Duck Lake blue heron

saatsine killed and ate well. pelts began to gather, pinned upon the ground with long branches, stretched between stones. these would be of use in trade to others, though sun eater did not want to be overburdened. sunlight stood in cold relief over a land readying for snow.

among the many thousands of caribou which crossed the sunspire mountains, intent upon the taiga's thick brackenwood, new life was sired as last breaths were taken. a gathering of caribou along the lakeshore left behind one of their number as they trotted to rejoin a larger herd.

a half-dead yearling male tried to rise, gouged and broken from where he had attempted to thwart an older bull for his harem. such was the way; sometimes the young were triumphant, but more often than not was such foolishness repaid by death.

sun eater was a dark, darting figure; he dashed between retreating hooves of panicked animals and seized the throat of the downed bull, dragging him with hard jerks half into the water itself.

Redd watched.

She had taken to calling him Quiet Storm in her mind.  She had not understood the name given to her, and silently, the brooding presence he wore carried more of the energy of storm than sun.  Her curiosity about which suns he had eaten went unvoiced for now.

She was poised to intervene but waited, knowing the buck would thrash.  If he could hold it then he was best positioned to subdue it without injury. She would intervene if his hold was broken or additional teeth were needed.

nostrils of his own dipped beneath the surface. sun eater bit harder and held his breath, allowing the creature to kick lakewater into bloodstained foam.

its struggles weakened, body already at a breaking point from the earlier conflict. the lanzadoii man surfaced with a gasp, streaming water, gulping breath into his lungs.

caribou's head bobbed silently on the water now, mouth parted to expose the flat grass-eating teeth. fur streaming, sun eater turned his head to watch red-painted-huntress. silent in support, she waited.

after a moment's pass, he gestured her closer. they would yank the caribou from the water and eat while its fellows watched with limpid, acceptant eyes.

The caribou had fallen prey to its nature.  To compete, and to divide, meant to fall to stronger teeth.  It was a lesson she had tried to impart to those of the rise but she had never been able to find the thread to have it be heard.  To test one’s strength meant to rely on the pack in a way a herd could not.  No defenders came to their fellow’s aid.  Instead they watched him die.

Would this pack test one another similarly?  Food was plentiful, but it was hard to read intentions in a storm.  Some lingered with just gentle thunder.  Others washed away cliffs and set fire to forests.

He gestured her closer and she came without hesitation, hauling a portion of the catch from the water and dragging it onto the bank as he did.  Then she shook water from her coat.

A question still lingered.  Perhaps it could answer even more.  Why Sun Eater?  It sounded like a name earned rather than given.  Maybe his parents had seen a future for him and tried to name something grand.  This she could at least, in small ways, relate to.

"because wolf not lanzadoii cannot say naa'ayikaas c'eyaan tets na’aay."

born cen. exiled as yikaas. risen as sun eater. he butchered his words and those who did not follow. this compelled others to speak his own language and to walk where he did.

"so. sun eater."

he slit the belly of the caribou. blood mingled with water; steam struck his face from the hot organs. "not know your name." tongue stole to taste, to savour. "i give names to saatsine wolves. name like mine. then you have two name. one your own. one for us."

Redd did not learn much from his answer that the had wanted, but she did learn things aside. He spoke similar strange words to the boy she’d given a bird to. This time she was not caught off guard, however, and ingested them silently. She did not know if she would learn these words. There were many ways in which to communicate.

Two names. Her ears twitched with interest, but she both did and did not understand. The name with the pack was the name she would hold. A wolf could rarely be two things.

Once I was Wealda. Now Redd. She answered, looking at him calmly. Somehow it felt right that here she would be named something new. What the pack needs, I am. Hunter, caribou chaser, silent shadow. It did not matter so long as she fit.

She had questions but storms were not often patient. It felt the wrong time to test this, though Redd did not often know where those lines lay. So she sorted for the things that felt most important.

You lead, but you follow. Why? He was driven by something she wished to understand. It seemed to drive much of the pack in the same manner.

sun eater grunted to say that he had heard her words. he lifted himself from the bloodied mud beside the lake, pointing with his muzzle to the caribou. there was no order for her to eat. but he had already taken first taste, however symbolic, and she had been here again to see the end of its life.

wealda. redd. they existed in a world both simple and unknown. 

three names, as he. tsiis'askae. "i woman who wears red paint. means blood. means you," eye flicking to the soft autumn of her guard hairs. "to follow caribou makes heart strong. lie down by caribou. rise with herds. eat their blood. die with them. i born beside caribou calves," he mused. "no other way to live."

perhaps the why was unexplainable.

The other woman had said something similar.  It was different, however, for one who led.  As Wealda she had sought to balance tradition with growth.  It seemed he was driven by a legacy, maybe stronger even than the one that had hung heavy on her shoulders.  Many ways to live. She stated it simply, not as an argument but as a fact.  We choose what we know.  She did not mind this.  It helped to know that such a thing was a pattern, something with the beating heart of a history behind it.

