“I brought you a sheep.” Sasha plunked down the carcass at her son’s feet.
“Thanks, Mom. Not hungry yet.”
“Well you better eat soon, before someone else smells it.”
“Can’t you stay with me a while ?” Demetri, her son, nuzzled her flank and purred.
Sasha sighed. “Maybe just a little while, not long.”
Outside the snow bank where they sheltered, the wind howled. It whirled over vast expanses of icy peaks and tunneled through narrow mountain passes. It howled, banshee-like, like mothers in mourning.
In weeks prior she had caught the scent of a large, older male snow leopard at bases of trees and on remnants of bone scattered across their vast territory. Not Demitri’s father. He had since moved on. Sasha knew that if this new male met her young son, he would challenge him and win the fight. So far they had managed to slink and skirt the edges of their land, using the snow to hide their tracks.
For days now, Sasha had been in heat. No longer able to hide, her heat’s scent marked the white-blanketed hills, the echoes of her yowls heard in the valley below. He would find her. She then marched her young son miles outside their realm, burrowed him in a grove, hidden by snow walls heaped high. She came every few days with food and news. Still, Sasha missed having Demetri by her side each day, the glass timbre of his voice, the feel of his small paws on hers.
About the Creator
Kate Kastelberg
-cottage-core meets adventure
-revels in nature, mystery and the fantastical
-avoids baleful gaze of various eldritch terrors
-your Village Witch before it was cool
-under command of cats and owls
-let’s take a Time Machine back to the 90s
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Comments (2)
“It howled, banshee-like, like mothers in mourning.” Oh foreshadowing? I fear Dimitri’s fate. This can’t last forever. You handle this delicate transition of animal motherhood so well. It’s heartmelting. 💜
She's a wise cat.