Oh, shit.

She should have known that no deed goes unpunished, that there's no such thing as pleasure without a price. She should have known that she can't just go sleeping with random strangers she meets in the snow without consequences. She should have known that Mother fucking Nature is a bitch of epic proportions, who clearly doesn't get any sexytimes herself and thus has to punish those who do. She should have known.

But she didn't, and now she's pregnant. She isn't showing yet - it's too soon, and no weight will swell her sides for a good few weeks - but she knows her body and she knows when something's amiss. She'd thought she was safe, thought her heat had ended, thought her body would reject the seed of another when it's only just recovered from birthing the twins, but she was wrong. Horribly, horrendously wrong. "Balls, balls, balls," she hisses to herself as she stomps around the Edge, raging and panicked. "Or should I say balls and their contents." She snorts a vicious laugh at her own humour, but it's only a temporary relief from her problems.

And what huge, giant-sized problems they are.

She cannot be pregnant again. She is the General of the World's Edge, and what sort of General gets pregnant so often she cannot fight? Jesus, if they find out they'll shun her, demote her, and they'll have every right to. She is meant to be the queen of the soldiers, boss of the warriors. She is meant to put the herd's needs before her own, and what does she go and do? Get so entranced over the thought of getting the D that she gets pregnant, again. Oh, no, the Edge cannot find out about this. It would be the end of her.

It's this panicked train of thought that leads her to her solution, and when she thinks of it, it floods her with relief. Her mind is irrational, but this solution seems perfect. She will simply lie. She's good at that. How hard can it be? She has the perfect excuse, one that won't be questioned and one that any Edgian of a certain age will know to be possible - she's looking for her father. Last time she was in Helovia, it was apparent how close she was to her sire, so that much shouldn't be questioned. The rest...the rest will flow. This part is all that matters.

So, with steely determination plus a considerable amount of guilt and fear, the soldier wanders to the centre of the Edge. Her companion is alongside her, and although he has sympathy for her plight, he's also bathed in feline smugness. "I told you so," he's said multiple times since she realised her condition, and she has to concede that he had warned her not to go through with banging the handsome grey unicorn. Shut up, is her snarky response to his jibes, but he still looks like the cat who got the cream as he struts alongside her with his head and tail held high.

She lifts her proud head and calls for Tembovu, her elephantine king. She schools her face into nonchalance, sets her stance into its usual lazy posture, and waits with a thudding heart.

For the first time in any of her many, many pregnancies, she finds herself resenting the parasite child in her womb. She finds herself wishing that the budding life in her belly would just disappear, so she can enjoy the memory of her most recent tryst without the crushing guilt that comes with it. Without having to do this.

But she can't let it show. He can't know her shame. Despite the pain and the hate that rages inside, she schools her face into its usual lopsided grin, and huffs a breath of air in greeting to him.

By her side, Dominus tenses as he spies the grey creature next to Tembovu. "Prey. Prey. NOMS." The lion's instincts, bred into him from his savannah-roaming cousins, tell him that this elephant calf is precisely the sort of animal he should be hunting. His claws unsheathe and caress the soil, whilst his tail lashes behind him in a hunger-induced frenzy. His excitement pulses in Nyx's mind, momentarily distracting her from her own problems - and not in a way she wants. This is the last thing she needs, to have to control her companion when her mind needs to be fully focused on the task ahead. The silver cannot allow herself to be sidetracked, when the web she's about to spin will require every ounce of her guile.

She moves firmly forwards and blocks Dominus off with her foreleg before he can even think about advancing on the elephant calf. He hisses, leaning every way around her leg to fix his piercing gaze on the young, tasty-looking creature, but Nyx stands firm. She grins at the stallion's words, although it doesn't reach her eyes. "Ooh, you know you love it." She flashes him a wink, even as Dominus begins to whine hungrily beside her. "Is that your companion?" A stupid question, perhaps, as why else would a stunted elephant be walking alongside him, but it's a way to break the ice.

