Herbalists' Cache change my mind so much I can't find it

gjalla does not know when the crows had all made the collective decision to gather around the weathered rock she sat upon, shoulders curled forward, head low, but they must've made it recently, drawn in by the stench of old blood and the quiet stillness of her presence.

gjalla broods. the deer leg between her paws is the true victim of her wrath. Her teeth sink into the bone with brutal force, the marrow cracking under the pressure. It’s not hunger that drives her—not really. It’s the need to expend, to gnash and crush, to pretend that she is choosing to break something apart rather than feeling like she herself is splitting at the seams.

they hop closer, watching her with their sharp, beady eyes, their caws breaking the silence in short, staccato bursts.

she exhales sharply, ears flicking back at their noise but making no move to chase them off. the bastards were the only company that didn’t expect anything from her. they weren’t here to talk—though they certainly weren't silent—, and they weren’t here to ask her how she was doing or pry where they weren't wanted.

she hated prying.

one of them hops onto the rock beside her, bold little thing, pecking at the mangled flesh near her paw. Gjalla scowls at it but still doesn’t move.

"what the fuck are you looking at?" she mutters, voice rough, barely more than a growl.

the crow tilts its head. caws. she snorts, gaze dropping to the ground. "you better not be his."

out in the flung-folded land, moon wolf escaped the teeth of cen. 

a failure. a tragedy. blackbird cawing oft suggested carrion to be found or strangers to be run off. and though sun eater maintained his lack of possessiveness over this land by culture, it vied against the masculine instinct of his wolven self. 

soon his mate would give birth, and then all would be vulnerable.

it was gjalla to whom the man's steps carried tall body. for a moment he only watched her, noting how much like —

surrounded by black feathers, somehow to his eyes she grew more, and sun eater remembered his earlier sentiment.

a frustration grew; he put it aside and went down to join the bloodhunter. "nehzuunxel," lanzadoii man greeted in a grunt, eye turning again over the treelimbs.

gjalla does not still at his approach, nor does she lift her head from where she gnaws relentlessly. if anything, she only presses her teeth down harder, feeling the bone splinter further beneath the pressure of her bite. a distraction. a method to keep her occupied, lest she find herself doing something even more self-destructive.

but she is not oblivious. 

she knows sun eater is watching her. can feel his single eye burning a hole through her skull. it prickles beneath her fur, a sensation both familiar and aggravating. though she does not meet his eye immediately, her ear flicks at his greeting, a quiet acknowledgment before she finally deigns to look at him. 

"sun eater," she returns, voice steady, but her usual sharpness is subdued, buried beneath something thicker. he has no need to ask what—perhaps he could smell it.

the crows caw, restless, shifting above and beside them. gjalla’s eyes flick toward them briefly before she snorts, shoving what remains of the deer leg aside for them to squabble over, keeping a small chunk for herself to chew.

"to what do i owe the pleasure, chieftain?"

---

thank you for joining! i adjusted the starting post a tiny bit because you gave me an idea.

ooHH lala <3

a caribou bone had been sundered by her teeth, splintered into dripping pieces. her power was clear, and sun eater felt the thrum of a response which yanked hard at the core of his belly. the blackbird had spoken of them, their —

a disconnect had happened.

it was a disconnect that had many opportunities. he explored one in lingering thought.

sun eater did not understand the meaning of what dark snow said, but took it to be a greeting of some sort. gjalla's bearing remained without invitation, and so he kept apart from her.

breath steamed in the frigid air. "you fight with blackfell." he straightened. "you not say why. but. not good for saatsine to be cut in two."

gjalla huffed, a sharp exhale that sent a plume of frost into the air. of course he’d come to speak of that. not in a million years would the gods spare her of this torture.

her expression did not change—no flicker of surprise, no visible discomfort, but her jaw tightens, the sinew of her muscles going taut beneath her thick coat. She did not look at him, instead focusing on the bloodied remnants of the caribou bone, her tongue running idly over her teeth as if still tasting the marrow. 

"it isn’t," she said quickly, a promise clipped and cold. anything to veer from the topic as swiftly as possible. "saatsine will not break for the sake of a spat."

she might, perhaps. hence, the gnawing. gjalla was not unaware of how the pack worked—it was a close knit group, she knew her fight with blackfell would spread further than she wished. she was trying to smother the embers before they caught flame through excessive occupation and avoidance.

"it is personal," The words were spoken with finality, and the message is clear: it was not his business. but then, after a beat, her gaze flicked toward sun eater, sharp beneath her furrowed brow. 

"did he come to you?"

"nothing happens in sun clan is per-sonal," sun eater retorted, his own body gathering a tightness beneath her open display of annoyed favor. "i ask him." it was his right as chieftain, and if there was anything the lanzadoii man enjoyed, it was pressing his right.

yet this time he acceded; sun eater turned away and fixed his eye upon the milling herds. among their numbers now were many young, and many more to come. such pelts were soft as new moss, and he wished at least some for the purpose of trade.