Until we cannot.  And a new way comes.  She would learn.  She had not expected to find a pack like this when she'd arrived at the river but they had fed her until she grew strong.  Now it was time for her to do what she could to build them.  If this meant running with the caribou, and growing no roots, then she would accept this as her future.  It would remain until a new way was needed once more.

She kept her ears turned to him as she stepped towards the kill and tore a portion from it.  Red woman.  Her name would always echo her mother.  She would wear it with pride.

sun eater did not like her gentle disagreement.

and yet he saw it was not a fight, nor argument. she offered what she knew even as she bowed her head to his will.

"this is only way for saatsine," he at last said, finality in his words. slate-blue eye found red-painted woman, then moved again to the caribou. he wondered at the child she had brought; he wondered if she would remain the quiet red shadow or move to become more.

she, like the wind, knew she must transform.

"you meet others not of sun clan?" the lanzadoii man asked, wanting to hear any word of others not with them.

Redd noted the finality and flicked her tail, considering.  She saw in this a mistake.  A pack was only as strong as its ability to weather change.  She did not mind placing her future in his strength.  She did not like, however, laying it upon the whims of the herds.

And if the herds scatter?  The pack does the same?  She asked, looking to him directly once she had finished the bit she had eaten.  She would answer his question but first wanted to understand.

Some things she would never question.  The directions they roamed, her place in the web, the instincts that drove them all.  But above all, her interest was in a pack that endured.  She would not spend time building on a foundation that could crumble beneath her.

"caribou are forever."

there was no reality in which sun eater believed where he might waken to no herds, no stamping hooves just beyond where he had lain his head. there was no truth that did not exist in perpetuity with their hot blood and sweet flesh.

caribou were order to the lanzadoii. it was why they claimed no land and defended no borders. there was not need for it, not when their world was commanded by an ancient cycle greater than themselves.

He clung to it.  She could see that he refused to comprehend a world that might change.  Nothing was forever.  Perhaps he had never been tested, but she knew better than to trust in forces outside of her own control.  The world was only ever change.

She had a choice.  If Redd pushed, she might see how he cracked, but she did not think he held a deeper answer.  The parallel, however, lay too close to ignore.  Even if nothing was gained, she would speak as she felt was needed.

In the rise, we built our home around Wealda.  She was forever.  Then she was gone.  Redd stood, stepping away from the kill, but no closer to him.  He had no obligation to hear this advice.  It fell with her.  We should have been enough, more than that, but we weren’t.  I could not claim what would always be hers.  

Saatsine drives the caribou.  It’s strength should be it’s own.  There it was.  The feeling of a line, one she perhaps crossed now, or perhaps crossed a few statements ago.  She could not tell.

She had no place to come here and tell him how to guide his pack, yet if she could not learn from the past, then there was little meaning in having suffered it.  What would he do when questioned?  And how easily threatened was his claim?

She held no ambition.  But the strength of a pack was its leader, and she had learned intimately the insecurity that destroyed her own from within.  She did not sense this insecurity in him.  It was the reason she trusted him from the start, but also the reason she watched carefully now.  He was a man who she could not read.

his tail thumped, the action of an annoyed cat.

sun eater listened. she was saatsine. she had hunted with him. the chieftain bore respect for her words, but no other questioned him, and thus he found less tolerance inside him.

through her story he found little similarity. the lesson she wished to impart was one reflective, had he been one to do so.

but at a certain moment, sun eater rose and turned sharply toward her. the words had become a lecture, and he was reminded too starkly of red leaf, how she had humiliated him before moontide. "i am not forever," he said sharply; listen to me edging his tone. "them? forever. not put power in one heart. put power in many."

no. she should not question him. she did not know. it still interested sun eater at all that she had; a new challenge to taste among the wolves who heeded his skill and his voice.

"this saatsine. not rise."

he did not dismiss her nor himself; he let go the moment of irritation and beckoned to the caribou. "and this hide? yours, red-paint-woman." for her effort. 

for the only mouth who questioned, save his son.

proudly he turned away and trotted back toward the woodland camp, gnashing teeth once at a straggling animal.

He was sharp.  She did not bow her head but she did not question further.  The words she felt had been spoken and now were his to carry as he wished.

One of them did not understand.  She saw a throughline where he did not and she considered that it was possible either might be mistaken.  Perhaps the caribou were eternal enough.  Or perhaps, with little else to hold them, this pack too would crumble.  She would take nothing for granted.

Until a new way is needed.  She could move forward.  If he could not then, and perhaps only then, would he learn that he was placing his trust in the wrong hearts.

The hearts of caribou held no loyalty nor love.  Only fear.

He wouldn’t hear it.  So she watched him go, wordlessly, before turning and loping on her own path.  She would learn but she did not think she would change, not in the ways that were unnecessary.  She slept under the sky and ran free on the wind.  She had little need for the tattered hide of a caribou.  Her own fur served well against the cold.