Herbalists' Cache white flag

@Sun Eater if u want <3

there has been time for thinking. time for reflection. time to brood and to stew in the jealousy that claims his heart. then, time for introspection.

blackfell, or uuts’taa, has come to know; to know that he seeks no quarrel. he does not mean to wave a red banner, to demand war. thoughts of conquest stirred by the abrupt arrival of his kin had died down, like a fire fading in the crackling of sunrise.

ambition became charcoal. viable still, a flame could resurface—now it lay dormant. blackfell hears morwenna’s words, feels them in not only his mind but his heart. he is driven by urge to please her. she says that he and sun eater may yet find common ground. blackfell had never once questioned her wisdom and time apart did not seem to sever that emotional loyalty.

he is there when sun eater appears, watching with red eyes. head lowering, faintly; a nod, in his direction, and a dip of his black crown. inviting interaction—the chieftain need only set aside his pride, as blackfell did.

<33

sun eater was exhausted from his long labors at the snow shelter, but it was done and finished. there was only for his mate to call the women and for them to add their own charms of protection to the shelter.

because he was quite tired, the hunter was in a more receiving mood. "uuts'taa," came the growled greeting. a bruised shoulder rolled; he stretched his legs and looked back toward the work in the snow.

"soon." single eye moved over blackbird man. "and for you?" how many more might be born lanzadoii?

it is difficult now to swallow bubbling agitation from merely breathing the same air as the man, but it is doable. the summons are heeded and blackfell takes a few leisurely steps closer, coming to stand side by side with the man, though there is still a measure of distance between them.

there is a lack of the usual malice written across sun eater's face, something that says this interaction may not be as insufferable as he'd thought. blackfell raises his head, nodding in appreciation of the snow den the man has made. he must admit: it is good work. and efforts put in for morwenna that blackfell might not have thought to do even himself.

ruby eyes slide slowly to observe his face, and he huffs a breath. no. the initial reply is short, and he swallows his breath. teeth, molars, grind audibly for seconds few before he inhales sharply. i do not know. comes the shrug of his shoulders, and the agitated twitch of his tail. he thinks on he and gjalla's dispute—it had been a bad one. and now, he doesn't know where the two of them stand.

it may not happen at all. blackfell looks fully to sun eater before he makes to move. he cannot be idle right now, not as his fur begins to prickle with displeasure—once, not for the chieftain, but for the woman he was supposed to feel nothing but affection for.

forehead furrowed. "why? before, you so full for her," and there it was, a first and rare jest tossed to someone outside those yet trusted. but truly; the single eye pressed. he had been busied with captives and then a hunt-meet. a pursuit! the creation of star eater's snow shelter.

"stay away," he said conversationally, waving an idle paw toward the shelter, and he gave more distance between they and the standing-place, leading blackfell. "caribou spirits not welcome men now. not even me!"

perhaps it was anticipation of this separated time which made sun eater more — sensitive to the plight of another man put out. rangy stride matched that of blackbird, and he was silent, listening.

before, you so full for her.

blackbird grimaces, cutting his gaze out across the snowy expanse of the clearing. far, in the center, the snow den he had crafted for his very pregnant wife. he proclaimed no one would go near, not even him; to that, blackfell supposes it is only fair.

a very simple request blackfell would respect, and heed. sun eater turns, looking to create distance from morwenna's laboring den and the onyx man follows, listening to the sound of their mighty breathing and the crunch of ice and snow beneath thudding paws.

she questions me. he speaks sun eater's tongue, what little of it he has learned—if only to get the point across he has learned—and his chin juts out, sticky with his ebbing pride. defiantly, as he thinks of gjalla. a woman— he carefully leaves out the detail blackfell had known her, attacked. i fought her—and gjalla came to her defense. called me an idiot!

black lips snarl up as he looks nowhere important. she fears what you would think. and blackfell snorts, angrily swatting at a pile of snow. watching it tumble as they pass by. i think you would have done the same. am i wrong? he turns appraising eye to the man.

"i do same," sun eater murmured. "why she not fight beside?" some vital part of this was missing; he did not think gjalla would shrink from blood. as one of his favored hunters, she had killed on his order.

