Twitching his round ears, Dash steps around the couple, walks over to the door and looks directly at his female with a smile. "Lucy they're almost here".  

Lucy stops reprimanding Jack and beams at the news. "Oh good," she whispers, then she exclaims loudly, "my babies are here!". Though her back was turned to the door, I was able to sneak a peek at Jack giving papa bear a thankful head nod. 

With me still being held in her arms, she bounces with happy steps toward the outside of our stone house. Well, this has been a way for me to feel the wind in my ears, but I don't recommend it when full. Mama and I learned that the hardy way. Anyway, since it's colder outside, mother hugs me closer to her chest. Lifting her face,she twitches her nose to the air and asks, "Jack, do you see them? I can smell them, but they feel so far away. Are my babies okay? Dash, are my babies bleeding?". Having questions being fired after another, even I can tell mama is starting to worry. Dash stands to her right, places a bigger fur blanket on top of her, which ends up covering most of her and all of me. I then feel an added weight on mama's shoulder, papa gives hera a light squeeze and says, "they're fine." 

Quickly letting my face out of the fur blanket, I see papa Jack walking over to her left. He then leans his head toward her and gives her a soft smile, "I see no great injuries. The cubs are strong." 

"Remember Lucy, they're also hunting with Chris," adds Dash. 

Mother doesn't reply and remains silent. 

Since she and papas are just standing still. I decided to see if my nose could pick them up. Well, I also wanted to exercise these limbs. I mean, being carried is fine and all but I want to explore, though not exactly wanting to be placed on the snow. See, being stuck in the house since birth can be boring. Thankfully for the first three months I mostly spent it eating, sleeping, and yes, pooping. You don't wanna know with what I was cleaned with. Let's just say that when I became aware as to what was cleaning my behind, I put them up to enough struggles to make them try another way. 

Anyway, here goes nothing. Pushing mama's fur coat further out of my face, I turned to where they were staring and saw... nothing. White, just white everywhere, with a few green trees sprouting over the horizon. Okay papa did say not to close your eyes, but come on! And so defying papa's recent lecture, I closed my eyes and sniffed. 

Ack!! Euww!! What's this smell?? This small nose is definitely potent, but why does this fur smell so strong! Which papa rolled in it? Hold on, roll..Um, yeah.. nevermind, I don't want to know...  

Wrinkling my forehead, I decided to ignore this pungent smell and try again. Twitching my nose like mama did recently, I skipped over the usual smells like trees, rocks, and more trees, and I think I caught onto something musky, sweaty, and what seems like iron. I think I can smell papa Chris's pine-like smell and my devious brothers' grimy sweats along with...! My mouth starts to water and I immediately open my eyes. Food!

Lucy came out of her dwelling thoughts when she felt the bundle in her arms forcefully move forward. Dash, taking a side view at his cub's outstretched arms lets out a loud hearty laugh, "she definitely inherited my appetite!" Lucy looks down, gives a warm smile, and quickly looks up to see one big flurry object followed by three smaller ones. "Finally," she says softly. 

It's here, it's here!! Fresh meat!! Come to mama!! It's getting closer and I can now imagine eating fresh meat instead of wooden sticks. Sigh, I can now see it. The bigger figure is running gracefully with a buck in its mouth. That prey is by no means small, it's actually about papa bear's male height. Thankfully Chris's snow leopard is huge. Not normal zoo animal huge, but prehistoric huge. Compared to the glimpses of my past life, every animal in this world so far exceeds the normal size. Thankfully mother's males are big and strong enough to hunt for big games. Behind him I see the diablitos. They're also snow leopards but smaller in size. Each one is carrying a different prey. Ummm, I think we're having chicken tonight, hehehe.  

Seeing that they're nearer, mother straightens and replaces her relieved face with a calm one. If it were me coming with, let's say a flower, she would beam and give me kisses on the cheek. However, since it's her male cubs, it seems like there's a silent law where mothers can't express their love too much to them. Over hearing papas late night talks, this relationship is to make sure that the cubs would grow up independent and strong. 

This world is very biased toward females. In the sense that we are to be protected, to be cuddled, to be placed on a pedestal higher than the males. Well, that's what I got so far from seeing the goings on in our house. I mean, a female living with five grown males, and having an armonously romantic relationship with them seems like the norm in this world. Hey, I'm not complaining. Like papa bear said, I inherited his appetite. And I'm afraid of one day that I'll have to go hunting. Sigh, just look at my brothers... they're practically beaten up.