sulukinak stole through moontide in the early evening, running through the creeping shadow that fell slowly but steadily along the beach; golden hour was over, the sky had blushed its final roseate glow, and she moved across the sand a little slower than usual.
as the sea swept close she let the foam unfurl and catch her toes. she carried roses with her from the weald, bundled carefully with moss and a wreath of fern.
her face was scratched up from her previous discovery of the rose briars, and the salted wind made her acutely aware of the fact. she moved sluggishly over the sand and with a scowl that didn't usually exist upon her face.
since
@Red Leaf's delivery, cen had not been close. he brought food to his wife. he did not look into her den. if the village women were close, he gratefully left her to them, bringing offerings of fish as well.
he had not built red leaf a birthing shelter. he had not seen his children born to the heavens.
he had failed her also.
to atone, cen pitted himself against the caribou gathered in the bays and the shoreline, harrying them until they ran along the sand. so focused was the hunter that he did not notice the smudge of shadow against the coastal dunes.
if she heard the approaching thunder of the herd she gave no indication. their bulky bodies moved together; sulukinak was far enough from them that sea spray frothed at her and the roar of the tide was a distraction.
her thoughts were focused on the look held by her dutch man. there had been horror there, she was sure of it. distrust maybe. not the understanding she had hoped for—and she felt alienated after having shared her questions, and after being corrected.
the hold upon the briars briefly strengthened and she tasted blood where the thorns pierced at her lips.
sulukinak finally drew away from the water's edge to seek the silence of the upper beach, and in doing so she stepped directly in to the path of running caribou whose approach had been hidden from her.
immediately there was a flourish of red as she ducked and tried to weave among their reaching limbs; not blood, but a plume of rose petal. thorns wrapped around the heel of one caribou; sulukinak found herself swiftly arriving on the other side of the stamping limbs, cantering and pulling away from them to safety.
it helped to be nimble—but otherwise she looked as spooked as the crowned creatures, unaware of how she'd managed it.
roses were crushed inexplicably beneath hooves.
cen shouted and dodged, and broke away from the caribou. he panted, tongue lolling, and came up alongside the woman.
her scent was mingled, that of moontide and a deep forest. he was curious, but focused upon the caribou. as their number parted he saw another downed elder, and dove to catch hold and bite, heedless of the ruminants which sprang away from his approach.
with no evident regard to his own safety there was a man charging after the caribou, to one elder which had fallen. while it struggled to rise again the man was upon it!
sulukinak did not know if she should flee or stay, and found herself lingering, then chasing after the man as he sought this vulnerable creature.
it was impressive.
sulukinak had never seen anyone hunt such giant creatures, especially alone, and was enthralled as he sought the throat.
wanting now to be of use, she charged to the head of the creature and snapped her teeth to worry it; of course nothing would distract the caribou from its imminent death.
his awareness registered the woman close as he grabbed the ailing neck. cen throttled the caribou hard on the sand, dodging his lower body to and fro to avoid the cutting hooves.
it gasped and struggled and at last ebbed upon the shoreline.
cen's shoulders hurt, and his ribs; he let the head of the caribou elder fall back upon the duneland and fell to his haunches, breathing in great draughts of breath with a wincing beneath the hard lines of his face.
the creature died.
it could not even scream, though it tried to, and all sulukinak could hear was the strangle of the wolf's jaws.
the man throttled the thing until it would not move again. as he paced, sulukinak moved with frenetic energy around the body of it, alert as if it might strike or rise; but when it didn't, she turned her attention to the man—then to the herd as it retreated further from the two wolves.
her heart raced.
when cen could breathe again, he cut his eyes toward the shadow. sunless she was, with strong legs and a willful, energetic look to her movements.
the caribou breathed its last.
cen drew in her scent. he became aware of another hunger, one unfed for several weeks now, and wondered if this village had such ways of hospitality. but until he knew, he would say nothing.
"you are a runner," cen observed, tentative as he spoke lanzadoii.
slowly the man stopped his panting. when he spoke, one of sulukinak's ears lifted and went forward to catch his voice.
she was immediately taken by his language—it was very close to that of her mother. because of this, her full attention focused upon him.
she moved closer in her slinking, feline way.
and you are strong.
how had he done that? taken an entire caribou down with only the force of his will?
do you come from the everdark?
the structure of her language widened his eyes. it was similar to his own; he eagerly plucked out meaning, hungry for speech he did not need to translate.
