Birch

Birch was finding in hard to fall asleep, even with her love Sycamore fast asleep by her side. Usually his presence would comfort any unease she would feel, but not tonight. It was the last night that the buck supermoon hung high in the sky, and it left an unsettling sensation in the air. Something always felt wrong on these nights, the nights where she walked somewhere else in her dreams, the nights where the veil between planes was at its thinnest.

Usually when she struggled to sleep, she would take a walk to clear her head. And that's what she did this night. She quietly left the den, slinking past the other dens and exiting their den site. The crunching of the pine needles under her paws helped to clear her mind as she wandered to the nearby river, which she called the Weeping Waters. This wasn't her first choice of names, but it reminded her of her mother, Willow, who spent most of her time by the water.

It'd been nearly two years since she'd seen her. She hoped she's okay. But given the state of their homeland, she doubted it.

She took a deep breath in and laid down in the sand, listening to the rushing of the water and the hooting of a distant owl. And the snap of a twig behind her.

She quickly turned, standing and letting out a growl as she sees the glowing blue and red of eyes in the treeline. Had one of those lunar creatures broken through? Her hackles raised as she stared into the eyes of this creature.

"Hello, mother," the creature said, stepping out of the treeline.

Birch breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh, Sapphire, you scared me. I always forget about your... change of looks."

"My name is Nessus now, you know this," her daughter responded, maintaining a steady eye contact, her tail held high.

"I- of course, Nessus, I'm sorry," she opened her mouth to speak again, as her gaze scanned her daughter's coat. "You look different again, did your... 'god' change up your looks again?"

"Yes," Nessus continued to approach, getting within inches of her mother, "I had another chat with him tonight. You know what he told me?"

"What?"

"He told me I had a brother," Nessus tilted her head slightly, "And you abandoned him."

"I-" Birch's demeaner shifted, her body clearly giving away her guilt. "I did. When I had you and your brother, we had just started out this pack. We barely had food, territory-"

"So you left my brother to die?"

"I don't know if he's dead. I left him with a bear who promised-"

"A bear? You believed a bear would take care of my brother? Are you a fool? If you couldn't protect your own family how am I supposed to believe you won't lead this pack to ruin?" Nessus snarled at her.

"S- Nessus, I'm sorry I never told you."

"You know what else he told me? The pack can only thrive under my rule."

Birch stared back in disbelief, "You're going to trust that 'god' over your own mother?"

"He's not just 'that god'. He's ruled over the Nine Hells for longer than our bloodline has even existed. He's seen the fall of thousands of packs and will see the fall of a thousand more. I am the only thing that can save our pack from the coming storm that would cause us to fall to ruin."

Nessus lunged at her mother, but Birch managed to dodge the snapping teeth, however Nessus quickly throws her body weigh against her, which caused Birch to stumble. Her body flopped onto the sand by the river, causing a turtles to leap off a nearby log into the water.

"Coming storm? My Sapphire, what lies has he been telling you?"

"That is not my name," Nessus stood over her mother, letting out a snarl, "The 'storm' that terrorized your homeland. The plagues, the famines, the fires, the floods, all the other disasters that drove you and my father away. We need his protection. He will keep us safe from that. I will keep us safe from that."

"Nessus, please," Birch whined, "See reason. He's lying to you. Whoever he is. Don't make a decision you'll regret."

"Oh, I won't," a small smirk appeared on Nessus's face as she sunk her teeth into her mother's neck, twisting and pulling until a snap is heard and the struggling stops. She nudged her body into the river, washing the blood off her fur.

Later she would fabricate a lie about fleeing from a mob of lunar hounds that had broken through the veil, where her mother tried to distract them and lead them across the river and never returned. And they believed her. And thus, she was the new Queen.