Hati had been dreaming.
It was long ago, when he and Loki and Thor were just pups, yet somehow Baldur and Weth were there. The others were, as usual, bickering over something stupid. Something about a dead fox? Weth was, as usual, taking Loki's side, while Thor was getting infuriated at their incessant picking on Baldur. Others drifted in and out - his uncle Vili, nagging at him to "be a man" and to "stop whining, it's just a scratch"; his mother, barely glancing at him on her way past, pretending not to even see him lying there; his uncle Ve whining at him about how he should be thinking about his fellow packmembers instead of being so selfish, referring of course to himself which was all Ve cared about; and of course his own father, Hroovitnir, snarling at him to get his ass up and be a leader, to get control of his siblings, about how at his age Hroovitnir had already had his brothers' obedience and two wives and was well on his way to carving out a pack territory.
Hati snarled, the dream-sound translating to a weak grumble from his unconscious form. Damn them anyway, he didn't need anyone to tell him what to... A sharp pain jolted through his delirium, stoking his anger. What the hell was that? He got a weird sense of dizziness for a moment, like he'd just stopped spinning in circles. What was the matter with him? And why the hell wouldn't his siblings just shut up with their stupid arguing? Fine, he'd just have to shut them up himself.
Hati opened his eyes. His actual eyes, as it turned out, which immediately got stinging ash in them. Through his blurry, pained eyes he could vaguely make out... his family, which if the ash and the infected wounds hadn't been so painful would have made him assume he was still dreaming, because why would Baldur, Thor, Loki and Weth be standing here covered in ash? For that matter, what were Baldur, Thor and Weth doing here at all? Last he'd seen of them they were still in the home pack watching Vili screw everything up.
Little did he know that he had just missed the very important fact that Loki had just poked him in the shoulder, or that Baldur had not long before attempted to piss on him, or sick or not he'd have been shredding them. As it was, he had barely opened his eyes in time for his blurred vision to catch sight of a small brown cannonball barreling toward Loki, both Thor and Weth attempting to intercept it.
Normally Hati wouldn't care if Loki got his ass kicked. Hell, he'd done it himself more times than he could remember. The little asshole couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it. But contrary to Loki's opinion, Hati wasn't a complete idiot, and he saw very clearly that if that little cannonball went for Loki, the first place his brother was going was going to be right overtop Hati to get away from it, because his brother's survival instinct far, far outweighed any minuscule concern he might have for Hati's well-being. Right overtop Hati was exactly where Hati did not want Loki in the best of times, let alone when right overtop meant Loki's paws and claws would be hopping all over Hati's festering wounds.
So Hati, weak as a pup, opened his gold eyes wider and forced himself partly up. "Knock it off, all of you!" he roared - well, actually, he kind of coughed it out weakly, but it was backed up by a fairly competent snarl despite the fact that he desperately needed a drink of water.
"Speech"
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