This is Kes's mother.
Humans attacked her clan, killing them all, except for her and her only surviving cub. Even though she narrowly managed to escape, she was not unharmed. The humans had mortally wounded her with arrows and she used the last of her strength to escape the slaughter. She wandered aimlessly away from her home on the foothills for many miles up through the misty highlands, onto the vast hilly grasslands of the plateau.

One cold and dark winter's morning, after a rare snowstorm had ravaged the plateau the night before and left it blanketed in white, the wounded she-wolf stumbled into the Laheni clan's den. It was Duno, the Laheni medicine dog that spotted her first. The she-wolf stared blankly at Duno. Her eyes said only one thing: take my child, keep him safe. She then collapsed onto the cold snow. The Laheni atanis immediately rushed to her aid. But it was too late -- she was dead.

In her jaws, she still gently clutched a little atani cub. Yelping softly, unaware of the misfortune he has survived. Now it's up to the Laheni to decide on what to do with this helpless bundle of fur. It's yet another mouth to feed, and food is already in short supply. But inversely, it's another hunter, another gatherer, another able dog to assist the elders and the disabled.

After much bickering and squabbling, the clan ultimately decides to adopt the atani whelpling. Duno and Kanu, the two medicine dogs, hold a ceremony to initiate him into the clan, giving him the Laheni name of Keselong, or Kes for short, meaning 'one who overcomes hardship'.

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