Hoshor Plains why you gotta despise it?

@Matteo

enormous shapes milled in the plains below; a horde of inkblots shepherded by distant specks of her kin.

sobeille remained under the watchful eye of sapphique. she sighed, cutting from the gathering crowd of young so that she might watch uninterrupted from the ridge.

every now and then her gaze flicked across the roving faces, hoping to see astera — but mostly, sobeille just sulked and wished she was at home. being so far removed from the danger of the hunt below stole some of the excitement from it — what could she possibly learn here?

The bison were as magnificent as they were terrifying, especially knowing he would be called to arms shortly. Had he seen one before, he my have reconsidered coming at all. Not to mention the wolves - Matteo had never seen so many faces in one place before. What kind of a lodge brother was he to be scared of a hunt? 

He watched from the edge of Moontide's camp as Rodyn begin to gather Heph and a few others the boy had never seen before, stomach suddenly full of what felt like a thousand butterflies. Matteo promptly retched and lost what little breakfast he had eaten that morning.

With wobbly legs, he paced past a gathering group of youths until one sat away from the crowd caught his eye. "Hey," he greeted, settling near her, "what do you think? Of the bison, I mean." She was too small to hunt, he guessed, but more than part of him wished he could watch the action from here than between horns and hooves.

a boy approached, the harsh bite of bile still clinging to his lips.

sobeille leveled him with a stare absent of warmth. he was not sapphique, and he was distinctly male -- did all mainlanders approach future queens so openly?

but he asked her what she thought -- and as a child still, it softened the hard edges of her composure.

dey be big. sobeille answered, sweeping her attention back to the plains. 'ow come you puked?

slight warning for emetophobia

She stared at him for a long while before she spoke. Though she was just a child, Matteo felt some discomfort in the harshness of her gaze - did she do this to everyone? He shifted in his seat, not wanting to move much lest he lose more of his meal.

How many wolves did it take to kill a bison? Two, three - maybe five or more? Even from up here, their bodies flowed like a river of muscle. "They are," he spoke placidly in response to her comment.

His cheeks reddened at her next words. "Just ate something off, is all." The more he thought about it, the more he felt like his guts were being churned all over again and so he swiftly changed the subject. "I'll be hunting them soon, though. Are you here with family?" Honeyed eyes glanced to the other youngsters and then back to the girl. As he had come with Raiyuk and Moontide, she must surely have come with someone too, for she seemed far too small to be alone.

while young, sobeille was just perceptive enough to recognize the boy was slightly put off by her. good. sobeille was nobody's friend, except astera's.

both of them looked back to the bison. sobeille marveled at their strength, even from this distance.

the boy revealed he ate something that did not agree with him. sobeille hoped for her sake it wasn't bison. her gaze pulled from the dark shapes in the plains below to the boy. he was on the cusp of leggy adolesence -- and while sobeille held no fondness for boys, she could admit there was something handsome about him. i be with saffique. sobeille's chest puffed in pride as she pointed to the lean figures of her family below. dat be my maman down there, and my auntie --

had he suddenly caught her off guard? she rectified by stiffening. do dey ever kill us?

They sat and watched the herd for a while, her the lilting of her voice a welcome distraction from as he followed her gesture to the plains below. "Saffique?" he wondered, "where is that?" From up here he could just about see the figures she was referring too, though they were soon lost to him in the crowd.

Her next question drew a laugh from the boy; a poor excuse to hide the worry she had inadvertently reinstalled. He hoped for all their sakes that there would be no casualties - and for the little girl especially, he hoped her family would return unscathed. "Sometimes," he spoke carefully gaze finding hers to gauge her reaction.

"But when you hunt together it's a lot less likely to happen. More eyes and ears to spot when something is going wrong." When he hunted with Raiyuk, they could watch for each other weak points and ensure neither got hurt. "Taking on a bison is only for the strongest of hunters." At this he grinned and relaxed onto his belly, wondering suddenly if she would be impressed by this.

taking on a bison is only for the strongest of hunters. the boy slid onto his belly. propped by adolescent angles that spoke of the man he would become.

sobeille turned to him, golden eyes apprising. dat explains why you be up here, den. the casualty in which she remarked upon it seemed to further feed its coldness.

she should care she was being mean, but she didn't. the world outside of sapphique was uncultured and wrong -- sobeille endured it in long suffering sighs. what do dey be tastin' like?

in that moment her thoughts traveled to the thundering of a thousand hooves; what a shame it would be for any wolf to find their skull beneath the sea of churning and indifferent legs.

