Far across the land, in present time, sat a dark colored wolf. He sniffed the air carefully and turned his head West. "It's time," he said, "She has been born."
He wanted to go see her, and he knew he should. But he couldn't, bound by necessity to save her life with might possibly be his own. He turned away, behind him, to the deserted forest. He stood, and began to run.
Panting and running hard, he said between breaths, "I know that I may die doing this, but it must be done. He is as strong as me, and my chances of winning are slim." A tear ran down the side of the wolf's cheek and got lost in the behind wind. "If I die today I'll see you sooner."
. . . . . . . . .
In the opposite direction, the direction of a forest that was teeming with life, a bundle of infants were born. Three, to be precise. Or so the Mother thought.
"Sencall," she called lightly, "Come here, quickly!"
A large snow leopard walked into the dens where his cubs had just been born. He smiled. "They're beautiful…" he muttered, unable to speak. It was Sencall's second time having cubs. The first time, during the big blizzard that killed off the humans, none of the five cubs lived. He looked at the smallest cub, a creamy white snow leopard female. A tear ran down his cheek.
"No… No! No, no no… it can't be. Trasiya, no. It isn't…" Sencall couldn't bear it. Trasiya took a large paw and separated the two larger cubs, a male and a female who were both light grey, and moved them behind her leg.
She looked down at the little female snow leopard. She licked her fur for a long time, trying to get a breath or a gasp to come out of her tiny mouth.
Nothing. The baby was gone, if she wad ever there to begin with. Trasiya glanced at Sencall. "Sencall, I'm staying here with the new cubs. Please find a good spot."
Sencall scruffed the baby and took her far away to the middle of the snowiest range of the territories. Sencall began to cry. "Not another one. If you had lived, I would have called you 'Katiyana'. Goodbye…"
Sencall laid Katiyana down in the middle of a small break in the ground. It began to snow.
. . . . .
Katiyana looked at the deep blue sky. "Meow?"