The winter turned harsher. More days were filled with sorrowful cries as mates and young were lost to the cold season. Qianhuang found the smokehouse ransacked, empty of all wolf meat.

Chiaki tried not to notice as her mate became thinner. Finally she couldn't hold her words in. "Key, when was the last you ate?"

Qianhuang stiffened where he sat, partly hovering over a thin broth in a clay pot. "I'm fine." He answered. He dropped in some dry carrots and tiny potatoes.

"That isn't what I asked." Chiaki replied.

She saw her mate take a slightly deeper breath and try to push his body out to looks less thin. "What meat would you like? We still have Aurochs-"

"Key. When did you last eat?" She asked sternly.

He deflated. "Seven- maybe eight days ago-"

"Key! You can starve to death like that!"

"You need to eat. You are having cubs. I'm just a male."

"Not just a male!" She grabbed onto him. "Key, I love you! I don't want to watch you starve!" She shook her head. "Tell me, why haven't you been eating?"

Qianhuang wrapped his arms around his mate, feeling the bulge of her swelling belly pressed against his flat almost indented frame. "Some of the leopard males stole all the wolf meat." He said softly. "I didn't know their scents, so it must have been males we hadn't interacted with."

"How much longer is Winter? Is there enough food inside the house?"

"The cold season should still be several weeks, four or five of them?" He said cautiously. "Yes, there is plenty of food for you-"

"And you? And for Curtis?"

Qianhuang shook his head. "No. You have to eat first. The food inside the house is for you."

"And you and Curtis." She refused to let him starve himself.

"It wouldn't last long enough."

"We will eat smaller amounts. I will eat smaller amounts, so-"

"Chiaki! Calm down!" He stroke her hair. "Breath."

"I don't want to loose you." She mumbled into his shoulder.

"Okay, okay. I understand." Inside Qianhuang was bursting with joy. His mate loved him! She loved him so much she would rather starve than see him die! He couldn't let her do it, but it was so much love in her for him. He was truly lucky to have Chiaki as his mate.

"I won't starve myself, okay?" She said. "But you have to eat a little each day. Just a little of the meat and broth! Please!"

"I- I'll eat... but only after you are full."

Chiaki pulled away, moving over to the room where their food was being kept. She brought back a hand full of meat strips. "Today you have to eat with me, okay?"

After a moment, Qianhuang agreed. Half from his mates prodding and half from the painful emptiness in his stomach. He ate slowly, but for all he was worth his body wanted to wolf it all down. One bite for every three he got Chiaki to take.

Chiaki pushed the nearly empty bowl away from herself. "I'm full."

Qianhuang looked at the bowl. It was mostly broth left. He looked at his mate. He nodded. The clay pot was also just broth and the dregs of food at the bottom. "I'll put the broth aside-"

"Eat it."

Qianhuang's ears twitched. It was the most demanding voice he'd ever heard come out of his mate. This was not a fight he could win. He sipped the broth from her bowl, the warm liquid flowing down into his shrunken stomach. He was fuller than he had been in weeks. He looked at the clay pot. "I'll get sick if I try to drink it all."

Chiaki accepted this. "Alright. We can save what is in the pot for later, we can add more water to thin it again when we add to it."

The snow had melted back in the next few days and they could hear the males of the Leopard tribe head out to do hunting of any sleeping woodlands animals they could find. It was lean times, the hibernating animals would be thin and lack the needed fats, but any food was welcome after the weeks of endless snow and ice.

"It's good to get a reprieve, but the cold season is not over."

"Are you going to hunt?"

"No. The forest will be picked clean of any easy prey." He looked to the room with their dwindling food supplies. If it was only Chiaki eating from them the next four weeks would not be to hard to get through... but he'd been eating from the stores too, and when Curtis woke up every few weeks Chiaki made sure he ate something too.

"What about plants?" Chiaki took a stick and doodled a few plant shaped into the soft dirt floor. "The berries might have survived the cold?"

Qianhuang looked at the crudely drawn figures. "These are... red in color?" He asked.

"Yeah."

He frowned. "Most berries are red, I was hoping they would be more distinctive. Some red berries cause sickness. What is this one?" He pointed to one that was mostly leaf shapes."

"It likes cold water."

"Okay. I think I have seen that one. But none of these." He pointed to most of the other dirt drawings. "These like to grow on dead trees." He pointed to one of the last things Chiaki had scribbled.

"Those are mushrooms."

"They are safe to eat?"

"Most kinds."

Qianhuang shook his head. "I'm not sure how many of these can be found here." He paused. "It's best I didn't go out today. Everyone of the males hunting would be angry if I frightened away prey."