Ocean's Breath Plateau [m] snow goose

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aw to all moontide! winging IC what happens to cenleaf in this thread, including the intention for coming close! red leaf to post first!

there was a very large village which had made its home upon a broad and lovely plateau. from the scents, they ate of the sea. their borderlands were crossed with the scent of others, and the tracks mingled, trailing over the boundaries seemingly at will.

cen was astonished by this, and perturbed, and gravely interested. 

he had carried their sparse belongings now, leaving @Red Leaf to bear only perhaps a skin of dried meat or two.

now he returned to the place where he had left his wife, to be safe. "warriors. women. young men. new children. many come and go. the caribou graze in the forests, up from the river." a rich place, but he had nothing to trade. cen looked to red leaf. she knew by now not to speak first. pushing their things beneath a pile of driftwood further down the beach, allowing his wife one pelt to take, the trader strode ahead of her, and called out to those in this vast place beside the sea.

omg sorry for being so late to this smfh

red leaf swelled now. she felt as though she ballooned much larger than she had in the past few weeks, or even the past few days. her lower back hurt more often, and she noticed a puffiness to her face that was not there before when she looked at her reflection.
she liked the sea. being able to hear it as she and her husband settled down to sleep, the pleasing warmth of salty air, the vastness of it; it was like it stared back at her. if there was ever a place she wanted to rear pups that was not her valley home, she supposed it would be this.
she comes up beside cen with a renewed, refreshed smile upon the pale face, visibly pleased that she was now carrying significantly less weight. he had left her near the border of a sea village, one she was much too fearful to approach alone; relief came in the form of a soft sigh as she presses a kiss to his shoulder.
do you think they will take interest in my pelts? she asks quietly, shifting her weight around as she attempts to find a comfortable way to stand. or perhaps my amulets. their women may be fond of jewelry. she hoped to be useful, somehow; provide something in exchange for taking up space upon their land.

A new voiced called out. He shifted from his current pelt treating. The rabbit pelts arrayed in different ways around him as he worked at them.

Yellow eyes assesed the two wolves ashe srrived. A male and a female heavily pregnant by the looks of things. He did some mental math. Wondering if they even have space. They should since Dutch was planning to settle nearby tather than in moontide.

Greetings you approach Moontide. I'm Rodyn Ardeth. Alpha here.

when would she have time to scrape pelts or make amulets? did she think they were staying forever? cen did not answer red leaf as a powerfully built warrior came toward them, scarred and observant.

his voice was friendly. cen did not know a single word of what he had said, but watched the man to see if he looked toward red leaf, a beauty even to her final stages of pregnancy.

the caribou man licked his lips; throat cleared as he tried to conjure the bit of common that the dreamer had shared. "have name cen. am -- hunter. my woman -- need other woman, ah, see ...body. carry babies. we ... alone. many lot of time."

he had not introduced red leaf because he did not want her to become the focal point of this conversation.

"not stay many time," cen decided. "woman eat. rest. i hunt for you, man ... home." it humiliated the caribou wolf to be reduced in this way, words halting and his struggle visible, but he hoped that he had been understood, and now waited to see if this was so.

a stocky man approaches them, painted in chestnut and amber. he smells strongly of the sea. he says something that red leaf does not understand, and instinctively she looks to cen as if he will translate for her.
instead, he speaks to the man. an ugly feeling of dread curdles deep in the young woman's stomach as she glances down at the plumpness of her midsection. suddenly, she is unsure — could they trust this lower forty-eight man with the funny sounding name? why had they so brazenly approached if everyone was a risk? how did they know flesh eaters did not walk among this village's paths?
how well could she trust cen to care for her?
all of her questions remain unanswered. from what little she can make of the jumbled southern tongue, it seems as though cen had not introduced her to the man. so, in a rather brave show of defiance against her husband, red leaf points to herself and says: nakautaq. red leaf.

Rodyn was following the large male. Learning what it was he wanted. He looked to the woman when he spoke. He dipped his head to both of them. And then furrowed his brow.

Trying some of the words he knew from Kukutux. They sounded familiar. So he tried her's first.

Do you speak the language of my mother?

He waited patiently if they couldn't understand that. He would try some of the words that he had caught Chakliux using. But he didn't know near as many of those ones. He would go slower if neither one was part of this.