Though he should have been offended, her comment drew a hearty belly-laugh. "I'll be honest, the only reason I'm up here is to avoid being down there," he motioned with his muzzle to the river of bodies below. "My lodge-brother, Raiyuk, will be hunting too, though. He'll be becoming a man soon." There was a note of pride when he spoke of his friend, remaining blissfully unaware of Sobeille's displeasure. Part of him had wanted to join to impress Raiyuk, the other to prove himself to Chakliux that he was worthy of his lodge.

"Dunno, I've never eaten any before," he answered honestly. "I'm sure your mama and auntie will bring back plenty for you to try." Despite his nerves, he was looking forward to trying beef for the first time. Matteo prayed the girl would have somewhat of a brain and remain up here with the other pups rather than become a bison's doormat.

the spear she'd aimed fell short with a thrust. the boy's laughter flit warmly through the canyon walls.

not the reaction sobeille expected. she tucked this away with fake mirth, drawing instead upon something the boy had said about lodgebrothers and their kin.

his pride rang clear as sunlight, but it did not quite chase the shadows from the edges of sobeille's dark eyes. what does becomin' a man entail?

She was full of questions and he was happy to answer on behalf of his family. "A boy must hunt a seal alone," he recited the words of Chakliux. "Only then will he be welcomed in the village as a man." 

He couldn't help but notice the lack of men mentioned in the Saffique wolves the girl had come with. Perhaps her father was at home, or not in the picture - either he had no strong feelings about and instead decided to turn the quiz on her,

"Does Saffique have any traditions like that?"

a boy must hunt a seal alone. sobeille examined this ritual. it was not so different than some of sapphique's rituals, but ah, murder was not the cornerstone of their society. perhaps that was the difference between women and men -- theirs was a softer, more elegant courtship with life.

yes. we do. but sobeille was tight-lipped when it came to the customs of her home. so de men murder their water-cousins and dat is 'ow dey become worthy. what of de women? do dey not matter?

A confirmation without elaboration - Matteo was not one to press so deeply into things that did not wish to be shared. However, her interpretation sparked another humorous huff from his lips. Water cousins? "It's the way of the seal-hunters," he put simply. "For them, hunting their water cousins is how they survive." 

Truthfully, he did not think a boy needed to complete this ritual for him to be worthy. Raiyuk was plenty a man to him already - and himself? Taking on the challenge was not something he particularly wanted to endure. "I think a man can be worthy without going through all that, though."

At the mention of women, he met her gaze with an incredulous look. "Of course they matter." But Chakliux had not mentioned anything about the seal-hunter women, so Matteo had not much else to say.

it was easy to be critical of a world you had never been part of; for sobeille, she was already mentally picking apart every construct matteo shared.

she would learn in time this was horribly rude.

hunting water-cousins was how the men made their living. sobeille wondered aloud: what ritual do de women do to become worthy? her gaze flickered to the coast, where just out of vision the grave columns of flowstacks rose in her mind's eye. we 'ave menny ceremonies for de women. including -- here the first bit of sobeille's playfulness came out as she threw her arms up in the air and widened her gaze: de ritual of de long night. i will 'ave mine soon, and become woman. sobeille left something unsaid: but i was born worthy.

last from me!

Matteo continued to gaze at her, incredulity shifting to something akin to intrigue as the girl spoke of a tradition: the ritual of the long night. She seemed to be looking forward to it, if her theatrics were anything to go by. He was about to ask for more details when Rodyn's voice called his name. 

"Ah - the hunters are gathering now." Groaning inwardly, he stood and gave himself a shake. "I'm Matteo. Perhaps, if we meet again, you can tell me all about how your ritual went...?" He would loiter for her name briefly before departing to join the gathering bodies. Truth be told, if her ceremony was as arduous as the seal hunter's, he struggled to envision that someone as petite as herself could endure it.

miette was about to regale the stranger with tales of the long night — some real and some slightly fabricated for theatrical effect — when a howl cut over the top of the ridge.

she peered down at the hunts-people below. matteo and others had been summoned. her jaw clapped shut, gaze flickering over the boy that for just a moment, had earned rare esteem by interesting her.

bye. miette answered, donning a mein of cool disinterest so he wouldn’t know she was slightly wounded by his attentiveness to adults over her.

she watched him pick his way down to the plains before she rose and trotted for her maman and tante.