Mount Apikuni dark vine

can be quick! <3

from the sharp-toothed mountain came a call for @Redd and @Suliya.

twofold the summons: sun eater had found a lone cow here and wished to demonstrate the stampeding technique to his hunters.

and neither of them had been present to hear him hand down the laws of saatsine.

traced by wind, sun eater waited on a clear-swept promontory, watching the thousands of caribou below wind their way toward the taiga.

suliya came with the wind, her form emerging like a shadow against the snow-dappled earth. her eyes, tired but sharp, sought the lone cow almost immediately, and her heart quickened at the sight. this was no ordinary hunt—this was a lesson, a moment etched in the design of saatsine’s will, and she would not squander it.

she said nothing as she approached, her pawsteps measured, her gaze unwavering. the chieftain stood before her, a figure of command and reverence, and she lowered her head briefly in acknowledgment before settling herself to wait.

her silence spoke of readiness, her posture of patience. she would learn, not from words, but from action.

Naa'ayikaas c'eyaan tets na’aay called.  It was only a summons for two of them, the other a packmate that Redd had yet to meet.  A proving of some kind perhaps.

She loped in to answer, silently joining and looking expectantly towards the chieftain.  In her periphery she noted the other but did not interrupt to greet her.  A strong hunter, from the look of it, as all she had met were.  Had desperation drawn her here as well, or did another purpose root her in place?

Someday soon Redd would enjoy seeking answers to these questions.  For now she listened.

they came.

smooth wind. red stain. their femaleness awakened sun eater to possession, and it was on this first he spoke. "saatsine walk until children come. we stop for — eight-week. stay. then we walk again. in sun. in rain. in snow. we follow." often this proved too fatal for lanzadoii pups, and so it was in reality that the decision must be made. only those fierce-born would proceed on the caribou march.

"not take man who is not saatsine." sun eater did not feel the necessity of force to marriage in this. ice diver and ridgeback had chosen one another. the clan's ghost talker was young and perhaps would have no interest until the spring to come. that left only grey man as a choice for now. best that one marry lanzadoii and bind himself into the saatsine further, but again, the chieftain did not need to enforce that.

the penalty lay in implication: falling pregnant by a man with no investment to their ways meant sun eater would not recognize those children in his band.

before they hunted, he would hear; his eye moved between their faces in expectant silence.

tag for reference

suliya cast a glance toward the other huntress, her grey gaze gleaming with a flicker of respect. another who walked the path of the caribou, whose strength matched the rhythm of the wilderness they shared. her lips pressed into a firm line, and she dipped her head slightly—a silent acknowledgment.

her focus shifted back to sun eater, her attention unwavering as he spoke of the traditions, the rules that governed their ways. listening, listening, listening. her ear twitched as she briefly considered @Wake—the man whose rituals still lingered in her mind like an unanswered call. the thought dissolved quickly, lost to the weight of what lay before her. the spring season and its implications stirred within her, a season she had overlooked, but one whose importance was now undeniable.

when sun eater's words fell into silence, his gaze expectant, suliya straightened. 

i will not stray, she promised, her voice steady. a vow as much to herself as to him, a reminder that she walked this path not only for the lanzadoii but for the saatsine and all they stood for. her gaze flickered briefly back to the other female, before returning to the chieftain.

This understanding still came with difficulty. A strong pack was built in cooperation and learning, two things that would be hampered in constant travel. She thought of Ruckus, stunted in growth by both long travel and hardship in hunting. She had not been able to provide for him, but what guarantees did such a life leave?

She took no issue with the conditions of mateship. Redd had always conditioned partnership on a willingness to join as one. No mateship that held divides of loyalty was worthy the name in her mind. The time frame she held less respect for.

She weighed speaking against not. If there was any time, it was now. All children begin weak. How do they grow?

She would not set her own blood up for failure. If it was assumed that learning was not welcome, and that a future was expendable, then she would need to question if this pack was one she might settle in. Redd was no stranger to tests, nor expectations of strength. Yet even her mother had allowed them to grow into such things.

suliya did not question. red-paint-woman offered one of her own.

how did a lanzadoii child grow to a lanzadoii hunter? "some will die." this lessened demand upon the mother and thus the band, a cruelty which he had seen claim many pups. "ones who have power taste meat before teeth come. stop milk for caribou."

irritation grew in him, not for the inquiry but because he did not know. such things were the purview of lanzadoii women, and he fought the urge to glance toward suliya. he did not need help explaining his ways. 

