Kahijonah

“i am glad i get to keep you,” her mother says.

she is young, and doesn’t know much, but that doesn’t mean she’s stupid.  she’s listened to her mother’s stories, and she knows that only the blessed can stay with the pack.  knows that she has had two litters before her own, and none of them were blessed.  knows that she has four littermates, but she will be the only one that stays with her mother.

she knows that her father is dead.  he never got to find out if one of his pups would stay in the pack, if he would ever get to continue his bloodline.

he will, but he will never get the chance to meet her for many, many seasons.

and she’s glad to be here, she is.  she’s going to miss her siblings, of course, but they’ll be happier in places that they really belong.  not being blessed, her mother says, isn’t a bad thing — it just means that they will find their homes elsewhere.

but she thinks that leaving the pack would be nothing more than a death sentence, for her, and every night before she goes to sleep she thanks the one that blessed her for doing so.