Huddled under a leaf blanket in a pebble cave sleeps the queen. Her fur is not thick enough to keep her warm but she is the last hope for her people, so she does not allow the frost to permeate her dream.
Her diaphonous wings twitch as she dreams of flight. She remembers taking to the air with her sisters beside her, the warm sun glinting from those thin and agile membranes.
Her sisters are all dead now, but she does not allow that grief to pierce her. They died for the children. And the children will come soon.
But first she must sleep the long sleep. The hardest part of being queen. And then will come spring, and renewal, and the children.
And a new queen and her sisters will take to the air like gold-spun dandelion-fluff and she will know that she did her duty well.
The wind howls, bitterly cold, but the queen dreams on.