Shadowwyn Moor sun killer

She stalked the rivulet in reverse of its flow, northward, until she came to the junction where it forked.

The water appeared to flow out of a crescent-shaped forest, although with the low-hanging fog obscuring the depth of field, Sulukinak could not be certain.

At any rate, there were no caribou in that direction so she withdrew to follow another path.

Movement along the periphery caused her to react with a stutter-step, drawing a deep breath which tasted of the silt and pine surroundings.

heart and head in mutinous swimming.

morwenna. suliya. morwenna. one to mind for her seeming hardness, the other for her open softness.

an open softness he was not sure even now would suit her in his world.

yes he had said all the same, and meant it. single eye watched sulukinak before at a distance he began to follow.

It was only her uncle.

She wondered about him sometimes, the company he kept and the growth of the hunt. In the forefront of her mind, when she thought of winter's rise and fall and the coming spring, there was the image of sea ice, a chasm cut; she wondered after her uncle's people—her own by father's blood.

What might the Sun Eater offer for a bountiful harvest?

But their harvest now was the caribou.

Sulukinak stalked wordlessly; underheel was not a sheet of ice but the soft moor, the rushing rivulets she tasted were bare of salt, and carrion did not fill her belly—the fatty flesh of caribou did, strengthening her. It was something she must reconcile. Ice mother's teachings held firm in her heart, but here she lived her father's life.

she hunted the caribou, his strange shadowlight niece.
it was good to see her prowling their new encampment. often she kept to her own company, skirting this boundary or another. one day she was a tiny distant figure of dark in the snowy meadow, the next she was as she appeared in this moment.

pace increased. he loped across the flat places easily, slowing here and there to find a better route which wended him to her flank.

no words. the endless white sky and the silence of birds were heavy enough.

Upon the arrival of her uncle Sulukinak gave a glance over one shoulder, but said nothing. Accepting his presence as easily as she'd accepted few others.

Many things had been sacrificed so that the Sun Eater could have his way, and despite all that was lost Sulukinak harbored no resentment. Her time learning had given her a new respect for many things.

Her uncle's scent was layered with those of the Saatsine, herself among them; but the strongest now was a woman's, and as Sulukinak took notice of this she turned sharply in the mist. Curiosity warred with concern. As he flanked her Sulukinak moved so that they were very close and studied the musk he carried.

She had not met this woman, these women; more than one had settled upon her uncle and Sulukinak could only wonder to what end.

judgement? question? sun eater halted and leveled a stare at sulukinak which sought his own truth. she inquired, leafing through the scents on his pelt.

"suliya is lanzadoii. morwenna is not. but she will join us, while suliya does not accept me." if his kin was determined ok inquisition, sun eater would not deny. like meleys, sulukinak was respected as a cornerstone of his existence, and also like his sister, she had the respect of those who did not share their language.

"i have not given up my intention on our moeities. have you?"

There were things she still must learn. He claimed his status as white raven; still, she did not know the significance. She saw in those words then and these words now, only conclave in a new light.

He spoke the names of these women. She listened, coveting every syllable. They were not known to Sulukinak but that was no surprise—she kept herself separate often, and had not made the effort to know the Saatsine beyond her uncle.

Her role in this conclave between uncle and niece, was the red raven. Finally the girl's focus broke and her gaze dropped away, but she had no answer for the Sun Eater, because she truly did not know.

To the gray man she had claimed no husband nor want of one. Her uncle had been forced away from one wife, perhaps now sought another, and so they were of different minds.

Sulukinak stopped her study and her pacing, and stood there in the quiet that resumed between them; she considered all she knew, which was not a great amount, and all she felt, which was even less. Once she had given up much for her man Dutch, and then again for this Chieftain—and yet he was the one to offer her conclave.

No. She would not give up their link. Her eye had never strayed from the hunt, though. No man or woman had ever appealed to Sulukinak in the way that seemed to matter to Sun Eater.

good then; sulukinak saw for herself what they must be. "meleys says she will not have a man. follow her. but the young ones, you will help to teach." her birthright was to form the first divergence of their family line, but if she did not, perhaps meleys might take grey man after all.

he jerked his head to say that they should go on, tasting from time to time the air and the ground himself. treading gentle, claws digging another place.

"the clouds grow heavy. soon they will give birth to storms." sun eater stood now at sulukinak's side. "see how the bulls no longer lead? it is the cows who will bring their herds to the taiga."

this shift of feminine and masculine too played upon the saatsine. upon him. "i have decided that ice diver will be war chief."

Sulukinak listened in the manner of one who understood the weight of words more than their simplicity. Sun Eater’s voice carried the announcement like the shifting tide: unyielding, inevitable. Her copper eyes swept across the trail ahead, then back to her uncle. His presence, as always, commanded something from her, but she could not yet put a name to it.

Ice Diver as War Chief. This was accepted without comment; but truthfully, did Sulukinak understand such a role? They did not war. They were hunters.

Studying the face of the Chieftain again, this time without as much intensity, she thought of her uncle’s missing eye, his truths spoken in actions instead of promises. What did the spirits demand of her? What would her own skin bear before her path was written?

