Usually she slept well into the afternoon, but a horrible ache at her back and shivering that wracked her frame had awoken her before the first light of dawn. It was no secret that she had been ill even with her best efforts to hide it, apparent in her swollen limbs, wobbling gait, and the acrid scent she carried. For all the experience the advisor had, she knew little of what it would be like to die. Would it be in her sleep? Or would some mishap or fight take her? Would it be gruesome and painful or swift and painless. She had no idea, but something that morning was off. Even as a social pack animal, she instinctually craved solitude to suffer in peace. The pack had been kind to her, and none had challenged her to a fight for her rank that she would surely lose. They were her friends and family, and more, but she knew that she had to go.
As quietly as she could, she slipped past her sleeping packmates and out of the den. The pre-dawn darkness mattered little to her now, her vision already poor enough that most everything was already dark and indistinct. She had memorized by scent and touch how to move through the territory, but even then it was slow going. She could hardly walk, her arthritis and peculiarly wobbly hind limbs slowing her considerably. She was exhausted and insatiably thirsty, the mouthfuls of half melted snow almost not worth the trouble.
The long walk gave her much time to contemplate. She wondered how the pack would do come spring, whether the caches would take long to refill, if the den would flood again with the spring rains, whether Angier would make himself scarce like so many other males had. Of all the things she mulled over, she was avoiding the one thing that hung heavily over her head like an axe waiting to fall. She was going to die. She was leaving to die. She was stubborn, a fighter and not one to let her life be taken from her so easily. She had tried to hang on as long as she could and into the spring time, to see the snows melt, green life return to the forest, Elettra's new cubs. Skana had fought against her failing body so that she might see one last spring, but it was a fight she couldn't win.
She hadn't made it particularly far, having not even reached the borders, when her legs gave out and she fell, landing with a shocked yelp. She didn't even make an effort to rise, knowing it would be too much right now. She just barely managed to scoot herself closer to the base of the nearest tree, an old willow with a trunk thick with knobbled burls. She set her head down against the snow and pulled her long limbs in towards her, now so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open. She was afraid of what was to come, whether there would be something after, or simply nothing at all.
She heard a voice, familiar and faint as if from a great distance call for her. Skana could never forget Kawak's voice, and her tail flopped against the ground in a feeble wag. She let out a long sigh and closed her eyes for one last time.