• Amidst the quiet, something stirred. A creature crept out of its den silently, something tiny dangling from its mouth. Over the hills the shadow ran, not making a sound in the fresh snow. In the distance, the shape of a house could be made out.
    As she neared her destination, she began to cry. Tears fell from her face and left minute inprints in the snow. As the animal got closer to the house, her instincts told her this was the best thing, the right thing, to do, but her body kept the tears coming.
    Approaching an odd triangle-shaped mound of wood to the side of the house , the grey wolfess gently layed something in the snow. She lay next to the pup, curling around her.

    "I..I love you," she spoke softly to her child, who looked at her, wide-eyed, and said, " I know, Mama. You've been saying it all day and all night."

    "well," said the mother, sighing sadly, "I never, ever want you to forget it."

    "well don't worry, bescause i won't, Mama. Not ever!" the puppy spoke those last words with enthusiasm, but quickly fell asleep, to tired to even realize where they were. Making sure she was asleep, the mother got up swiftly and silently, and began running back home, the tears flowing again. She was muttering something along the lines of
    "It was the right thing to do...The pack can't take care of a runt in these conditions..."

    the tears flowed steadily as she raced home, to get there before the other two pups and her mate awakened.

    Amidst the quiet nothing stirs as snow falls again, leaving no trace of the forlorn she-wolf, or her prints.