Dawn was fast approaching, as crystal clear and cold as the night itself had been, with a bitter wind which tasted of coming snow. The rare rain of starfalls had slowed to only a rare streak across the sky overhead, and Snowflake paused for a moment to marvel at one greenish streak of light that crossed the dawning. Then it was gone, and Snowflake crawled out of the hometree window, letting the window-covering flap close behind her. She hung for a moment, gauging her fall, then dropped. The thick layer of snow softened her landing, and she gathered herself to her feet like a tree cat, barefoot and shivering from the snow that had gotten under the collar of her winter tunic.

Another streak arrowed across the clear winter sky. The movement caught her attention. Snowflake tracked the falling star intently, watching it burns itself out overhead. It was strange to her that the stars were raining, but at least it meant the stars were doing something, when usually they did nothing but crawl so slowly it put you to sleep watching them. She had little use for stars that did nothing; stars that of a sudden raced and turned to silent cinders – those were worth a moment’s attention. But only a moment. Not until a star dropped at her feet and became something she could taste and touch and smell, not until then would it really be worth her interest.

The cold was dreadful against her bare feet; her mother had given her winter slippers that would have kept her warm, but Snowflake hated footwear of any sort, and fought to kick her feet free of anything her parents put on her. She wriggled her toes now, then ran, knowing it would be warm again when she had reached her destination.

The cold, crisp night had frozen a crust on yesterday’s snow, giving her firm footing as she ran. The crust crackled beneath her light weight as she scampered around the circumference of the Father Tree, knowing it was the only way to get to her destination without being spotted by any of the olders. Her parents might have gone to sleep early, but there would be other alert eyes and noses. The window-curtains of Stormdancer and Leather’s den were tied shut, in knots too high over Snowflake’s head for her to reach. That complication stopped her in her tracks for a bare moment, and then she began shinnying her way up the side of the Father, determined to reach the window-burl. Navigating **that** was tricky with fingers going stiff with cold, and once she fell and had to start over, but Snowflake would never have thought to stop and find an easier way back in once her goal was in sight. She was shivering violently from the cold and her feet had gone numb by the time she managed to pull herself onto the broad sill. She attacked the curtain, clawing at the side of it until she could work her fingers around the think, double-stitched rawhide and put her weigh into pulling it free--

There was a whisper of sound from inside the hometree, and then the window-curtain was yanked aside and a startled face gazed out at the three-year-old child. “Snowflake!” Leather exclaimed, his russet hair loose around his shoulders. He was half-naked, having been pulled out of bed by the disturbance at his window.

“See baby!” Snowflake demanded. Leather snatched her inside and tried to bundle her in his body-warmed blanket, but she squirmed violently. “See baby!” she demanded again.

Leather dropped her into the padded bowl of the bed, leaving her to burrow her way out of the fur blankets as he lashed the window-curtain shut again. Snowflake kicked free of the blanket, feeling another warm body in the far side of the bed. Stormdancer stirred then, uncharacteristically slow to wake.

“What is it?” the glider called weakly. Her breath was raspy and thick, pungent with decay. It was lungrot, Snowflake knew. She had heard her father True Edge whisper it his lifemate when he was sure Snowflake wasn’t awake to hear the dreadful words: Stormdancer had caught lungrot, and Cloudfern’s battle to heal her of it was failing. Snowflake wondered how Stormdancer had caught it, and why didn’t the huntress just let it go again? “Mate, what is it?”

“Little Snowflake has decided to pay us a visit,” Leather replied, climbing back into his bed and pulling the layers of blankets back around himself; for a moment, Snowflake was trapped between the two olders and pushed herself free past their heads, wary of coddling and not about to be distracted from her mission. “

“Wanna see baby!” Snowflake insisted. Her olders were too easily distracted, and she knew she had to often remind them of what was important. “I was promised. Wanna see baby!”

There was a shifting of bodies; Stormdancer was turning over, carrying a bundle with her, and Leather was moving to envelop them both in a protective embrace. “Snowfall and True Edge had promised you, did they?” Stormdancer said. Her voice sounded washed out, nothing at all like the vibrant glider’s usual throaty purr.

“I just sent to Snowfall, told her to come fetch her pup,” Leather murmured.

“See baby!” Snowflake showed her teeth, putting the olders on notice that she wouldn’t leave without a fight.

