Maziwa was still heavily pregnant, though the pups would come any day now. Blancun, her best friend and confident, had expressed his feelings of hope and joy over the news of the pups and thought of them as a new beginning. And perhaps it was. The pack had grown over the years, and though it stalled a bit now at the end of her reign.

And the end was coming. Very soon, she suspected. Her new pups were not the only ones in the pack. A young pup had been brought to them from the rogue lands, and Maziwa had taken the pup under her wing. She was not the first pup Maziwa had adopted, and would not be the last she figured. Still, the pup - and those she carried in her belly - would be raised by the collective pack, and not just herself. She hoped to foster for the future of the pack.