"soon i go on raid to moon tribes. you stay with star eater? or i leave uuts'taa?"

her turn to choose, as she had done before.

she held a higher rank than he. more status. would she see it? sun eater kept his eyes from nehzuunxel as he waited to hear.

gjalla did not like the way he pressed. 

she knew it was his right—of course it was—but that did not mean she had to fucking like it. the muscle in her jaw flexed, grinding her teeth. nothing happens in sun clan is personal. yeah, okay.

she could have argued. could have told him that it was personal, that it had nothing to do with saatsine, that he should fuck off—but she swallowed it down. she knew better than to fight where there was no ground to win. 

instead, she sat stiffly, watching the herds. the fawns were new to the earth, their legs unsteady, their coats still holding the softness of birth.

Then he spoke again. offered her a place at his side when saatsine left to rake through their enemy. an opportunity to sink her teeth into something real, to tear through something that was not the fragile remnants of her pride. it was like a gift. it was not a decision he had to give her. he could have simply commanded her path, and yet.

she knows she should not go, not without fixing things—or attempting to—with blackfell, to repair whatever bond they had. and yet.

sun eater served her an outlet for everything she bottled on a silver platter. "i go with you," she said at last, voice firm. there was no hesitation now, no doubt. the call of war was a balm to a wounded pride, and she was not yet so foolish as to let it slip through her grasp.

sun eater enjoyed dark snow. always he had, with more appreciation in the one eye left to him than a married man should bear. her willingness to accompany him into the north was pleasing, moreso the idea of seeing how she might unfurl once she was away from blackfell.

a fool, sun eater, though he did not yet know it.

ice diver's scent was fading. if she did not return, a new war chief was necessary. ridgeback was first in line for such, but gjalla had brought him a head.

a difficult decision. he would bring them both and let their efforts speak on each behalf.

"you tell me before, about throne. i am man who raids." he settled his eye on her curiously. "do throne-people raid others?" or was this an act of the lanzadoii? was a kingdom cruel? was the one who sat about the aforementioned throne all-powerful, as he was among his sun clan?

gjalla held his gaze, a flicker of something unreadable passing through her icy stare. he spoke of thrones. dug up ideas of what once was—of what could be still. one day.

"a throne is power," she echoed from an old conversation, measured, careful. "power over others is taken. always." she turned her head slightly, gaze moving beyond him to the herds in the distance. "some fight for land, for blood, for revenge. others for crowns, for faith, for safety. it is not always so different."

her breath came slow, exhaled in a steady plume of frost. "stormrift did not raid." a pause. the truth: "we knew war, but we did not fight without cause."

he considered.

for land. for blood. for revenge. for crown. he supposed he fell into the middlemade group; for blood. but then again, very much had he fixed himself on vengeance against the moon wolves. stormrift, she murmured; no raids. 

"storm-rift. this is home?" asked the pointed cunning of lanzadoii hunter, gathering to himself those morsels of knowledge offered by blackfell and then gjalla. "i told svalla come, from darukaal. she is — someone, to blackfell. to you?"

fractured his words might be, sun eater was observant. he meant to know all that went on in his clan; he had not misspoken when he told gjalla nothing was private. every action taken affected the saatsine. 

without cause. what did that mean?

gjalla did not answer immediately. her gaze lingered beyond him, distant. 

"yes," she does not say that it was or it would be again. stormrift would be her home until she was cold in her grave.

her eyes flicked back to him at the mention of svalla. blackfell must have loosened his tongue, if sun eater knew her name.

"she is no one to me. i escorted her to darukaal and returned here." gjalla said coolly, but there was a bite to it—an edge still rough from unspoken grievances.

she rolled the bone beneath her paw, her thoughts heavy. "why do you ask?" her words were careful, measured, a quiet challenge in the way her head tilted ever so slightly.

that look. it suggested more to him; it suggested the things he would rather assume and not inquire around.

for a long few moments sun eater did not answer. and then a smile crept his mouth, slinking and fearful;

"blackfell follow morwenna. she not guard from — coun-cil. but he come here. why?"

yes. a cunning man. do not lie. do not undermine. the blackbird had not answered enough for him; sun eater sought to corner gjalla with the spear-pierce of that single burning eye.

"you say these things honor. but — a queen take from you. from blackfell. is loyal? or you hate?" land? blood? vengeance? crown?

he would abide no more humiliation from his wives.

her gaze fully upon him, solid and heavy. the chieftain had cunning, but gjalla was no fool. she saw the trap he was laying, the questions meant to corner her like a wounded beast. a foolish decision—gjalla would not be cowed into an answer she did not wish to give.

she bared her teeth for a half-second—not in a snarl, but something close, eyes narrowing into a glare that could kill. it is careful enough to pass as displeasure from his questioning, but firm enough to ward him away from it.

