Perhaps that is life's
greatest cruelty---that it goes on, regardless---or perhaps that is its
greatest gift. Nature, stern father that it is, has many children, and
those who have grown must be strong and self-sufficient, able to survive
and create again, without help or intercession.
There were others in the camp with lives and dreams and heartbreaks of
their own. And in the seemingly distant Valley, countless animal young
were being born, some who would rise to the magnificent freedom that
only an untamed creature of the Wild can know, some who would never
reach adulthood, their flesh sacrificed to feed the young of others.
But all would continue to strive and struggle, not understanding the
human concept of despair. And if the spirits of those who died returned
in other forms, or if the energy that constituted their existence was
merely recycled, it rose up to struggle again, filled with the endless
enigma that so bravely turns to face the Night, forever battling death
and the Void:
Desire, the cornerstone of Life.
*
On the day before the storm would break, Sylviana felt a stillness and
sense of well-being in everything around her: in the gentle breeze of
early morning, in the frolicking of the cub with David Rawlings, who
would never have been so free with a human companion.
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