch up.

Vin slowly caught up with her mother. She sniffled and swallowed another sob and uttered. "M-Mom...You're bleeding."

Kip looked down at herself to find that her daughter was right. Her paw pads were raw and chafed, and she'd left behind a trail of red paw prints in her wake. Her wound from the eagle's son's claws seeped again. Kip licked out her wound, then curled her lip at the sour taste. "Vin," she said. "Stay here."

The kit shivered with her tail wrapped over her paws and looked around the empty gray city. "By myself?"

"I'm going after your brother."

The young kit sobbed again. She shivered so hard Kip could almost hear the kit's bones rattle. More fat tears streamed from her eyes. "No. Mama, please..." she leaned against her mother and wrapped her little paws around Kip's foreleg. "Please don't leave me. I don't want to be alone!"

"Vin."

Kip couldn't waste any more time. Neer needed her. She couldn't lose him. It wasn't too late to save him. She refused to believe otherwise. She tried to pull her leg away from Vin, but the kit held on tighter. "Vin! Let me go!"

"No!" squealed the kit.

The fox snarled and shoved the kit away from her with her snout. Vin rolled away from her and lay on her side pitifully where she fell. She didn't sob anymore, but her tears continued to fall, mixing with the rain that started to fall again.

Immediately, Kip's heart split into two pieces. She hurried to her kit and ran her tongue over her fur, but the kit pushed her away with a paw.

Kip stared solemnly at Vin. "Get somewhere safe," she whispered. "I will be back with your brother. I promise, Vinling."

"No, you won't! There is nowhere safe!" the kit cried, laying her head on her paws. She glared at their reflections in a puddle instead of looking at her mother. She sniffled again. "You're leaving. Just like Dad."

Kip shrank back at that with a gasp. A clap of thunder shook the skyscrapers as rain trickled down their broken windows. Somewhere, dozens of blocks away, one of the skyscrapers finally met its end and capsized. It collided into the ground in a thunderous explosion of dust and debris.

But neither fox acknowledged its demise with even a twitching ear.

Kip opened her mouth to say something—anything. But the rumbling of growls from an off-shooting alleyway made her arch her back and stand in front of her kit protectively.

Hefty paws trodded from the shadows, followed by burly, tawny brown-furred legs. Chains of saliva dribbled from wiggling jowls. A pack of nearly identical pointy-eared curs approached the foxes. In the many years since the fall of man, many dozens of domesticated dog breeds coalesced into one mutt breed. The leader of the mutts, a big battle-scarred brute, unleashed a warning string of barks at the intruders.

Kip lowered her pointed face and growled in return at the enormous beast.

Vin gasped behind Kip. "Mom!" she whispered, yanking on the older fox's tail. "Let me talk to them."

"Silence," Kip whispered to her kit without looking away from her challenger.

The dog growled, and to Kip it almost sounded like he was laughing at her. He slowly angled his head, revealing a set of long-healed claw marks disfiguring half of his face. One eye glared at her. The other was just an empty socket.

He placed another paw toward the foxes. Kip raised a paw and snapped at him, cackling a warning.

At that, the one-eyed dog showed her his teeth. More saliva collected in a slimy pool beneath him. Kip could see his pelt barely clinging to his ribs. He was starving.

Something small creeped between her forelegs, startling her. Vin peered up at the dog from beneath Kip.

"Please don't hurt us—!" the kit began.

Kip snapped at her kit, catching a tuft of her fur in her teeth. "Enough!" she yelled. "Now is not the time to indulge in childish fantasies, Vin!"

"But, I can talk to—"

"I said silence! Now get behind me, damn it!"

Huge watering eyes stared up at the vixen as Vin rolled over beneath her submissively. Vin's chin wobbled, and she lowered her ears, but she slunk back ward, obeying her mother.

The leader of the pack of dogs woofed. But he made no move to approach the foxes. Instead, he tilted his head cocked to the side as he regarded them, intrigued.

At that, Vin hopped to stand in between her mother and the dogs. "My mom's not rabid! She's just weird!" Vin insisted to them.

The pack leader sat back on his haunches and woofed again. Yes, this time Kip was absolutely certain. The dog was laughing at them.

"Be nice!" Vin told him. She looked back at her mother and then back to the drooling dog. "Her name is Kip. My name is Vin."

The big dog keened something. It was a language similar to fox-speak, but unrecognizable to Kip all the same. Vin, meanwhile, stood attentively drinking in every word of dog-speak with ease. "Your name is..." She tilted her head to the side quizzically. "Garf? Grauf? I don't think I can pronounce that right. Um. I'm going to call you Mountain."

The dog barked something else, and Vin laughed at what he said. The other pack members sat back and watched the two creatures converse. Their pink lolling tongues dangled out of their mouths and they wagged their tails at the strange spectacle.

Kip's hackles relaxed, too. Hearing Vin laugh again made her heart heavy.

"A big eagle took my brother, Neer," Vin explained to the dogs.

The dog whined and turned his head to show her his scars.

Vin's ears went back and she let her head hang sadly. "I'm sorry she took your eye and killed your puppies."

The dog keened sadly.

The kit leaped to her paws, tail upright. "No!" she barked at the dog. "That's not true! He's not dead! My brother's not dead!"

Kip growled and moved to stand beside her daughter. "Vin," she said. "Tell them I am going to kill the eagle."

"B-but..." Vin squeaked at her. "You don't believe that I can..."

Kip licked at the soft fur between her daughter's ears. "I am sorry, Vinling, my little one." She fixed her daughter with a warm, apologetic smile. "Tell them if they help me, the damned eagle will fall. "

Vin smiled in return at her mother. Then she spoke to the dogs.

Kip stood tall before the hoard of mutts, speaking while her daughter translated for her. "The eagle is the reason my family lives in fear. She killed my mate. She has taken my son. I was trying to escape this territory with my family, but now the eagle has taken that option from me. I will end her reign. Here. Now. And we won't have to run anymore. None of us will."

A chorus of raucous howls marked the end of her words. Vin turned excitedly to her mother and said, "They know where the eagle took Neer! But..." She flicked her tail tip. "They want to know what your plan is. Do we even have a plan, Mom?"

Kip gazed at her daughter; her one remaining kit.

Just like her, the eagle also had one last young one she'd kill to protect.

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