"is hard to be lanzadoii mother. children must walk soon. walk fast. saatsine feed them. they must find power inside them quick. quick."

suliya stood silent among the discussion, the weight of her understanding evident in the solemnity of her gaze. she had no questions for sun eater—she knew the ways of their kind. she had lived them.

the woman's voice carried a conviction that suliya respected but did not share. the saatsine way was hard, unrelenting. it was their truth, one written in blood, bone, and breath. suliya’s own nieces and nephews had been left behind, claimed by the journey or the relentless teeth of the wild. she knew this path. it was cruel. it was survival.

sun eater’s irritation simmered in the air, unspoken but tangible. her sharp eyes flicked to him, catching the faint shift of his weight, the restraint in his posture. she had seen this before—a chieftain defending not just his ways, but his worth.

she didn’t speak, though her presence spoke volumes. instead, her gaze lingered on him, heavy with doubt—not of him, but of the ways they clung to as their own. her expression softened, not with submission, but with the quiet, unwavering resilience of one who had endured.

this was their life. their way.

They will be worse for the strength they lose.  Travel would strip it from them the way it had Ruckus.  A slow realization had been approaching that now snapped clearly into view.  She had found the line she could not cross, and in doing so, discovered the truth in their ways that she found so irreconcilable.

You hold more loyalty for prey than hunter.  For the first time, Redd’s voice held a note of scorn.  What kind of leader - what kind of wolf - leaves their own behind to chase herds.  There was no strength in cruelty.  He held no regard for any but the caribou he idolized, perhaps because he had the heart of one.  Fragile and fickle.

I will not bear weak pups only to watch them die.  You waste loyalty for no gain.  She growled, paying the other woman little mind.  She could allow this man to run her own children into the ground.  Redd’s blood, her legacy, was worth more than that.  They do not defend their own either.  In cowardice they fall to our teeth.  Her stare cut through him.  You lead a herd.  Not a pack.

She had rarely felt such disdain.  She remained to offer a chance at response, but she had no desire to fight, nor to claim what he had.  She did not fight prey for scraps.  There were others with strong claims nearby; she could not remain after this.

"you already bring weak pup to saatsine," sun eater sneered, tongue flicking over one corner of his mouth. "you come. you beg. hungry. bones. saatsine give. now you raise voice."

there was no endurance in her, not for what was ahead. rather than accept her own weakness, red-painted-woman flung it toward him, as if he had been the one to drink her power.

"leave." bullish snort hung in the frostlaced air. it was good that he had brought she and suliya here, that the others had not heard her words reared against him. "take child. go to other who have you."

ancient as the land itself, the caribou were everlasting in a way even the strongest wolf might never hope to be.

fangs glimmered in the cold atmosphere; a warning.

suliya stood in quiet resolve, the tension thickening around them like the frost in the air. her ears tipped forward, catching every scorn-laden word from the red-painted woman, though she gave no outward sign of reaction. instead, she moved closer to sun eater, the faint crunch of snow beneath her paws the only sound she made.

it was a deliberate motion, subtle yet pointed, as if her alignment was spoken through the rhythm of her body rather than the sound of her voice. her snowlit gaze settled briefly on the woman, not with malice, but with the cool indifference of someone who had already made up her mind. the lanzadoii way did not require words to assert itself; her loyalty to the hunt, to the cycle, was evident in the steps that carried her to sun eater’s side.

the sharp glint of sun eater’s fangs refracted in her peripheral vision, but suliya did not flinch. she stood still, a calm counterbalance to his bullish snort, her presence quiet yet steadfast. in this moment, her silence spoke louder than red woman's disdainful growls. it was not cruelty that rooted her here, but the ancient understanding of balance—a harmony that those tied too deeply to themselves could never grasp.

her breath rose in steady plumes against the cold, her figure unyielding as she cast her gaze once more toward the horizon, where the caribou roamed eternal.

He spoke the truth but did not hear it.  Weak.  But we kept pace.  She had nothing more to prove to him.  By his own standards both were strong enough to belong. 

Redd regarded him cooly, unthreatened.  No leader stood before her.  Wealda could tear his crown from his head while his herd watched, wide eyed, frozen in fear.

A herd that would scatter at the first sign of danger.  A herd that would watch their own children die in deference to the swaying grass.  Worthless.  They would leave him in weakness just as easily as he would leave them.  And then he would be the one drowning in the river as the herd moved on, heedless.

Without another word, Redd departed.  She would collect @Ruckus and together they would find another deserving of loyalty.  She held the heart of a wolf. Strength was found in the pack, in weak and strong.  She would not betray her nature.

last for her

head sunken beneath hard shoulders, sun eater watched her go. a stirring of irritation was resplendent in him, to lose a hunter. but there was more anger that he had been questioned at all.

then again, she had not known he had killed to create the saatsine. perhaps she might have avoided his band altogether. sun eater considered making this knowledge more common, growling once beneath his breath as he wheeled firmly in the opposite direction.

lanzadoii found the caribou cow swiftly enough; stooping over her tracks, he tasted the air for sickness as another truth entered his mind.

with red-painted-woman's departure, suliya became the only unbound woman among them. meleys was his sister and sulukinak was his niece. he had hunted enough with kavik to call him one thing, yet perhaps it was —

sun eater did not glance toward suliya. his mind was too resentful to lodge warmly on any subject; he turned his thoughts only to blood.