“Come here, kitling,” Stormdancer said, shifting some more. Snowflake heard a faint mewling sound, and then saw the newborn’s face amid a darker wrap of furs. “Here’s the baby. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Snowflake looked at the round, pink little face and scowled. For two Turns now her kin had been promising her that when Stormdancer and Leather’s new cub was born she’d have a playmate. This lumpy, froggy thing looked more like a stuffed doll than a playmate. The fat lips moved and smacked together, proving the lump was alive. Snowflake leaned closer and sniffed dubiously.

“Girl-cub?” she asked. The baby smelled like nothing else in memory – helpless and milky and sweet-sour, with the acrid undertone of the moss-hair lichen swaddling that she remember had felt so itchy of against her own skin. There was something desperate about the baby’s scent, something that hinted at sickness and weakness. Snowflake felt the hairs at her nape prickle in predatory response.

“She is beautiful,” Leather answered his lifemate’s question. “And her mother needs to rest.”

Snowflake turned her attention to Leather. If Stormdancer sounded one kind of strange; the tanner sounded something different. His voice was strained, his spoken words strangely sharp-edged. Snowflake could tell something was wrong, but her nose, ears and eyes couldn’t tell her just what.

There was a scuff of footsteps on the stairs through the curtained door; moments later, Snowflake caught her mother’s scent. The door curtain was pushed open, and Snowfall slipped into the room.

“Snowflake…” her mother said, her expression apologetic.

“You’ve seen the baby,” Leather said, nudging Snowflake toward Snowfall. “Time to go back to your own den for the day.”

Snowflake let her mother gather her up. She drank in another deep breath, sorting through the scents in an attempt to solve the mystery. Kindly Leather was snap-tongued and Stormdancer, who had been sickly since the end of the summer, sounded and smelled even weaker than she had before the baby was born. And the new cub smelled wrong. And most importantly – this playmate she had been promised didn’t look to Snowflake like she’d prove worth the wait.

“Do you need anything?” Snowfall asked the new parents. Snowflake sounded almost too bright and hopeful, so that she sounded like someone else.

“No,” Leather said, short and sharp.

“Bring Snowflake back here for a moment,” Stormdancer said, at the same time. Snowflake felt her mother’s curiosity as Snowfall did as asked. Snowflake looked down at the bed from the height of her mother’s arms, and wondered where those dark shadows had come from that ringed Stormdancer’s eyes. Stormdancer coughed painfully and held up her swaddled infant again so that Snowflake could see the froggy little face again.

“My little kitling will need a good friend. Snowflake, I want you to be a good friend to my daughter. Can you do that? Will you help protect my little girl?”

Snowflake shifted her dubious stare from the baby to the mother. She didn’t like the baby’s scent – the little mewling creature smelled wrong and weak. But Stormdancer’s dark, shadowed eyes were desperate. Snowflake cocked her head to one side, listening intently, wondering if she had failed to hear a send, or if there was another question asked of her she had not heard.

“Snowflake will,” Snowfall said, her own voice suddenly choked; Snowfall had to crane her head to see her mother’s face, startled by the huntress’s tears. “Snowflake, you’ll be a friend and guardian to little Fadestar, won’t you?”

Guardian. That was a word Snowflake liked the taste of. It conjured up images of wolf-friends all fierce-eyed and bristling. Snowflake nodded solemnly, knowing in her bones that *guardian* was good and true and the Way.

Stormdancer lay back in her furs. “Thank you, cubling,” she said, her gaunt face pretty for a moment as she gave Snowflake and Snowfall both a serene, grateful smile. Then those haunting dark eyes closed with exhaustion.

“My lifemate must rest,” Leather murmured; belatedly, Snowflake recognized what was so strange in her elder’s voice. The tanner was afraid. Deeply afraid.

Snowfall nodded and slipped out the door, making sure it was lashed secure behind her. Snowflake wrapped her arms tight around her mother’s neck and stared over Snowfall’s shoulder toward Leather’s den, wondering why the tanner was so frightened of them?

“Snowflake, you mustn’t sneak out, not in the freezing cold like this,” Snowfall said as she carried her daughter up the interior of the tree toward their own family’s den. Her breath made fog in the crisp dawning air.

“Yes mother,” Snowflake agreed, knowing she would when the behaving meant getting what she wanted. She looked up at the sky overhead, delighting in how the rising sun turned the winter sky all shades of pale yellow and pink. And as she turned her face up to the sky, the last of the night’s falling stars streaked overheard, shining for that bare moment as brilliant and poignant as a mother’s dying wish.