Blur #12295

Puma playing with wolves.

Founding Pack Leader Charwood-

The last embers were fading and as far as could be seen were soft mounds of ash and husks vacant of life strewn about, the ground was still hot enough to burn flesh. The she wolf stepped carefully and didn't let her paws linger in one spot for too long, she was driven by instinct toward a scent she had been following for days...

She had led her pack for many seasons and had seen many pups to adulthood, she felt secure in the survival of her family; the scent had lured her away from her lonesome, deliberate resting spot one night, her body filled with a buoyant energy she hadn't felt in many years...

She slowed and stopped in an area that looked unremarkable, just the same as the other scenery in the place, but to her nose it was distinct. She closed her eyes and deeply inhaled, leaning down onto her forepaws she rubbed her chest and belly in the soot, kicking up dust. She breathed it into her lungs and lie on her side, inhaling and exhaling deep, slow breaths. Her head filled with the scent and taste of smoke, fire, and soot. She invited the embers to singe her nose, mouth, throat, the stinging kisses were intimate, arousing. She whined excitedly and bolted around like an adolescent flirting with her first mate. Embers lit from her feet with each step, encouraging her gay excitement.

In the midst of the swirling clouds she had made she paused and lifted her head and howled a bone deep note, her farewell to this life and greeting to the next. She felt her body grow heavy in the place she had nurtured pups before, in the place she had never expected to feel full again. Her body was given to the fallen forest that evening, but her soul regained youth.

Led again by her instinct she found an enormous redwood that had fallen and hollowed out long before the flames lit up, she ventured in and by morning had birthed two pups...