Commission by WayfinderWolf

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Dagskwerhe never knew butterflies as a youth. It wasn't until he wandered away from his tribe—whether by choice or compulsion, he would never recount—that he finally chanced to see them.

They were all foreigners in a way. They were at the northernmost extent of their range. He was the farthest south an arctic smilodon had ever been. But neither cat nor insect really knew that.

They flitted like silent sirens in the still air. They seemed to be inviting him to lie down, to take his rest.

He had been journeying for a long time, and he was weary beyond telling. The grassland was peaceful, but all that meant was that nothing was stirring that he could eat. In such a place, death from hunger, death from thirst, were never far behind.

The day would surely come when he would lay his head down for the last time and nourish the soil that gave life to ones such as these.

But his attention was drawn instead to the lone hoof print where the silent ones gathered. The prey had been here. It had drank from the small puddle, then moved on. It could not afford to rest. And as long as there was a chance that he could catch up to it while it was still alive, neither could he.

Such a man knows that death and new life are always, forever, intertwined.