Huddled against the warmth of several rocks, Altana slept, the grass tickling at her sides. The sun was keeping her fur warm while her body was chilled. The older lioness knew what this was: she was sick, ill with something unknown to her. How she had gotten this illness was something she may never know, but it didn't matter. There was no reason to blame anything, no one or thing was at fault.
"Yve'noile." The starry lioness croaked out, her eyes still tightly shut, knowing the moon-like bird was close to her, likely keeping watch from a nearby by branch of one of the few trees that dotted the valley. And of course Altana was right. The sound of wings entered the air, as it usually did within the bird pride, but these were familiar sounding to her old ears.
Yve'noile swooped down from her perch on a tree that had grown near the rocks that her lioness companion currently rested. Her talons met stone, stumbling a few feet before craning over the edge of one said rock to look down at the huddled blue mass.
"Yes, Altana?" Her reply was quiet, as if she didn't want to even ask. She knew something was wrong with her bonded lioness but she didn't know what or how to help, only that her bonded was suffering. Of course she had told the rest of the pride, but the healers seemed to be unable to help her aside from ease her pain but even that was becoming ineffective. Perhaps Yve'noile was simply angry at the uselessness of the pride. What use was such a large pride, with seers and healers if they couldn't even help their own? Just the thought made the falcon's feathers begin to fluff.
"Yve'noile, my truest friend, I fear my end may be nigh."
"Hush, do not speak like that. They will figure out your illness and you will be well enough to tell your stories to my chicks." The chicks she eventually planned to have some day. There was pain in the moon-bird's words as her talons scraped the rock face anxiously.
"No Yve'noile, these old bones feel it. I feel it. I did not see it coming, but I did see children playing beneath a tree that I have not seen before in this valley. Perhaps it is a wishful old lioness' heart that made me see those things and they were just hallucinations from this fever..." Altana chuckled as she raised her head to look out over the valley fondly. This place had been her home for some time now and she had been given a new life but in her twilight she wanted to see her family again; her blood family.
"I'd like you to go and find my children."
"Your children?" The bonded avian echoed, her head bobbing as she hopped to get closer to the lioness' head. "You've never spoken of children before. I never knew you had any cubs of your own."
"Have I not? I could have sworn they were in one of my-" The words were cut off of a brutal-sounding cough. "Ah..my stories. A'dal, my wonderful starry boy with an ego to rival the size of the moon and my daughter, O'ros, whose beautiful starry pelt makes the moon turn away in shame. I do not know where either of my children are, or where A'dal's son, Aether, now reside. Your wings are strong and true though, Yve'noile. I believe you can find them."