days became weeks. red leaf did not return.
chakliux had exhausted his frequent searches in all corners of moontide. he had left word with @Dutch and @Simbelmyne thereafter, of the caribou woman's disappearance.
at last he sent himself away for longer, and jogged along the edge of the plateau as if he were a man holding a salt-spear, berrybright eyes hard in his resolution.
now he followed the faintest tinge of her trail, only remains of a track, truly. "@Red Leaf!" the seal hunter shouted into the slanting teeth of a storm. "you must come back!"

RE: seal paw - Red Leaf - July 04, 2024

>:D

she had been searching for days.
almost mindlessly, red leaf paced the cliffs just beyond moontide as if cen would be swept in by the ocean. she had gone briefly to the sentinels, and then over to the plains just to the west; still, she drew back to the cliffs and found nothing.
she had not eaten. she had not slept.
why had she told ghelan those things about him? she had poisoned her son against his own father, and now she was driven by an animalistic desire to — fix it. make it right. give her boy his family back.
get her husband back.
and yet there was this ever growing voice in the back of her mind that told her to let him go; rational mind fighting with the shackles which still wound themselves around her ankles. she had ignored this voice for days, bit it back as she let her throat go hoarse with endless crooned notes that she hoped and prayed would be recognized, and yet it would not cease. she began to listen to it, to allow it to take residence in her fragile mind.
perhaps coincidentally, it was around this time that chakliux had come to search for her.
she had sheltered herself beneath the coverage of large stonefaces, feet muddied with wet sand and loam. his was the first voice she had heard in what felt like an eternity. thunder roils behind her, nearly drowning the seal hunter out, but beneath it she heard the rumbling baritone and the coastal accent.
bitterly, she chooses not to answer.

RE: seal paw - Chakliux - July 04, 2024

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: mentions of DV/unalive attempt

there was no voice which lifted to greet his own. but she was here, his senses told him, even as the rain began to pound down upon the open cliffs and their muddied corners. there was something like a dirge upon the wind, a sound made in scratched throat which drew him across the churning sand and to the stone hovel where he glimpsed her dirty paws.
ensconced there, she made it impossible for the seal hunter to see more. he let out his breath in a relieved exhale, announcing with a louder step that he would come no further.
"red leaf. do you mean to die for this man?" she was still weak, barely recovered; now she had run off again.
chakliux hunched his shoulders against the downpour and twitched his ear forward for a reply, any reply.
surely she would not trade her existence for a man who —"he tried to drown you in the sea, red leaf. did he not do this?"

RE: seal paw - Red Leaf - July 04, 2024

you don't get it.
red leaf could not bring herself to look upon his handsome face, staring only down at the hefty paws which were half-visible from her hovel. her face scrunches into a pitiful scowl. you do not understand what it is like for me, chakliux. h-he had a hold on my soul, you know. he-- he owned me, my body, my claim, my spirit. i; her ears fall flat against the back of her head, her sodden feet suddenly pulled up toward her belly. i-i watched him break the amulet, when brave one was born, but that doesn't matter when you have blood on your hands.
but she was contradicting herself and her own thoughts, and this was evident in her tone. every day, every hour, she thought something different — it isn't my fault; i am paying my debt. he hurt me; i deserved it.
why was she still searching for him when he knew exactly where to find her?
he tried to drown you in the sea, red leaf.
you are nothing, red leaf.
i don't know why i do this, her voice is suddenly hollow, a husk of what it had been mere moments prior. i don't know how to stop.

RE: [m] seal paw - Chakliux - July 04, 2024

the seal hunter could admit he truly did not comprehend why red leaf found herself so attached to a man who seemed to loathe her. at least in passing was chakliux familiar with sharadoii ways, at least their rites of keeping amulets. he thought of the one she had made for him, hanging now from a lodgepole where every morning he saw its power.
"he does not own you now, red leaf. not your mind. not your body. not your spirit. the amulet is broken, and he was the one to do it." he tried to seek her eyes now, lowering his head in hope she would turn her face up to him. "there is power in this. that is two bonds he has broken."
would it take a third to see that cen did not care about her?
"you need something else to occupy his space in your mind. let this time be for you, for your needs. you are the only caribou hunter known to ghelan. teach him to be sharadoii. show him the freedom given when an amulet is broken."

