The blizzard was large and was seeming to hit Columbia Falls and the general area with all its might. The late afternoon had been somewhat quiet for Molly and I as we stayed in our cabin. Outside it, we could see how rough things were rapidly becoming. The wind continued to blow hard and snow continued to come down. It was coming down so hard, in fact, that it would sting one's hands and skin if one was out in it. In fact, Molly and I could even feel it through our fur when we had walked home. As I watched the blizzard rage outside, I found myself rubbing my paw-like hands as if to warm them... as if I were stuck out there in it.
"We were lucky to make it inside," I said to Molly, who had moved to the kitchen to begin work on dinner, just in case the blizzard took out a power-line somewhere, "the drifts are rising higher..."
The threat of a power outage wasn't that much of a threat to Molly and I from the sense of being able to see. Our eyes, after our respective transformations, were perfectly adapted to seeing in low light conditions. And with the exception of our bathroom and the garage, our cabin had enough windows that even if we lost our electric lights, during the day we would still get plenty of natural light. That would enable us to see well enough. The concern that we had when it came to our electrical power would have been the preservation of various foods that we kept in our refrigerator and deep freeze. If the power went out, there could be the threat that all our meat, cheese, eggs, or milk would go bad.
"What will we do if the power goes out, George?" Molly asked from the kitchen, "something could go bad..."
"With as cold as things are outside, I'd think we could just put things in the garage," I answered to Molly and made my way toward the kitchen, "that area isn't heated and will probably feel very cold."
That would be the one plus of a power outage. The outside air was cold enough that things that could spoil would not get warm. They would stay cold.
"And you think that would last until power could be restored... IF the power goes out?" Molly wondered nervously.
"I'd believe so," I nodded, "The temperature out there can't be very warm considering how much snow is coming down."
I watched Molly sigh briefly and then return to moving to get our dinner ready. There were things she was worried about concerning the blizzard, and of course I was worried about many of the same things. Would Dave's vines survive? And what about Amos? He had managed to get around the problems that he and Marcella would face when it came to the Animatrix Serum. He had become a tomcat for her. His problem was that the breed he chose, a Snowshoe, was not a long haired breed, and Molly and could see him shivering a bit from the cold when he and Marcella came up to Bandhavgarh.
Marcella seemed to be okay, and we figured she would do fine... but Marcella was a Maine Coon, a long haired breed from Maine. In terms of evolution, her breed was bred to withstand cold weather. Amos, however, wasn't. Snowshoes were named because their feet were four white socks and had been bred from the Siamese Cat. Siamese Cats originated in Siam... or Thailand, depending on the name you used. But whichever name, Thailand was a low laying jungle country. As a result, Siamese Cats and Snowshoe Cats had short fur, and thus, Amos had short fur. This blizzard could potentially be hard on him.
On some level it was hard on Molly and I too, the Bengal Tiger would only encounter weather like this in the wild among a few that wandered further up into the Himalayas in Nepal or Bhutan, but that was uncommon. As a result Molly and I could feel the cold as well. Our fur had grown slightly thicker for the winter, and our size would be enough that we could withstand the cold, but that didn't make it easy. The only tiger that naturally endured weather such as this was the Siberian, and I'd remember seeing something that even they suffered from things like frostbite at times.
"We'll be okay," I said to Molly, "we're inside. Our heaters are running and aren't dependent on the electric power grid. We'll make it through this and it will not harm you or our cubs."
That might be the thing that Molly was the most worried about. We were on our way to starting a family. Molly had been in heat over Christmas break and we believed we had achieved the conception of cubs on Christmas. They wouldn't be due to June or July, and we wouldn't be able to actually confirm medically that Molly was pregnant until the end of January. And a lot of that brought its own complications that we had to wrestle with.
"What if something happens?" Molly answered, "what if something goes wrong. We won't be able to get to Kalispell in this... and even an ER nurse couldn't make it up here from the clinic in this."
"Nothing will go wrong," I answered and pulled her into a hug, nuzzling her as hard as I could, doing anything that might ease her worries over this.
This cold wouldn't be good for young cubs. They would surely freeze in this, but Molly was only in the early part of her first month. The threat of our children freezing to death wasn't there. The problems we had had more to do with transport to where we could see an obstetrician was. Molly and I would need to go to Kalispell to see one and would likely need a new vehicle to get there. That left us looking at possible new vehicles that hopefully we could drive.
And of late, various automotive companies were starting to sell vehicles for the various species of Animal People out there. GM was advertising a vehicle they were calling the Furtopia which was supposed to be a specially built series of cars that were large enough to allow an Animal Person to drive them. According to what Molly and learned from Patten, Ford and Toyota were looking to adapt a series of vans that were already larger then the standard minivan to do the job. Research on them that we had done, had shown that the Ford Transit was even adapted to being the carrying chassis for non-towed camper and various other things, including ambulances. We couldn't make final choices on those things though, until the blizzard was over and the roads were clear.
And because of this, I was left with trying to keep Molly's spirits up.
"Everything will be fine," I said to her, "You'll see."
And as the storm raged outside, I hoped I was right.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We didn't lose power during the rest of the day. The storm continued to rage outside of our cabin, as Molly and I worked to finish dinner. By the time we'd finished cooking and were ready to eat, the drifts outside had begun to reach the outside windows on our ground floor.
"Do you think our windows will last?" Molly asked as she set the large platters of meat on our dining table.
"So far... I'd say yes," I assured her, "It's a lot of snow, but a lot of it has seemed to very light snow. We may need to shovel it away from the windows when the blizzard stops to make sure nothing melts through the cracks between the window and the frame... but that'll be latter."
