Hey, everyone. Some of you may remember that last week I published a one-shot named "Lilly's Choice." I wrote it as a one-shot because I thought that was all there was to tell. But the more I think about it, the more I feel there is still so much to be told. And I did not want to leave everyone hanging about what happens to Lilly in the end.

So I'm decided to do this story (which will be much longer) about what happens to Lilly after the end of "Lilly's Choice." So, without further ado, here is "The Great Year":

High harmonies from the Heavens resound

As the stars complete their Saturnal round

What wondrous happening does this portend?

In fire or frost, how shall the cosmos end?

The march had been hard. For Lilly, it had been harder that for anybody else. After all, she was not used to having to go through so much physical exertion at one time. The whole pack had been going nonstop for several months now with only a few hours rest per night. And there was hardly any time for hunting and there were so many that it was practically guaranteed that most would go unfed in any event. Not that that was much of a concern to Lilly; she knew that she would go unfed even in the event that there was enough to eat. It was, after all, harder for her than the rest. This was not her pack, after all.

She felt herself growing parched from walking for so long in the hot summer sun. As she walked, she noticed a small stream up ahead. It was not much, but it was something. Lilly stopped to inspect it. She cringed a little; the water was stained brown with mud and dirt. Yet, she didn't have much choice. She felt herself becoming dangerously dehydrated; they hadn't let her have a drink of water in over twenty-four hours. She would have to drink something, anything, soon. It was either this or nothing at all.

Lilly closed her eyes, not wanting to look at what she was putting into her mouth, and lowered her snout into the water. Slowly, she lapped up the muddy liquid, trying to keep her mind off of how horrible it tasted. But, it was water, so that was at least something good about it.

The Lilly felt a sharp blow to her rear. She was sent falling forward, he face splashing into the muddy water. Her lavender eyes opened just long enough for her vision to go brown and then black as the thick mud poured into them.

"Get going, you!" shouted the wolf who had just kicked her into the mud. "Did we say you could stop?"

Slowly, Lilly found her footing and pulled herself out of the dirty water. She wiped the mud out of her eyes as best she could with her paw. Then she turned to see who had just done this to her.

It was a yellow wolf, not particularly large, but bigger than she. He did not appreciate how long it was taking her to follow his command. He spat in her face and barked, "What, are you deaf now? Get going, I said!"

Lilly once again wiped her face with her paw and then offered her attacker a large, warm smile. "All you had to do was ask," she said politely.

She then turned around and starting walking again. The yellow wolf seemed satisfied by this and did not trouble her any further. She knew that her face was still covered in mud but she also knew that it did not make much of a difference anyway. She had not been allowed to bathe herself since leaving Jasper and, with all that they had made her endure, she was positively filthy. In fact, she was so covered in dirt and mud and grime that if you saw her at this moment you would not even recognize her special white gleam. Her fur now looked like some combination of grey and brown, not too different from that of a normal wolf. Lilly tried to cheer herself up by thinking of how Kate, Humphrey, and Garth would probably be unable to recognize her now.

It didn't work.

But this was not the first humiliation she had endured and it was far from the worst. Lilly touched her side briefly where there was still some pain from when a large wolf had thrown her against a rock – just for fun – and broken a rib or two or five. That had been near the outset of their journey a few months back and Lilly figured her ribcage was mostly healed by now. Not that she ever really was left alone long enough to properly check.

In moments like this, Lilly thought of the happy life she had left behind her forever. She thought of Garth and how much she loved him and of how she'd never see him again. She thought of the family they had always wanted but would never be able to have together. And, at these moments, she felt herself giving into despair.

But then she'd force herself to suck it up. "You brought this on yourself," she'd say to herself. "It was your choice. You deserve everything that's happening to you."

During a particularly melancholy moment, she added, "I bet no one in Jasper has even noticed you're missing. They never did before."

She cast her eyes down at the thought of how she never mattered to anyone. She was not even sure she mattered to Garth. She had sacrificed her freedom and her life for him and everyone else, but they would never know what she did or why. And it was only because she was so sure that they'd forget about her that she had had the courage to sacrifice herself in the first place.

When she felt like these thoughts were about to break her, Lilly forced herself to look around at the natural beauty all around her. She had no idea where she and the others were but it did not seem familiar. They had gone very far, she knew, and this was not likely to be any place she would recognize. She had to admit, it was rather thrilling to get to see so many places she never could have dreamt of seeing before.

"It won't be long now," she overheard the yellow wolf say to someone else. "Soon we'll be back home. We've spent so much time up in Alberta that even I miss good ol' Oregon!"

The name meant nothing to Lilly. She was, admittedly, not very proficient on geography so she could not truly appreciate just how far she was from Jasper Park. Not that it would have made much of a difference; she already felt she had set foot in another world when she left Jasper.

Lilly just continued walking. There was nothing else to do but walk and hope that somebody did not decide she would make a good punching-bag. She felt like she had already had enough of that to last a lifetime. But then, she noticed that everyone else had suddenly stopped. She just managed to stop herself and avoid crashing into a large grey wolf – something she knew would have disastrous consequences.

She took a few steps forward to see what everyone was so fascinated by. They were all looking down over a hill into the dense forest beyond. It was dark, it was drab, it was spooky, like some haunted forest out of an old fairy tale. Lilly shuttered as she looked down upon it.

And then she could just barely hear the leader say, up ahead, "We're home."

So what does everybody think? Is it worth continuing?