"not everdark," he hurried, his lanzadoii accent making his words heavy. "from long plains."
a breathless thought came to cen then. "you are sharadoii?"
but no; she was not.
the eyes studied the dark-wolf.
"are you muradoii?"
he was not from the land of ice and darkness, and that knowledge made something within sulukinak deflate.
he used words she did not know. they were pretty sounding and as a result her head tilted one way, then another; but then she shook her head and dropped her eyes.
the confusion was stronger but it was something sulukinak warred with alone. she could try other things—and she mentions next, i am called sulukinak. my mother is nukilik, a shaman.
what else?
my father's name was - aniktuktun?
she had to think on this as she said it. her mother had only shared this information one time, during the worst night of sulukinak's life.
it was hard to think back to that. her spine straightens as she speaks, and yet her eyes appear far away.
the caribou man's eyes shone. "aniktuktun is one of my uncles."
sulukinak. was she a knife? he had not seen her cut before. "we are cousins," cen said gruffly, wondering where his uncle's people had lived. had they remained lanzadoii? perhaps they had married seal hunters and that was why they moved away.
he stared at her with new eyes, as if committing each detail of her dark face to his memories. "your mother — my mother told me she was crazed."
uncle was not a word she knew, but she heard the connection there, and was pleased enough with it.
having only her dutch man was alright but now he had a wife in simbelmyne, a brother in chakliux, cousins and sisters and children on the way; all that sulukinak had was herself, it felt like.
now, this man.
he spoke of nukilik as if he held any right to. sulukinak wanted to defend her immediately. what did a man know about the workings of spirits? of the magic of the deep sea? her fur bristles and her face tightens.
you are rude.
her front teeth flash. the fur along her spine has puffed and given her the look of a cat trying to look bigger than it is.
she moves away from him to the caribou and probes it with her snout. grasping at an ear, sulukinak tugs at it and then sniffs at its face, where they eyes have become glassy.
his own white teeth flashed now in a grin. "i am lanzadoii. we speak directly. do not think she is a reflection on you." she investigated the caribou and he allowed it, feeling rather proud of having taken its life. "i am strong. you are right in this too, sulukinak."
he gestured to the limp forelegs. "you may take its dewclaws. were you taught that they were sacred, cousin?" cen asked, slightly mocking as he stepped forward to turn, to show her the sharp pieces of hoof needing to be cut from the rest of the leg. "take them. they are a gift."
his directness was something she must have inherited. it was a facet she usually would appreciate, but the girl's relationship with her mother was a strange one, and she did not know how she felt about the way he spoke of her.
crazed was right; but she would not admit it. the magic held by her mother, weaponized, was not something sulukinak could hope to understand and her fear of it flavored much of her thoughts.
the dewclaw?
we hunted seals,
which was not the whole truth. they had only ever found dead ones, feasting on what was leftover. i did not see this sort of creature until... recently, as recent as the last few moons.
what would he make of that?
i have brothers. had. i have not seen them in many days.
he did not need this information, but she was open with it anyway. since the man cen knew of nukilik, perhaps he had seen these boys.
cen shook his head, squatting upon his haunches beside sulukinak as she surveyed the cooling caribou carcass. "i know only the names you have said. never have i met a child of aniktuktun until now. if he had sons, i did not know them."
as the story went, the shaman nukilik had possessed aniktuktun and carried him off to the black ice. "bah! do not tell me you lived like those reeking fish-eaters who call themselves seal hunters," cen groused. "look. now you have me to bring you meat. eat it. you should be among your own people anyway, sulukinak," cen said firmly, taking charge of the situation and of her in the only show of affection he knew how to make. "why do you not live in the sea-village?"
again she felt something weaken in her spirit, to know her brothers were still lost, and that she was alone.
he spoke poorly of seal hunters and briefly sulukinak felt doubt; not for him, not even for herself, but for her dutch man who had found comraderie with a seal hunter's family. it was the sort of fickle opinion of a child, which she felt like often.
this man was closer to being family than any other she knew, which sulukinak could not help but adhere herself to. even dutch, as a father or brother figure, was not truly her blood, nor did he understand the everdark the way this man might.
there is a man, dutch, who is my friend. he is chief to my village. we came to visit friends when our own village shrank—and now he has a wife.
these things flowed from sulukinak.
so did an exasperated tone, almost like annoyance.
the caribou-man has many wives, too.