He was determined to find out and then go from there.

a chuckle came from cen when red leaf spoke, out of turn and without his instruction. it would be perhaps a sound of self-deprecation to the village-man, as if to say 'look! i have no power!' but to his pretty young wife, that sound had always been a precursor to a punishment, and it was to be no exception among others, for she had embarrassed him and cen did not abide shame.

the scarred warrior surprised him then, speaking in ice-language. cen squinted his eyes as if to follow more closely along, but it was not a dialect he knew. the man tried another, and he grew frustrated. "speak ... ah ... say these words with me. i want learn."

cen stood taller as he spoke, for his pride had already been much-chewed by now, first by not knowing words, and then by his sharadoii wife who had grown bolder in the absent of his gentling hand.

until now, red leaf had felt helpless. cen floundered and struggled with the strange tongue, and red leaf was certainly no help. but her spirits are lifted somewhat when she hears the sunshine language.
though not the same dialect, red leaf understood enough of it to quickly bark out a yes, in sharadoii, a new hopefulness catching the scarlet gaze. a little bit. it is similar enough, yes?
she looks to cen with unease before she continues. i am expecting. we seek a place where i can wean my children through spring. in exchange, we can offer you-- ah, trade. my husband is a talented hunter. i can make pelts, and i can also build amulets-- little trinkets. they are important to my people. maybe you will like them.
she hopes rodyn can gather enough information from her hurried, nervous ramblings. the tired, willowy face pleads; begs. please let my children be safe. we will stay maybe a few weeks. until children can travel. and then we will be out of your way.

the man of scars offered a tongue recognizable to cen as northern, but with nothing more than that. before he could telegraph his unsurety with even this new language, red leaf was chattering boldly at his side — in sharadoii.

silent, he stared back bleakly when his wife looked to him. how like babble her ugly valley words must be to this man of the wilds, for it was even so to his own ears, and he understood all she said.

when red leaf had finished, cen was quiet, for he was thinking of the name she had given. it was her own, not the way his lanzadoii mind had translated her to be. black stick had said, 'she is red leaves upon a long tree before the winds come,' but cen had made her red leaf.

he had stopped beating her and now she spoke not only out of turn but in the words he had forbidden her. had lanzadoii ever come so smoothly to her traitorous mouth?

cen was enraged, and now darkly determined to put red leaf beneath his control once more. "my woman," he laughed to the village-man, as if it was a joke between them, "she think you hear. not know we have talk this way. we alone, many time," the caribou hunter added with a shrug, as if her behavior was something desperate that could be explained away.

Rodyn eas unsure exactly what was said. Her language was not so easy to him. His was a second learned language of Kukus words. So even somw of his was lost in translation.

But he got the just. The way the husband and wife looked at each other filled him with unease. But he couldnt determine why. He didn't think it would affwct those under his care. It seemed a personal thing.

He nodded. Safe place for babies. Hubt in exchange. Trinkets and furs. We will accept.

Rodyn then shifted. Offering them to come inside the borders. He would tell Chakliux and @Heph to keep an eye on them as they were new.

cen was laughing. why was he laughing? red leaf shoots him an embarrassed glare, a puff of hot breath escaping her lips.
were they in or were they out? she watches as rodyn moves aside as if to welcome them, and red leaf takes this as a sign that they are here to stay.
thank you, she whispers to the large man. these people were not flesh eaters, right? based on cen's reactions, he had stirred up fear within her for nothing, and now she turns to him with an icy scowl. she has nothing to say to him.
at least she will not be alone in her time of labor.

u can rank cenleaf i think! <3

they were to be taken in. while cen hated so vast a place, he reminded himself that sharadoii women were weaker than lanzadoii mothers. red leaf had not been raised upon the long march. she needed to stop.

but his heart was filled with anger to stop following the caribou, a rage which translated quickly into a seething resentment for the pretty woman who had turned her head with his beauty.

"this good," he told the man rodyn. "we give thanks. i hunt today for village." a gesture, no glance given now to his wife. "me and my woman, we leave some hides," and cen gestured vaguely behind he and red leaf. "we go to get. come back in little time."

grunting that his wife should accompany him, cen turned when red leaf did, his back wanting to feel no more eyes for a time. this might be the final time he had the sharadoii woman alone for a long while. he did not mean to waste a moment.