Blood on my Hands

@Grim

 

The night was dark, and colder than those of the Summer. As this occurred, Tonravik was earlier and earlier to rise. In the Wintertime, there would be no perfect hour to predict her awakening any longer; she who thrived in the cold could do so at any time in that season. Her thick furs made the cool weather the most comfortable for her, and as the winds snapped at her furs and she descended the mountain range to man the borders, it was quite clear she was nearly in her entire element. The mountains covered in snow were what the alpha female knew best... but she supposed that by now, she knew them equally as well as they were now, naked and calloused, rough to the touch, gray. 

No longer was she sore from whelping. Her cubs had transitioned from teat to meat, and Tonravik had taken plenty of time for herself to train and run and work off her own excess weight. It had been plenty; the she-bear had grown impossibly larger, but in a way that suggested that she was more mother sow than fighter. That had changed in the course of time that her sons switched to meat and she trained herself back into shape. 

Now, at least, it was not so easy to discern that she mothered four growing boys. Still too easy to tell was her role in this place as she prowled downward to protect and patrol the land she had come to think more of than the Spine. She sniffed at the earth, tail well above her hindquarters and dark eyes searching for any wolf too close. Looking over her shoulder, she was quick to decide it would be no bother at all if a pack mate were to join her. As a leader, company was not too difficult to swallow. But it was only her own wolves she ever enjoyed; all others were a bother.