Left in The Cold, But Not Alone

MILESTONE I

     A lone Woldren shepherd tread through the deepening snow, eyes squinted against the harsh winds of an incoming blizzard. The rest of his flock was tucked away in the safety of the caves, but he was down a ewe. In this treacherous weather, she wouldn’t last long.

    “Mabel!” the shepherd hollered, pointed ears perked behind ibex horns, listening for any sign of the missing Woldren Ram. Sheets of snow sliced between the trembling pines. He began to worry that maybe the ewe had already succumbed to the weather. He paused, unable to hear over the crunch of snow underpaw. “Mabel! Where are you, girl?”

     A faint bleat echoed over the howling winds, guiding the Woldren Shepherd through the stormy woods. The wolfish dragon found her crouched under a snow-laden bough of pine, snow caked to her wool and lashes. He swept his eyes across her huddled form, searching for any sign of frostbite or injury. With another strong-willed bleat, Mabel rose to her feet, revealing a hollow of melted snow under her belly. 

    The shepherd blinked in astonishment at the whimpering bundle of fur curled in the center of Mabel’s makeshift  bed. The pup cried out, already beginning to tremble without the ewe’s wooly protection. It rose on wobbly legs, yellow eyes squinted and searching for it’s surrogate mother. It took a determined step forward, fighting against the cold seeping into its fragile body. It couldn't be more than a few days old, if that.

    The shepherd woldren scooped the pup out of the snow with a mighty back-paw, tucking the whining bundle to his shoulder. The youngling burrowed it’s dark, slate-colored snout into the shepherd’s white pelt with a tiny yip.

    “Good girl, Mabel. As for you, pup, let’s get you someplace warm,” the shepherd soothed, using his other large extra paw to guide an impatient Mabel toward the caves, “we’ll get you to the caves with the other pups once the storm passes.”