"who was woman?" he did not wish to insinuate that blackfell lied or omitted, but a fight near the place where star eater would give birth was not acceptable. if someone must be hunted or otherwise punished, saatsine would see it done.

that which remained was the seeking of truth.

single eye glowed to hear lanzadoii in the hunter's mouth. blackfell learned. he fit himself inside saatsine. but in what direction lay his loyalty? sun eater intended to find this out.

why she not fight beside?

hmph. he grunts. i ask myself the same thing.

blackfell's eyes seem to narrow. he is just as confused by it, his mind had fought relentlessly to figure it out. when he could not, he gave up—resigned himself to anger. a residual pattern that did not stop, only continued to twist. twisting like a blade in his gut.

who was woman?

blackbird's lips set into a firm line. before, there was no reason to unveil he knew who she was. but being directly asked, he could think of no reason to hide her identity. to protect her? he'd scoff—he had no reason to protect her. his bitterness emboldens him as he grumbles in response: svalla. she comes from far, far north, past where i hail from. it is months of traveling.

his tail lashes once, as he is consumed by putrid thoughts. he would lay it all out for sun eater, some act of placing faith in the man, and hearing morwenna's words in his head. i would visit her clan often as a cub. it is where darukaal's chieftain comes from—my cousin. she came to find him—but she found me. he laughs sardonically, feeling his muscle twitch; he gnashes his teeth, tsking before imparting a breath to continue his tale.

she says that i abandoned her. i say that i became a man and no longer wanted to play chase. it was fucking childish! gjalla has never met the woman in her life. he leaves out the detail of gjalla escorting svalla to darukaal, like some premium taxi service—instead of defending the man who she was meant to marry!

much was revealed, and not all pleasing to the ears of sun eater. he remained unreadable as uuts'taa went on. darukaal shared blood with saatsine, something his mate had not mentioned.

but did she know?

the lanzadoii hunter had assumed gjalla her sister and blackfell a brother of sorts, a cousin.  a relative. his wife had told him that the blackbird shared a history, but with this mention of the glacier, much shifted for his mind.

svalla. a woman who wanted him? was that why they had fought? blood or not, sun eater did not like the dissent between packs.

"darukaal leader is cousin. gjalla is not blood." he watched blackfell. "svalla is not blood. star eater? veksar?" his nostrils flared. "tell me all, uuts'taa."

all. all. all that his wife did not say. all that he had not yet procured. blood wended around sun eater that was not his own, and he felt choked by the tendrils he had only just found were existent.

sun eater demands explanations. blackfell turns eye to him, observant, tempered like forged steel; the dying light of heat present in that ruby stare. his wife has not been honest with him and he is lost for it. lost in a sea of politics, drowning under a tidal wave he did not know existed—and blackfell... sympathizes. he has been there.

he currently did feel like he was there.

he huffs. there is much. he says with a shrug, letting his gaze roam lazily over the trees, the lands, the snow. not looking back where they left behind the snow den, looking forward to the treeline they approached. are you sure you wish to know? his brow quirks.

from what he knew, sun eater was not a fan of his wife's past. he did not wish to ruin his image of her. you will think differently of your wife.

"my wife tell me nothing," the chieftain answered in bluntness. "very little." he did not reveal that it was gjalla who had explained the backdrop of herself and the others; he wished to keep their discourses private for now. revealing them to the man who wanted her would sour this tentative peace.

"i ask." his tail lashed. "you tell." he wanted to know. he must know. if there were things that blackfell held and he himself had not heard, he was at more than a disadvantage; he was suspended by willful deception. therefore weak. therefore blinded.

the lanzadoii would not abide it, not from any woman ever again.

blackfell thinks that he should refuse. he thinks that he should take the time now to attack the man and be done with all this bother. but then he faces reality: this conversation with sun eater has not been unpleasant. sun eater has not wronged him, has not slighted him, in anyway. and he thinks that star eater had been right.

but when had she ever been wrong?

he swallows his pride, though some measure of it still persists, whispering negativity into his mind. but stabbing sun eater in the back does not stand as an option—much to his bitter, bitter surprise. blackfell has never been a man to so quickly give up his grudges, his resentments. morwenna had unraveled him, again, like she once had long ago, just as he had feared.

he swallows and takes a deep breath through his nose. the land is called greymarch. it is a land of politics. of bloodlines. of power, of war. his steps become slower now, drawn by the weight of reliving the past he had left behind. seven territories, each vast with their own armies, their own cultures, each strong, under the rule of one crown. that crown— he looks at sun eater, your wife. she was made to inherit the crown from her father instead of any of her male relatives. she would be queen. like chieftain, but with a power more immense. a power feared.

his posture straightens, his head lifts, his chin tilting upwards. looking forwards now, as if looking into the past. envisioning the days of yore. gjalla was princess of stormrift. her mother, lady of the stormlands, bowed before morwenna when she was declared heir—and when she was declared queen—and swore fealty. i swore fealty, loyalty, to the queen just as gjalla's mother did, alongside my own father. and blackfell's lips curl visibly when he says that, visible that he does not like this, we all served the queen of evenspire. your wife. as if he needed to emphasize that anymore.

