"Sylvanias!" roared Uqaq-Fah. Two Sylvania Shepherds were backed against a wall, circled by a pair of butterflies. There was a male and a female, who guarded a pair of newborn pups.
"Ooh, please don't hurt us!" whimpered the female, who was pure brown. "Yeah, we'll do anything!" added the other, who had grey-on-beige wolf marks. "We were trying to help her!" the female said, gesturing to a shadow in the corner.
Jokvethar's gasp of delight could've sucked in all of the Earth's air, because hobbling towards the pack on three legs was K'Linjiza!
"MOM!" he ran across the cave and bowled her over. Gryphe joined him. Pretty soon, the whole pack was slathering their friend with eight pink tongues, then tons of questions:
"We missed you! What happened to your leg? How did you survive?"
"Well," K'Linjiza started. "When we actually hit the ground, err, river I should say, I landed on top of the brute. The water was really shallow in places, and he hit his head in a shallow, knocking him out. Since he wasn't conscious, I could ride him like an ice floe. I floated all night long, and just as the moon was sinking, we ended up on the shore of the lake.
"I must've passed out, because the sun was at its highest point when I woke up. I checked to see if the Snow Lion was awake, but it was stiff and cold. It must've frozen to death. I started to groom myself, but couldn't lift my left hind leg. I looked at my pad, and it was hard as ice. Then these two found me," she explained.
"They took me to their den, and treated me kindly. They fed me, but unfortunately, my leg was frostbitten, and had to be removed," she continued, gesturing to the scar where her left leg once was.
"Oh! How rude of me not to introduce you. Flutari, Watafa, this is my pack: Uqaq-Fah, his mate Euwresno, K'Linjiza, Euwresno, Giomax, Sapphiralun, Gryphe, my son Jokvethar, Lunaxa-Gio our leader, and his mate Kae… Kaejmari! If you need to pee, just excuse yourself!"
"It's not my fault! My water broke! Wait… OH NO!"
This sent all of the wolves into chaos! "WAIT A MINUTE!" K'Linjiza roared. The wolves all stopped, and stared at the black-and-white she-wolf.
She cleared her throat and began calmly: "Stressing Kaejmari is the worst possible thing to do. Now, Flutari, kindly direct us to a chamber where she can have her pups. Euwresno, would you mind helping us out? The rest of you can do whatever you want; we'll call you if we need you." With that, the selected females disappeared down a tunnel in the cave.