Bitterroot Valley you played your games

She worked tirelessly on her fox pelt, snipping away every shred of flesh so that it would last, and so that it would be easier to work with once it dried. The badger pelt, too, was under her care. That one was already drying, draped over a low-hanging branch of an old, barren tree.

She was laid out in the dirt nearby, scraping away the last few lingering bits of tissue that were stubbornly sticking to her project.

"Damn," she huffed, tilting her head to survey her progress. Her tail whisked as she took note of the neater edges on this pelt, compared to the one that she'd been toting around the past few months. Still — it seemed a long way from perfection.

And she couldn't get these little bits off. It was frustrating, and she stood with a weary sigh to stretch her aching back.

ravah had yet to meet this girl's acquaintance, and was keen on it by now.

but for now, she watched from a short distance, laying against the base of a stone outcrop, her chin resting against one foreleg as the other woman worked. she had been there a while; quiet, as always, silver eyes tracking the methodical scrape of claw on skin.

pleasantly surprised by how proficient the girl was in the craft.

and when the curse rolls from the tongue of the yearling, ravah's ears twitch and she cannot stop the snort it elicits. a bemused, but warm, smile tugging upon her pale mouth.

Her back popped pleasantly, vertebra realigning with the sprightliness of youth. She felt refreshed when she finished her stretch and, tail flicking, looked back at the rocks that the pale wolf had been watching her from. It was odd to her that the woman still had come no closer, seemingly with no intention of interacting with her.

Angel was trying her very best not to take it personally. 

With another quiet sigh, she looked back at her fox pelt. Perhaps the problem was that she'd been too hasty tearing off larger pieces. Now the smaller tags were too miniscule to easily catch between her teeth. This pelt could not be whittled down to perfection any further.

She supposed it would still make a lovely gift for Elowyn.

Angel bundled the fox's decaying brain in its pelt and trotted off toward the river with the whole thing. She slowed as she neared the pale woman and, briefly dropping her pelt, asked, "Would you like to help?"

It seemed to Angel that, if she had wanted this, she would've offered it long ago. But it seemed strange not to say anything at all, even if the woman had set such a precedent.

now she shifts and lifts her head fully, ears angling toward the girl with quiet interest. she rises slowly with a long unfurling of muscled limbs, snow dusting itself from the long backside of her pale coat.
silver eyes sweep over the pelt, over the faint ragged bits clinging where the membrane refuses to surrender, and she hums low in her chest. you work well.
high praise from someone such as ravah.
ravah is taller than she’d looked when prone; narrow-shouldered but long, with a rangy elegance, all tendon and utility. such is visible when she moves from the rocky outcrop, down the side to approach the winding river alongside angel.
is this another gift for sega?

The woman seemed dismissive of her, Angel thought, which was something she wasn't used to after being brought up in such a loving and supportive home. Everyone had been interested in her, and always so pleased with her progress, and happy to indulge in everything she found interesting. The wolves she'd met since leaving home had been largely very similar — but she'd met others with dispositions closer to this woman's.

You work well, she said, instead of an answer. Instead of her name. Angel wondered if she was perhaps a spiritual, ethereal type like moonwoman had been. She spoke like moonwoman might have, like she knew all, like she knew Angel. It chaffed in a way it hadn't with Kukutux, when she'd been very, very young.

But she did work well, and this was a fact, so Angel offered her a small smile in thanks of this quiet acknowledgement.

They walked together, then, and Angel accepted this tacit answer to her question. She was still faintly bemused by this next branch of conversation, but thankfully, she was saved from having to answer right away by the presence of the pelt still clutched in her jaws 

Less thankfully, this gave her time to overthink the question. Had that been a dig? She was already self-conscious about the way that their courtship was going, not at all sure she was going about things correctly. She wished that Elowyn had more advice for her, as much as she valued the other girl's insights —

She cast a curious, speculative look at Ravah. She was older. Surely she knew these things.

"This is for sweet Elowyn," she said, not too terribly long after being asked, when she could set the pelt down beside the river. "I want it to be soft as spider silk for her — I thought to wet it again, and drag it over the granite and slate."

Not as good as salt water, Angel understood, but still something. The rocks she spoke of were large and rounded, perfect for a makeshift sanding board. Perhaps it would do what her teeth could not in smoothing and softening the skin.

ravah hums.
the pale woman lowers herself beside the river, joints folding slow beneath her, her long limbs stretched catlike across the frozen earth. unbothered by the cold, in fact, softened by it some. this small stretch of river reminds her of home, back in big sky.
it was not for sega, then. that answers one question, at least.
she has never looked at sega the way others sometimes assumed. not once. but she knew him better than most, better than nearly all. and she had always believed, perhaps foolishly, that when the time came, he would choose a mate from among the people. not a girl of foreign soil, and so if there is some... reservation in ravah as she interacts with angel, perhaps that was why.
it wasn’t jealousy, nor was it love. it was fear. fear that if sega took this girl as his wife, that their children would speak her strange tongue and know nothing of their father's tongue. it was fear that their people would end with them.
and yet, here, watching the way angel cares for this pelt, and though it seems such a trivial thing, ravah feels something in her settle. it is not approval nor trust, but the beginning of it.
ravah looks to the river, to the stone-worn banks and the places where granite broke the flow in smooth, round humps. stone smooth, yes, ravah begins, but stone take too much. scrape too hard, you lose the skin’s breath. lose the spirit. it crack when cold. stiff like bark. to angel, her silver eyes settle and the older woman forces a smile.
women of big sky, we use brain. every beast carry what it need to treat itself.

Angel regarded the women with a long look and a slow blink, turning these words over in her mind. She reached out a paw to part the edges of the fox skin, where its brain already lay bundled.

"We've always done it a little differently, but some things stay the same," she said, feeling wrong-footed despite having brought the brain along anyway. "I thought the rocks could give a good lather. Probably just the slate would be better, though."

She looked to the granite, which indeed seemed a little rough for a pelt already stripped to — mostly — the right thickness.

She looked back at the woman.

"I am happy to learn your way," she said, though she was a little nervous. "It's just that I want it to be the best it can be. I can do my way the best, but I don't know if I can do your way the best. So you'd have to teach me very carefully."

Which she was not opposed to on principle. Angel just knew that she'd interrupt the silver woman's leisure time.