he laughs then, for no apparent reason other than the irony of it. how they had all fallen so far to end up beneath sun eater's yoke. when i killed my father and assumed my position as jarl of my home, the queen's council—the men, the vultures, who served as her advisors—threatened war. they claimed i committed treason. that my families tradition was unlawful. your wife did nothing to prevent this. he does not seem to seethe anymore, not like he once had. he had made his peace with star eater—with morwenna. i exiled myself so that my family would live.

more. and more.

jaw tensed at the admission that the woman called morwenna had held much more might than he. it caused sun eater to experience a sense of inferiority, something he could not abide in the context of his mate. the biddable woman who lay in her snow shelter swelled with children; it seemed more and more a farce, and he a stupid man for ever believing it.

what he did not understand of these concepts was much, but diligently the chieftain sorted through what blackfell had given. greymarch. a power given to the woman who was now his wife. gjalla and the blackbird, swearing. they served. he did not have a sense of it in his own culture, but comprehended on some base level what was meant.

they had belonged to morwenna.

but she had not done the same for him. "why she not guard you?" sun eater asked after a heavily pregnant pause. uncertain whether or not his perception of his wife had changed, the man tread carefully. there was more to know, and it was in why the starwoven had let this council set upon a loyal wolf.

"why you here now? with her?"

if blackfell had been so betrayed, why ever return, let alone to protect the former queen who ensured his fall? the single eye watched.

blackfell laughs.

again.

this time, it is more hollow. i asked her this not too long ago. he says, voice still warm with the bubble of his angry laughter. she says it is because men will never follow the word of a woman. and perhaps that is true. it certainly was not true for blackfell, but for a man like sun eater? he looks at his face, trying to gauge his reaction.

he does not like this: recounting memories he did not wish to dredge up, all in name of loyalty. but it was not loyalty to morwenna with which he now spoke. no, he betrayed her now. perhaps it was revenge—ill-timed, but revenge all the same.

she had not chosen him, once. then she had let him be uprooted. did he still harbor ill-feelings for her? yes... they were not so easily forgotten, nor forgiven. but he told himself it was just this: she asked he get to know her husband. a loyal hound, he listened. he abides. the first step to any sort of kinship was honesty and sun eater asked the truth of him.

it was how he justified this letting of truth.

i did not come for your wife. and that is the cold truth as he knew it. i came for gjalla. i stayed for gjalla. he pauses, and stops entirely in his tracks. but now i speak your tongue. now i hunt your caribou. i have spilled blood in your name. i do not stay just for her anymore. and it is just now he realizes this.

it was a conundrum. sun eater felt that this answer was too light, but his wife had not illustrated his suspicions. she had simply set many things aside, did not mention them. the man killed by gjalla had been the first moving in his mind, and now all else cascaded.

his trust in star eater had lessened, his trust in blackfell grown. but because it was a man before him, and because none of this had first been said without prying, the chieftain trusted him less. gjalla was overtaking both wife and hunter in lanzadoii esteem, but.

he must put her also to a questioning. yet it was the bloodhunter who had told him of the throne. and now blackfell gave more.

his mind turned.

blackfell had come for gjalla. this was true; he had spoken first of her. the careful lanzadoii said more. he snorted in acceptance of that. "so. who will you be now, uuts'taa?" he cleared his throat and spoke in stark, hurtful plainness; "suliya have no husband. do not wait for woman who disrespect. become lanzadoii."

blackbird is quiet for several long, stretching seconds. the silence is intense, overwhelming in all capacity. it is the great dam breaking, the waters rushing forth. he is at a ledge.

he takes a step off. eyes of blood red searching the single eye that the chieftain holds.

he has sold morwenna out. now, he considers forgetting completely any and all affection for gjalla. it is unthinkable. the suggestion of suliya; blackfell hesitates. suliya is a strong woman. he says, but hesitation—

but i will be lanzadoii because i become. not because i marry her. his determination, his pride, leaking through. he does not let things come to him. he is a man who cuts out any scrap of power known to him. an ambitious heart calloused and blackened.

but i will consider, it is true, but he turns his head to search the distance. i will speak to her. and his eyes grow cold, thinking of what gjalla has done. this is her fault. it is her doing. and blackfell must go forward…

with or without her.

last for meee :O

"speak to her." suliya had rejected him and still he smarted, but perhaps the spirits had seen this moment before it occurred. binding such a man to a lanzadoii woman only strengthened his clan. lust should not lead a man, but sense.

"you are hunter and warrior. i see it, blackfell." the power of names must not be denied; the saatsine titles just settled, and so he used the title he believed to be the other's birth sound.

he stepped back, scenting the wind. "i will go and find my wife."

for he had not yet decided what he might do. there were many things about morwenna which the blackbird had given, and because it had been withheld, sun eater suspected that there was more to know.

but he did not need to tell the hunter he meant also to seek out gjalla.