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They slept out in the open, even in the January air. Like true canines they curl into themselves, tail upon nose to keep the air they breathed warm. Side by side they gleaned heat from one another, and if the snow fell then it fell. It would land on them all throughout the night and in the morning they would break through the crust of ice that formed around them and served only to insulate them further. And when they shook the frozen water from their pelts they would spend the next few moments leaping here and there, over one another, dashing madly through the open fields and back again to their starting point. Like children, light hearted and free spirited, they threw back their heads and let their tongues loll out of their mouths and they laughed.
Against the white of winter the ivory of her pelt blended in perfectly. Only azure eyes stood out as even the small flecks of grey that crept up her two front legs tried to vanish in the powdery white. Her mate's coat was more bold, his own ivory stain with big splatters of ink. Though he called her a dove and told her that he preferred her cotton coat over his own, she would tell him that at least he was easy to spot when they dashed away from one another in their perpetual games of chase and tag. He would murmur something about her sky eyes that lit up when they glanced his way and then the compliments would get competitive until they were finally forced to call a truce.
And so another winter was passing by them, the second since their departure from Dahlia de Mai. Together, alone, they celebrated the second birthday of their children and sent happy wishes out into the world for them. That any of their girls would hear their parents long, musical howls was wishful thinking, but they crooned anyway, notes rising up into the sky, into outer space, into heaven wherever it might lay. And afterwards they laughed and traded thoughts on what they might be up to, or where they might have gone.
For the first year Din and Farore had stayed with them, glued to them as if they too would be whisked away like little Nayru. Who could have guessed where the girl had gone? Simply vanished into thin air. They had searched, of course, but eventually had to move on. Slay had worn his grief well, perhaps putting on a stronger face only to ease Cer's own grief. Farore and Din had insisted that Nayru lived, thrived even, somewhere, and didn’t take much time to move on past the absence of their sister. Cercelee had no choice but to follow suit.
The four of them were inseparable, in a way Cercelee had never known before. Their closeness was harder to accept when Cercelee counted the number of family and friends who had up and left her. So she simply did not count. Nor did she care to recall her own leaving, as desperate as it had been. Yet neither did she regret her abandonment of Dahlia de Mai, a single glance to Farore's amethyst eyes or a caress of Din's raven head convinced her that she had been right. Haku would have killed them all had he his way, and there had been nothing stopping him then.
Yet the year passed and Farore grew restless and though Cercelee refused to tell the girl of where they came, Slay finally did. They went to sleep one night and in the morning their tall, slender daughter was gone and had taken Din with her. They had known it was coming and while the trail that would lead them to their two daughters and to a pack they had once loved lay in one direction, they turned in the other and continued on.
Eventually Din came back, but only long enough to tell them Farore was insistent on finding Nayru. Slay smiled at the resolution of his daughter, and Cercelee fretted and Din grew inspired and decided to strike out on her own. When Farore caught up to them once more it was summer and they travelled slowly and stopped often and their violet eyed daughter burst upon them like a whirlwind of news. Nayru is alive. She was leading Dahlia de Mai. Dahlia is no more. They had to calm the girl before they could get any of the information clear.
The emotions that washed over Cercelee were confusing in their complexity. Elation that her daughter lived, pride that Nayru had taken over the very pack that she had led once, and despair at the year lost of Nayru's childhood and their continued separation. Briefly they spoke of returning but both knew it was silly. Nothing was left for them, and if Farore's words rang true not even Dahlia de Mai remained, the pack they had both built from the ground up. Only Nayru was there, their last link to lives they had left behind, but she wasn't really their link anymore.
She had a mate, or something of the like so Farore said. A large, ebony male and Slay chuckled warmly at this. A new home, her own pack not polluted with tiffs and trifles of the past, unmarred by the poison Haku had injected into Cercelee's own home. Members that Cercelee could not recognize the names of, and as Cer and Slay asked after each and every friend they had known Farore shook her head. No, they were not in Dahlia anymore.
So they went their own way, and Farore had too. They pointed her in the direction Din had gone and watched their last daughter flew from them, a young bird but well seasoned at flying. So their nest was truly empty and though Cercelee sighed every now and then, Slay never let her spirits sink for too long, eliciting a smile with playful nips until she gave in to his antics.
And they continued on the rest of that year until it was winter again, just past the second birthday of the triplets and Cercelee murmured wishes that they'd be parents again, someday. Though they both knew it was unlikely, for the woman had not conceived once in all the times they made love—which was often—the man hesitated not a moment taking her into his arms. Afterwards Cercelee rolled away from him and lumbered off by herself. It was not uncommon for them to wander here and there without the other, for they never went far enough that they could not call out to one another as a true wolf should, and so the piebald male did not protest as his dove flitted away from him.
The night was calm, only the lightest of snow fell and Cercelee felt at peace, turning her head up to the heaves. Always looking to the sky, or the sea, and she tried to count the number of suns that burned in other solar systems but soon lost count. It did not matter, she didn't like to keep count of anything, because if her mind was not in the now than it was not where it should be. Now there was again one star, two star, three… and now there again was one. The woman was again starting the count over when she heard the snap of the branch as a clumsy foot fell on it. When she looked up and recognized the face the breath flew from her lungs and she let out only the tiniest of gasps.