Molly slowly nodded and we settled in to eating dinner. It was fairly early for us, but with the possibility of the power going out because of the blizzard, eating early wasn't an issue. There wasn't much that we could really do about the storm. Not unless we could build a giant wind shield around Columbia Falls... and we didn't have enough of the raw materials. We ate in silence and listened to the wind howl outside our cabin.
After dinner, Molly watched a bit of the local news. There wasn't much, but it was enough to learn what we already knew. The blizzard was coming hard didn't look like it would abate overnight or during the next day. Much of this seemed to be because a shift in the jet stream that sent the bulk of the blizzard in our direction in the first place. The westward motion of the wind brought humidity from the Pacific into the northern Rocky Mountain states and with the jet stream blowing to the south of us, cold air from Canada mixed with this to fuel the blizzard. This lead to a fairly poor forecast.
At present they expected the blizzard to rage through tomorrow evening, and it would be then that the worst of it would have passed. At least that was their prediction, but then they could be wrong. They had originally thought that the bulk of the storm would miss us, if not the entire storm missing us altogether. Hopefully our luck would change a bit in terms of long term projections and the blizzard would "blow through" when they expected it to.
"We'll be okay," I said to Molly, making sure she didn't lose any confidence.
"You've said that more then enough times, George," Molly replied, shutting off the television.
"Do you believe it yet?" I asked back.
"I hope you're right," Molly corrected, "seeing everything out there, however, is not conducive to believing it."
"Then I'll keep repeating it until you believe it," I hugged her to me, "we have to stay confident. We got through everything Beauregard and R.A.M. threw at us. We can get through this."
Molly only hugged me back. She may not feel confident, but I could tell she hadn't lost her love for me. I figured that would be a start to getting through the blizzard.
"We should go to bed," I commented, "hopefully things will look better in the morning."
"Hopefully... though I'd like to check my Email... before the power goes out," Molly nodded slowly, "Do you mind?"
I shook my head.
"Not at all," I told her, "maybe someone will have good news... like the local weathermen are wrong on how long this storm will last."
With that we got up and made our way to the stairs. It was fairly early. Earlier then we normally went to bed, but the storm had left us with few options. Things on the news were fairly depressing when it came to the weather and watching the storms outside our cabin only reinforced that. Getting a little sleep was our only other option.
While I readied myself for bed, Molly turned on the computer we shared and I could soon hear the sound of the dial-up connection being made. Even the bathroom with the sink water running while I was brushing my teeth, its sound was easily audible. When I returned to the bedroom, Molly was already at her Email and was deleting some things that she didn't want in her "inbox".
"Anything interesting?" I asked as I sat my side of our bed.
"There isn't much there besides junk mail," Molly answered, "the biggest thing is something from Leon and Jacki, which I haven't gotten to yet."
"Leon and Jacki..." I mused for a moment, "Jacki must have had her cubs. They had said they'd send us photos when the cubs were born."
Molly gave as soft a "squeal of excitement" that she could manage and I watched as she clicked on the message that appeared to be from Jacki's Email address, though I couldn't quite tell as the new page began to load when I looked over to the screen. I slowly made my way over to the desk and looked over Molly's shoulder. After a few moments, the Email came up and we both began reading.
The Email read: "They arrived four days ago, and I am now able to send you this update. I, Jacki Washburn, am now the proud mother of the three cutest Lion cubs you will ever see. There are two females and one male. The eldest female is Molly Rhoer Washburn, in your honor, Molly. The male is George Wayne Washburn, in your husband's honor... and for all that both of you had done for us. The youngest female is Beatrice May Washburn. All are extremely cute, even if their eyes are still closed. Hopefully this Email finds you both on the way to becoming proud parents yourselves and that you're as happy as I am."
"Jacki has given birth!" Molly gasped in surprise and almost in joy.
"And named one daughter and one son after us, it seems," I commented.
We then continued reading as there was a small "PS" at the bottom of the email. It read: "Also, I'm sure you already know this, Molly, but I'll give you a short warning anyway... Labor hurts and takes forever! By the time Beatrice was born, I had been in labor for a full twenty four hours! Leon was there through it all, though he complains that I broke his hand. I know he's lying there, because I could see him writing something after our cubs were born... and even though it hurt, seeing them makes me happy. It is worth it. All the pain of labor will be worth to see your cubs... completely worth it."
"And it seems that she's doing well enough," I commented.
"Yes," Molly nodded, "and there are a couple of attachments!"
Molly then moved on to the the attachments. There were four of them. The first Molly clicked on was called "Baby George". When the picture came up it showed a little reddish colored male lion cub. His eyes were squeezed shut and was under a blue blanket. His fur had been dried after being born and looked very soft and fluffy in a way. Molly then went through the next two which were titled "Baby Molly" and "Baby Beatrice". They both looked fairly close to what "Baby George" looked like, little bundles of soft fur, though both female cubs had Leon's fur coloring, which was a blondish pale yellow color as opposed to Jacki's reddish shade. All of their colorings matched the coloring of Lions in the wild, which showed just how different many Lions looked.
"So cute," Molly said.
"Yes, yes they are," I agreed, "Ours will be cuter."
"How do you know?" Molly wondered, sounding curious above anything else.
"Because they'll be ours," I answered, "they'll have their own stripes and will have your beauty."
"What about you?"
"Why would you want them to look like me?" I asked back.
"Because you're handsome... strong... and MINE," Molly smiled back as she began to log off. Once that was done, she shut the computer off and gave me a firm hug, nearly tackling me back onto the bed. "I love you so much, George."
"I love you too," I nuzzled her back.