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They’d never gotten along.
Not in all of Felisa’s memory.
Wol and Calu would always hold their (rightly deserved) position at the head of the Council - they'd existed before all others, but Felisa and her son still came second. They stood above all other Amkyn gods but for the wolves; they’d been the first mortals to enter the Forgotten’s Pool, to become gods, to raise themselves up as champions and defenders of their race. She and Deson earned that place, and proudly made certain all others knew it.
Yet Reteken and her sly daughter never failed to call them pompous for it, from the very day the pair of rats schemed their own way into godhood.
Scavengers instead of hunters, thieves who worked in shadow because they weren’t strong enough to simply take what they needed - Felisa couldn’t stand the shifty little ritikai race. She never had. She never would.
Yet here she stood, at the edge of her forest, looking at the most bedraggled band of rats she’d ever seen. Reteken standing at their head should’ve been cause for amusement; fur and whiskers visibly singed, half her tail outright missing, a tremble in her face that spoke of barely-held composure. A week ago, Felisa would have taken one look at her longtime rival upon the Council, and laughed until she doubled over.
A week ago, the Arriv were godless refugees who knew to be grateful for all they’d been given by the Amkyn.
“We gave it a good run,” Reteken finally rasped. Another drop of blood spilled from the bandage capping her tail; a goddess at full strength would’ve been able to regrow the missing flesh in an instant. “But at this point- there’s nowhere else to go.”
Centaurs and minotaurs displaced from their homes in the southern fields, forced to run north to seek refuge in colder hills. Fairies and quirren burned out of their woodlands, torardim and naga dragged from the lower rivers in nets and butchered, fully half of Felisa’s own people set to fleeing for whatever shelter presented itself.
Wol and Calu nowhere to be found.
A week ago, a century ago, a thousand years and more, Felisa would have looked upon Reteken’s misfortunes and laughed.
The rat’s daughter wasn’t among the band at her back.
And Felisa’s son remained somewhere in the ravaged south, trying to help any Amkyn he could escape to safety.
So the Queen of Cats turned, and gestured to the main path leading into her domain, the treeline guarded by hundreds of her fiercest felisapi warriors. “Then it’s just as well you’re welcome here.”