"It's good to see you again." This, at least, is the truth; she's missed her handsome monarch, his quick wit, his ability to take her banter and give it right back. She wishes she could just enjoy his company, ask how he is getting along with his wife, discuss the warrior situation in the Edge. But she can't. Her fruity loins have seen to that.

"There is something I must ask of you." On slides the mask; she throws her face into a nervous frown, as though about to ask a question she's dreaded for days. She adds just a dash of anxious submission with a slightly bowed head, and rounds it off with an awkward shuffle from hoof to hoof, still careful to keep Dominus coralled away from the grey calf. "Last time I was in Helovia, I lived here in the Edge with my father, Nato. When he disappeared, I left Helovia in search of him, without success." This part is the truth; it had torn her apart when her beloved sire disappeared. She had searched high and low for him, but found nothing. "Dominus was hunting just past the Threshold when he saw somebody with my father's markings. He tracked the male for some time, but lost him in a thick forest." Her face is inscrutable, her body language as relaxed as she can make it. "I owe it to my father to try and find him, Tembovu. Now, you know as well as I that I'm the sort of woman who asks forgiveness rather than permission, but you deserve better than for me to just disappear without warning. It would not be fitting of me as your General to just up and leave, so I'm asking if you will send me on a mission to hunt my father down, so I still feel like I'm being remotely useful. Believe me when I say it would be worth your while to have him as a warrior of your herd - I didn't just pull my fighting talent out of my ass, after all." She manages a wink, a hint of her old humour.

It soon fades. "What do you say?"

It's worrying how simple it is for the lie to slip free, as easy as breathing. She hates herself for it.

The silver draws in a deep breath. As Tembovu talks of his new companion, she manages a soft chuckle, genuine this time. "I know the feeling." She glances over to the glowering form of Dominus. Not for the first time, she wishes she had bonded to something...tamer. Something that wouldn't test her patience to its limits. But, she reasons, if that was the case then it wouldn't be Dominus. He shares part of her soul, and she loves him unequivocally - she just wishes he wasn't so lion.

She sags with relief as Tembovu speaks again, muscles untensing and unravelling. Thank the Gods. Thank the Gods for his good nature.

The good nature that you're exploiting, you selfish bitch.

"I will come back, you have my word. I could never just abandon this place, Tembovu, or abandon you. I might be a potty-mouthed little harlot, but I'm the Edge's potty-mouthed little harlot." She offers her King a wink. He asks who she would have act in her stead whilst she's away, and she hardly has to think before she gives her answer. "Rohan. He is a fine man, and a fine warrior in his own right. I think he will excel in the position in my absence."

She leans forwards, attempts to graze her muzzle softly across his broad shoulder. "Thank you, Tembovu. This means a lot to me." More than you could ever know. "I would offer to thank you in my own special way, but I doubt your darling wife would be best pleased." She offers a wiggle of her eyebrows and a cheeky wink, the old Nyx shining through from beneath the haggard form of the new, worry-bound, lying scum Nyx.

There's an ache in her heart as she takes a step backwards, looks between Tembovu and the beautiful Edge that they stand in. This is her home, and she's letting it down - letting him down - because of some stupid, ill-advised one-night-stand. She deserves to burn for her sheer idiocy, but she must stand strong and take responsibility for her actions. The Edge cannot suffer. This way, they will not have a General who cannot fight. This way, they do not have to live with the shame of having a General who puts her lusts before the needs of the herd.

It is better for everybody involved. But that doesn't stop it hurting.

She dips her head in respect to her King, and unless he has anything further to ask of her or tell her, she begins to turn away. "Don't miss me too much, handsome. I'll be back." With all the bravado she can muster - and that she really doesn't feel - she moves away, away from the Edge, to be with her shame. Dominus follows, a white shadow behind her, suddenly supportive - because he knows she needs him.