"do you ask because you seek to understand?" she mused, rolling the bone beneath her paw again. "or do you ask because you already think you know the answer?" she assumed the latter, even if he refused to admit it. 

the look he gives it telling. his curiosity was not idle, nor was it without motive. "he came for me, that is what he said. now, i do not know."

morwenna next. "it was no different from any of her predecessors. she let me join her side as her advisor when i fled from an arranged marriage. she is a sister to me." if that was not an answer, she did not know was. had she not proven this before? did he still think she only killed stark because he ordered it? that she would not cross the earth twice over, only to keep morwenna safe?

he studied her, smiling soft at the glimpse of her teeth. for all her coldness, gjalla's emotions were worn in the furrow of her brow, the wrinkle of her muzzle. he believed her filled with anger. sun eater had chosen to assume many things: that blackfell and gjalla held a loyalty for his wife that did not exist for him, that gjalla cared more for the blackbird than he offered her — and that the woman beside him now was meant to be a bloodying force in the sun clan.

such status required separation from what she had known.

"i know why you come. but not him. that is why i ask," sun eater said with thoughtful articulation, then took a breath. they would move on. "when we go to moon tribes, i bring captive girl. trade her for moon woman, who is the leader of all moon tribes."

a shrug. "i break her. you break her. not matter. but when wild of great bear is broken, saatsine may roam free by the sea when caribou come." moontide was there, an obstacle, and a man had been building another beside. there might well be seven packs by the time he returned! but without their figurehead, they would bow before cen.

"you will take what you want. moon wolves have much, much treasures."

gjalla had long since stopped pretending she did not find a dark satisfaction in battle, in the act of breaking those who stood against her. sun eater must've known this, to offer her this so freely. she had been carved from war, sculpted by loss, and reforged in fire.

but she was no fool.

her gaze lingered on him, measuring the weight of his words. i break her. you break her. a casual, flippant declaration, as if it did not matter who did it, only that it was done. she supposed in the long run, it didn't.

"you plan well ahead, chieftain." there was no telling in her tone, no immediate agreement or refusal. Instead, she tilted her head, sharp eyes gleaming with thought.

the moon tribes were in their—his—way. she understood the necessity of conquest, but this? this was an insult made personal. it was not simply about clearing a path to the sea, it was a display of power, a message carved into bone.

"what have they done to earn such a fate?" she was not a woman of half-measures. if he was placing this before her, there was a purpose. she wanted to know why.

"i tell you, nehzuunxel."

the tale of cen: a man who had loved his wife and adored her in all ways. he had been angry when their son was born with a hurt leg, yes, but his anger had been mistaken. sun eater left aside the patterns, the detailing. she knew none of these faces and would not ask. he was free then to omit, to embellish, until his tale was of a man deceived by the leaders he served and knocked unconscious.

he had woken as a captive of the moon tribes and his crime had not been told to him. they had shoved him to trial and accused things he had not done.

sun eater stopped there abruptly, watching the herds pass in meandering eternity.

"moon woman kukutux order this," the tearing out of his eye. the blinding. "her daughter do it."

a genuine look of enraged anguish then, remembering the cascade of pain. "they exile me. not come back or die. i go back once, to raid for son. ghelan. easy. no blood. not there, at great hunt. i bring him here. but not go again. not see wife again." he shrugged, feigning an agony at red leaf's assumed bedding of the caribou hunter, something he believed so much that it had become truth to him. "she choose other man."

and at last the scarred socket turned toward gjalla. "they earn all i do to them."

gjalla was silent as he spoke, absorbing the tale as though she were pulling it apart in her mind.

her gaze did not soften, but it did not carry judgment either. it was not pity that she felt for him—no, it was something colder, something closer to recognition. it is familiar. like a wound that did not scab over, but festered beneath the skin.

and yet, even as he bared his grievance, she remained unreadable.

"so it is revenge, then," she said at last.

she did not argue the legitimacy of his claim. she did not ask if there was more to the story, if he had done anything to warrant what was done to him. the great bear had taken his eye, exiled him, humiliated him—now he would return the wound tenfold.

a fitting enough fate, perhaps as well-deserved as he said. gjalla exhaled, slow and measured, tilting her head as she considered him. "i will fight for you, sun eater."

"re-venge," he growled, tasting the word's hard edges and feeling that it was apt for his aim. "good." he had loyalty. he had numbers. there was no reason their clan could not also run the great bear as much as they desired.

"me. you. ridgeback. choose one other. and choose guard for star eater shelter." he fit her neatly in the role that was needed, and now tested gjalla.

whether or not she wished his academic attentions was no matter. she was sun clan, and the sun clan would make all use of her full power.