Mature Content Warning

the stiff muscles of his back knotted in anger and surprise as the passionate voice of his wife rose behind him. cen did not turn his eyes on red leaf, but he was still, eyes fixed unseeingly on the nearby sprawl of the trees which marked the edge of the plateau.

ghaden! he had held so much of gheli in him; her smile, her eyes, the way the boy put his head to one side when questioning his father. had cen ever laughed so much? when was the last time he had grinned in genuine joy? red leaf; he had thought her dancing eyes and sweet softness might ease him, might return that joy to his heart.

and for a time, she had. those days after gheli's death, cen had thought he might follow her. red leaf had danced with him when he had come to her valley, had guided him, had taught him sharadoii and loved ghaden.

yes. she had. the caribou hunter had never recognized it but he had always known it. red leaf had adored ghaden as deeply as if she had nurtured him with her own body. her screams of pain and pleading rent his ears again. 

it had been his uncles who had dragged her back; the hunters returned, the lanzadoii ringing red leaf and claiming that ghaden's death had been a punishment, an act of vengeance. cen had not understood; he had shoved his way to the front of their crowd to demand why the accusations had been leveled against his wife.

long ago black stick had raided a lanzadoii camp as part of initiation from boy to man. such raids were more good-natured than anything, for in the end they were all caribou. but the chieftain of that camp had not welcomed the insult, and took a war party after the sharadoii boys shortly thereafter. in the fray, startled caribou yearlings confused as to why they were truly fighting, a sharadoii wolf had been killed, cen's relative explained. he was grey stone, a hunter on his first raid, and ghaden's age. the shedding of blood during a boy's raid had not been forgotten.

it was then that cen found out his marriage to red leaf had been arranged, something he had never told her. yet while their meeting had not been organic, the feeling he felt for her was. surely his lanzadoii kin did not think that his wife, born generations after that conflict, had carried a blood feud forward?

tsaani had scoffed. cen had been gone trading for a long while, all his life. he had not stayed to know the politics of the caribou people, how inside factions they are divided into bands, how cen's father had been born to bitterbrush clan and so his sons were also. black stick's mother was round horn clan. now there was a blood debt between them, and if cen had not been so mired in grief for gheli and desire for red leaf, he might have questioned! might have questioned why a chieftain of the round horn had offered his daughter to a bitterbrush man. it had been a marriage made away from the lanzadoii and out from under the oversight of elders. and now cen had put them all into a mess.

red leaf was accused of carrying out the blood vengeance of her clan. ghaden's death paid for that of grey stone. 

after that, there had been an uproar. cen had refused to let them drag red leaf away for her own demise. all their words thus far had been in lanzadoii, even as his wife cowered; would this not only enrage round horn again? if black stick sent red leaf here to do this, he knows what we would do to her. and he would see justification in bringing warriors over the glacier, this time not as a boy's raid but as a war.

but the lanzadoii elders had said that only blood repaid blood, and if blood must be repaid for years, the lanzadoii must be the final ones to stand. if black stick wished to lose a daughter as well as a half-forgotten boy, then it would be done.

but cen had not let it happen. then i will leave. i will leave bitterbrush and i strike the name of sharadoii from red leaf. i will teach her new ways. the right ways. but i will never come back. then black stick has no reason to strike again. he has taken my son, if this is correct, but i will have his lineage.

the caribou hunter blinked, returning to this moment; his wife spoke of her hurts but not once had he ever told her of what he had surrendered to have her. if he asked of her black stick now she would only lie, her beautiful eyes flying wide and tearful —

"i should have left you with the sharadoii." his voice was quiet. "i do not have time for you to learn as slowly as you have. our children should have been born beside the caribou. but you were not ready." a weary sigh; he thought of ghaden. "i also do not wish to lose more children. so i bring you here, red leaf. you are not strong enough to be without others. i do not want you to die either trying to birth as a lanzadoii woman."

for her he had given up the glacier, the grave of his wife, the home of his people, and the name of his clan. now he even gave up the caribou march for her. and she spoke of her hurts.

resentment ate inside him. cen said nothing else, only began to walk once more.