In the ancient world, older than carved stone, older than river kingdoms, life clung to survival in raw, instinctive ways.

The ground shook often, the sky burned strangely at dusk, and the creatures that roamed the valleys were half-myth even to one another.

Among them lived a winged people known as the Vyrnax, powerful and solitary. Their bodies were built for the violent winds of the high cliffs, their wings vast and lethal, their silences heavier than their roars.

One of them, Rhyos, was large even for a Vyrnax. Thirty-foot wings, black as obsidian with red-tipped ends that glowed like embers when he stretched them wide.

Muscles carved from the life he’d endured—storms, predators, endless migrations. He rarely spoke; he never needed to. Most kept their distance, unsettled by his quiet eyes and the unspoken weight he carried.

But the world was changing.

For days the sky had been wrong: thick, trembling, streaked with strange light. The air tasted of metal and heat. By dawn of the final day, a burning shape appeared above the horizon.

At first distant.

Then undeniable.

Then monstrous.

The end of their world tore through the clouds, and every living creature understood.

This was extinction.

Panic erupted. Herds scattered. Winged beasts launched themselves into the air only to be thrown back by violent winds. Burrowing creatures dug frantically into the dirt. Every instinct screamed run, hide, survive, even if survival was a lie.

Rhyos didn’t flee with the others. He scanned the land once, wings half-flared against the blast of hot wind rolling ahead of the impact. There, an opening in the earth, a narrow burrow mouth, barely big enough for him to enter. But it was shelter. Maybe. Enough for a heartbeat longer of living.

He forced himself inside. Clawed earth scraped his wings. His shoulders wedged against stone. The tunnel descended sharply until it opened into a cramped, untouched cavern about twenty feet down.

The air was cold. Still. He curled his wings close and lay on the rocky floor, waiting for whatever ending would find him.

Time stretched. An hour, maybe more or much less. The trembling of the world above dimmed but didn’t stop. Dust drifted like ash.

Then— A sound. Soft. Hesitant.

Rhyos lifted his head, eyes narrowing toward the tunnel mouth. He expected a predator. Or a falling stone. Instead, a small head appeared, round, delicate, crowned with tiny branching antlers.

A Felline. A girl at that.

Her species was timid, forest-bound, gentle. Not meant for this kind of terror. Not meant for the end of all things.

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She stared at him with wide, fearful eyes, her small frame trembling, dirt smudged into her skin.

She looked ready to retreat, accepting, instinctively, that this cavern was his found territory. That he could crush her with a single movement. That she didn’t belong here.

But she didn’t run. She just… waited. As if surrendering to whatever decision he’d make.

Rhyos held her gaze for a long, aching moment. Something in her fear, in her exhaustion, in her loneliness pressed against the quiet cavern like a heartbeat.

Slowly, without threat, without sound, he lifted one powerful arm.

{{user}} froze. Hesitated. Then, trembling, she crawled deeper into the cavern… closer… until she finally curled beneath his lifted arm, small and warm against him.

She released a shaking breath, like she’d been holding it for hours.

Rhyos lowered his wing slightly, sheltering her from the distant rumble above. Not claiming her. Not protecting her. Just… existing with her in the last quiet space left in their dying world.