RE: [m] seal paw - Red Leaf - July 04, 2024

why do you care so much, chakliux?
since the last time they spoke, red leaf had buried how she felt about his rejection deep in her mind. it came back to her now as their gazes met, a harpoon of shame aimed right for her chest; why did he come to her if he did not want her for her body? why else would another man involve himself with her?
the midnight hackles bristle, eyes glassy now with vulnerable tears. i am defiled. i-i am grieving the man who did so, and who you say i am better off without. and i have nothing to offer you. you do not-- want me, my body. so what is it, then? what do you gain from meddling in my troubles?
had he not done enough to embarrass her? did he not realize that this, too, hurt her, only in a different way?
did he not realize that he was still a man?

RE: [m] seal paw - Chakliux - July 05, 2024

it was never to be uttered, the first reason for his care: that on his word cen had been taken away. that because of him, red leaf was reduced to this salt-stained and agonized woman.
but there was more within chakliux than this. "i care that you have never known safety unless you paid for it." he held the scarlet storm of her stare. "you only need to exist for me to care. i do not want to take anything else from you, red leaf."
he lifted his chin. "you are not defiled. you have given cen all of you. but he cannot take everything that is yours."
she did not wish to come back, and chakliux knew he must return to those who relied upon him.
with a final look, he turned scarred shoulders in reluctant departure.

RE: [m] seal paw - Red Leaf - July 05, 2024

red leaf did not understand.
she need only exist for him to care? she did not exist to be saved! she was no damsel — was she? and regardless, it was unusual for a man to think this way about a woman. it was unusual for a man to be gentle to much of anyone. and yet here was chakliux, doing this out of the goodness of his own heart?
she almost could not believe him, but she wanted to.
if i must leave cen behind me, then i want to-- i want to make my own choices, for my son and i, she rises suddenly to her feet, crouching beneath the cover of the boulders. i do not want to be told what to do anymore. what to think. what to feel. i have been told this for-- for too long. but the problem with freedom was that too much at once could send her right back to where she started.
as he turns to leave, red leaf blurts out a garbled i will come back to moontide, darting from her shelter and diving toward his flank in an effort to shield her eyes from the storm. and i-i will... ask brave one if he would like to stay permanently.

RE: [m] seal paw - Chakliux - July 06, 2024

red leaf was quickly beside him, and chakliux set himself between her frailty and the rain, relief beaming from his eyes. "the lodge where you stay now, it is yours, red leaf. and akiak's as well. your voice is heard."
as they walked back toward moontide, chakliux kept his voice pitched low beneath the rumble of the summerstorm. he told to the caribou woman of her son's presence at the den where he had been born. he told her of tulugak, once of moonsong, now only of the moon people, returned with child and in fear of what was to come.
chakliux did not suggest that red leaf take on the role of supporting the other northwolf, but he felt silently that it might distract her at least in part from cen.

RE: [m] seal paw - Red Leaf - July 22, 2024

hers? had she ever had something that was just hers? her pale lashes flutter in what could only be described as bewilderment, the tears that once blazed down her cheeks beginning to dry as her expression pulls into a beam.
mine? she whispers, confirming it for herself a second time by repeating it. mine.
she had almost forgotten to thank him, pressing a gentle paw against his shoulder as she does so before peeling it away all too quickly. brave one will get used to it in time, her smile turns sad again, twisting downward at the corners of her mouth, a mere ghost of what it had been a moment ago. i, um-- i told him some things, recently. about his father. h-he hardly even knows the man, but... i think i have somehow turned my son against him, and it... scares me. because what if he does come back? wh-what will he do to--
she cannot bring herself to voice the rest of her thought. i just wish he had a father.
tulugak was a name she'd never heard before. an expecting mother, going alone, just as red leaf had. it makes her feel a strange way; what had happened to her husband, or whoever it was that she'd coupled with? i'm afraid i wouldn't have any good advice for her, she laughs self-deprecatingly. what do you think i would say? 'don't do anything i did?'

RE: [m] seal paw - Chakliux - August 20, 2024

"tell her that men are not worth her pursuit," chakliux offered, not wishing for red leaf to be so harsh upon herself. the fault lay with cen, and with men such as that caribou hunter. he did not know the circumstances of tulugak, only that she had not wished the same as red leaf: to be a mother.
"cen does not deserve to know akiak," the seal hunter intoned. "it is good that he sees now who his father is. he wants to be sharadoii, red leaf. let him."
it was not for her to repair their bond.
in more relaxation, he hoped, chakliux and red leaf came to the lodges.