"seal hunters are animals who cannot stay loyal to one woman," cen declared with proud disgust. "they share their women also. i would never offer my woman to another man, not in the way i would offer a slave," he added casually, not thinking of how shocked his cousin might be to know his people sometimes kept women after raids.
dutch. "what kind of man is he?" cen asked, eyes slitting. this chieftain did not sound to be one of them; therefore the caribou hunter did not know what he could do, and disliked already that a man had made "friends" with his cousin. "take care he does not make you a second wife when the time comes."
share wives? this thought had never entered her mind before, but she held it now, and she thought of the visits to the lodge and the women there. how even now dutch would go to the lodge to visit his brother chakliux, and sometimes return smelling of women and children.
it was hard enough to have watched her man with simbelmyne, or to hear him talk of her in that familiar way. what if he had other wives? what if he shared his women with chakliux? her features darkened with a stronger doubt as she processed this possibility.
cen warned her.
i am not his wife. he cannot take a piece of me, or share me.
besides, their numbers were so low, unless he were to give sulukinak away to valiant. she felt her stomach drop.
he is a kind man. he holds many stories, and is very wise. but he does not have the spirits with him - not in the way of my mother.
she was reminded of his horror.
a pause, as sulukinak regards the gifts from cen.
do your people know of the harvest?
her voice is small, as if to be careful, or to hold fast to her nerves.
"the only harvest i know is this," cen said, lifting a paw toward the caribou. she seemed determined that this man was only a companion who could not have her. but the hunter knew men; he knew the hearts of men.
it did not matter if this dutch-wolf had none of nukilik's spirit power. he could possess sulukinak all the same if he wanted. cen told himself it was protectiveness that turned his mind to how he might separate her from all these people and bring her with them when they left moontide. but it was his own jealousy, not for her flesh but for the fact that a man who was not caribou lingered too close to a woman with his own blood.
"tell me of your harvest," cen grunted, shoving aside all words about this dutch.
he did not know.
dutch had not either, and then wanted to send her to a spirit-talker.
sulukinak withheld. she came up with another answer on the spot which hopefully would suffice:
the gathering of sea, earth, and air. seal fat, deer skins, bird feathers. it is a spell taught by my mother.
she does not look to cen or the caribou now, but out towards the sea.
sometimes i miss her, and the everdark. this place is busy. it is loud. the people are not like me.
and sometimes she would wonder if the dark rite that nukilik tried to enact, should have been allowed to happen.
this she does not share.
the caribou hunter did not believe sulukinak, but neither did he press. "help me butcher this," he ordered as if she were any other lanzadoii woman. cen was eager to have his kill cached and news of his exploit spread through the village. it would give him needed prestige, one he did not have as long as he could not speak their words.
"i agree it is busy, and loud, but you have three places to be among the caribou hunters. the dark ice is the place of the muradoii. the rich valley is the place of the sharadoii. and my place is on the great march with the other lanzadoii."
cen looked piercingly at sulukinak. "it can be your place also."
nobody ordered her. it was simply not done. dutch was not so forceful, and there were few others among them. the order surprised sulukinak and caught in the net of her psyche.
she moved immediately to the caribou and began to cut with teeth, pull at hide, strip the meat.
her shoulders bunched. sulukinak's body sloped with her hips high as she levied her slender figure against the weight of the dead elder.
the man spoke of people, of places. an offer came which sulukinak did hear but she was busy with work, and would not answer.
he saw again that she was strong. as cen did not know if sulukinak could dry the meat herself, he took strips as she laid them aside, lining them on the bloodied hide which he had peeled from the carcass.
he waved a paw to indicate that the meat should be carried, then spread out in the sun for several days.
he pointed to the dewclaws, pleased by the blood beside the sea, the red on them both. it had been a good hunt.
tearing the hide off of a creature was not hard for sulukinak. it had been a rare occasion but a celebratory one when her family had found seals, half-eaten already, and she would have to find a way to draw out the value of those carcasses; as whip-thin as she was, the flesh she held upon her figure was corded muscle that hid a certain kind of strength. in this case, she was appropriately suited for the work.
the strips of meat lined the grass. when the work was mostly done (granted there would be days and days worth of cutting for the others of moontide, if they found the carcass) sulukinak eased off, settling back on her haunches, and breathed deeply. the taste of blood was everything in this moment; she did not smell the salt of the ocean, she did not taste the musk of the caribou's hide. blood, and only blood.
when this moment passed, she moved to gather the meat and carry as much as she could.
she looked to cen for direction now; he had proven himself capable as a leader to her, or at least as some form of parental figure (an uncle her mind repeated), so if he told her where to go she would listen.