The rivulet beside them had not changed, but now the rush of its pulse struck her ears in a way that made her feel small, as if it might rise up and overtake her. Uncle. Her voice caught, then firmed. What more do you have to teach me?

The stillness in her question was deceptive. She met Sun Eater’s cyclopean eye, wolfish silence pressing against her own doubts. A drop of rain caught the tip of her ear, but she stood unmoving.

"niece. what more do you have to ask me?" lessons were eternal, what he desired now to know was what she wanted. 

river walker spoke with spirits. ridgeback and ice diver were becoming lanzadoii with their own roles. who would sulukinak choose to be?

in silence they walked for some time, tracks blending and then arcing away as one or both investigated other spoor upon their travels. "next spring we go back to the sea."

would this intrigue her? a thought came to him. "the muradoii. do you know this name?" suliya! even now her pretty, veiled face tormented sun eater.

why would a lanzadoii man covet some salt monster woman? it did not hold sense.

She did not know. If she had questions they often sat upon her tongue, unspoken. Lessons were easier in silence. Things could be taught that the body would remember and the mind would forget, better than things spoken, better than questions and answers; Sulukinak stayed quiet as they walked.

Until he spoke the word muradoii. Sometimes as she had krept among the camp, she had heard this word spoken between some women, or by her uncle, but she had not yet questioned it. Now, she did.

Her expression held that curiosity, coupled with the slight feline tilt of her head. Ice walkers?

Not much had been shared directly with Sulukinak, but she had gleaned this much. Something which resonated with the everdark of her own origin.

"ice monsters," he corrected with a growled tone. he did not want to reveal suliya alongside his own great and apparent prejudices, but perhaps it would be apparent one day. "they do not leave the ice. they kidnap and ravage, and eat the flesh of other wolves. of children."

sickness and rage welled together in the saatsine man. "suliya says her mother came from those people." revelation all the same! amusement could be had. but not in this moment.

"i want you to watch her. learn what ways are muradoii. come to me."

he decided at once toward her in possessiveness, toward the lanzadoii woman who was not. from where else might proper teachings come?

sulukinak had not yet commented upon the piece of antlertine tangled in his chestfur; he left off it himself.

She had never before seen her uncle this incensed! He spoke of these ice-walkers, these monsters, and as the knowledge was shared there came an understanding he had likely not intended.

They do not leave the ice, he said.

They kidnap, ravage, eat the flesh of wolves, of children.

Was she meant to be offended? Was it offensive to find meat upon the ice, and to consume that meat, and to live? She did not know what to think; it did not seem wrong to her. Again her mind filled with the harvest; the yawning hole in the ice, the portal to the endless nothing and the cold.

He'd said something about—Suliya? Snapping back now to the conversation, where before she was somehow in the middle of a recollection as well as here, with her uncle.

Watch her. Learn what ways are muradoii, but she knew, somehow. She knew more than she realized.

But she gave a nod, and before raising her head again after, bowed partly before her uncle, she asked in a small, childish voice: Do they... harvest? And as her head did raise, and she looked at him with worry for the first time. These man-eaters. On the ice.

"i do not know. perhaps they hold their own harvests, sulukinak," sun eater murmured, stooping to examine a track in the damp ground, but he was thinking of suliya and what horrors she might guard out of misguided need to examine herself as muradoii.

he would not tolerate it. he would not abide it.

"we are lanzadoii." for himself. for her. sun eater rose from his staring and came to join sulukinak again, deferring to her lead as he slid into an easier gait.

"you will teach this woman, when she comes?"

Shaken by the exchange, Sulukinak stood digesting this information for a time while Sun Eater made his way. He eased in to a slower pace and the girl realized she had not followed, only now skirted his path to meet him again, bashful and unable to hide her emotions. Whenever she felt anything it was plain to see, only now she was plainly unsettled.

Teach the woman? I will try. She answers, lamely. What could she teach that would hold more power than Sun Eater? Why could he not show her the lanzadoii ways himself, given that he knew it all? But she did not question. Sulukinak would learn of this woman and the muradoii and in the process convert her to the ways of her uncle.

"good. tell her what i expect." loyalty. commitment. and from suliya, submission, an aspect he had never demanded from sulukinak or meleeys.

they knew. even his niece who had not been raised lanzadoii had come to it, swiftly: a respect for sun eater's greater mind, or so he believed.

"come. there is a cow i want to follow. she leads the others in one band, all those who will be mothers. we must make sure she remains alive."

it did not do well to kill mothers; it was why he had hunted many bulls this season.

They would go to find these ugly things—a segment of the otherwise incalculable herd that had begun to grown fat with future meals.

The sight of them was horrific to Sulukinak.

The way their bodies had already begun to thicken in places, or round, even if it was only the packing on of fat for the winter, was unsettling. Winter made them slow in moving and with odd gaits; these things made illness come to mind for the girl, and she wished to cull them, but was learning that patience would be a better option.

If she held questions she would not speak them. It was better now to work—to watch, listen, and study.

Fade?