Emberwood dvanaest

at your leisure <3

the mist was thick and cold. caribou had gathered to rest before they carried on. she had grown watchful over the herds. she had ran along the sidelines as bulls contended for control, as cows gathered and moved with or without new bulls.

something new was learned every day. her form might have trimmed with all the walking if the hunting chances were not abundant.

as she moved, she spotted him. old bull with teeth marks. her marks, she felt near certain. for a breath she considered if they were the teeth of another clan hunter. yet did that make it any less her own claim?

she snorted with this thought, bullish in her own right.

her path cut around him now, not yet inclined to bring him down. let him have his battles among the other bulls. she would come for him in time.

it was @Sun Eater she hunted for now.

<3

among them, ice diver walked. saatsine man watched her contemplatively. suliya and meleys were lanzadoii with the advantage of blood already existent.

but ice diver had fit herself into a world she did not know and made it her own.

it tempted him, her willingness.

sun eater kept still where he lay poised atop a small rise among the trees flung round with snow, watching her step move toward him with a languid sense of appreciation.

the chieftain's one-eyed stare questioned in affable silence.

when she had last been near him, she had told him she would find him later. in the time that had stretched between she had spent her days with learning. suliya, grey winter in her mind affectionately, had imparted words upon ice diver that she knew she must grapple into submission.

once she had changed with fear in her heart, scared of what might happen if she did not.

these days she changed with the desire of growing, of not being stagnant. she would not waste away because the world had churned its soil with new roots. perhaps the hands of change had been violent — but had they become so again after?

it was confidence that bid her to look upon the one-eyed chieftain now. she knew that her mouth held gifts he could not see. he must hear them, he must be witness to her survival. he must know that his search for a healer in her days of healing had not been a waste.

tsaay qa nełt’aał.

the one who leads.

the single eye brightened, darkening with pleasure to hear ice diver's apt recitation of his words. "you are learning," he tossed her in lanzadoii, assuming that the huntress might by now comprehend the sound of his language.

he sat up then, tail thumping once behind him; it was an extreme show of joy for the aloof caribou man. "i tell you now my name. saatsine say 'sun eater.' but i am called naa'ayikaas c'eyaan tets na’aay. fire dawn man who eats the night sun."

did she see? did she comprehend why he had not forced them all to learn the many sounds of his name? the teekon wolves were not able, he had believed. until ice diver.

did ridgeback appreciate the complete devotion of who she had become?

she thought she understood him. although truthfully she felt his body language was clear enough for all involved. when had she ever seen such warmth from him? a funny thought for a man named after eating the sun.

she quickly learned that was not all there was to such a name, though. of course she understood why he would not have pressed such a full title upon them! she had struggled enough learning how to say the bulls were strong or that they fought for food and name.

and what would ice diver be in full?

learning, hunger. her own tail offered a full swing now before it settled down. energized, certainly!

"tendezlakkak," sun eater translated with quiet ease. there was a delicious tension between he and she now; he tasted it and found the flavor of hope, that these wolves of his would become lanzadoii. "sharp claws swimming between piece of ice."

ice diver encapsulated much of that for now.

in silence chieftain and hunter sat sidelong, breath pluming in a mingled cloud.

her voice an echo —

tendezlakkak. as if she breathed out old life and inhaled new. she would not change her name again, she thought. yet like sun eater she could wear two. besides, what was one more in her growing pile?

call me this.

proclaimed. decided. life swelling and filling her chest, head turned to look into his dark face.

her eyes, resolute. 

he gave a soft nod. "i will call you this."

a credit to him. a credit to their clan. her clan. 

"saatsine need bloodhunters. strong who kill many. then we need war chief."

first time you come, she exhaled. you say no leaders.

it did not pain her to recall. it did not pain her to think of the body left in the wake and the missing faces never returned. maybe they lived happier elsewhere now. it did not matter — they were not her future.

i say, it will be mine. and it had not been made so, but she had claimed it then. she had burned hot and bright for it then. the world had changed, she had learned, and the fire in her came back. do not think it went away. only changed —

— changed to fit caribou, to fit clan. must be strong with a fighting heart. all of us.

when she looked to him now, it was with trust.