Shadowwyn Moor star path

what hides were not ready had not been brought from the emberwood. sun eater returned when he felt they had dried and carried what he might back to their new encampment.

the saatsine now had seven new hides.

the eighth he had given to morwenna.

despite the sudden press of guilty warmth experienced at the picturing of her face, sun eater left behind the thoughts and the caribou pelts, tail swung high as he slid into a trot, searching for @Suliya.

there were other things he must know.

suliya's ears twitched as the sound of approaching steps met her resting form. she had been perched atop a small rock formation, her sharp gaze scanning the movements of the herd below. they shifted and swayed like a living river, unaware of the eyes trailing their every motion.

she turned her head at the familiar cadence of footfalls, meeting the figure of sun eater with a faint, knowing glance. chieftain, she greeted softly, voice low and steady as always, though there was a flicker of curiosity in her tone.

her tail swept against the stone lazily, and she shifted slightly to make room if he chose to settle. what do you seek? she asked, though her gaze remained partly on the caribou below. the herd would not wait forever, and neither would she.

suliya's vicinity shared, sun eater reminded himself to look upon her with the gaze of one searching. large paws carried in him a soft pad alongside her, claws raking the edge. muscular haunches lowered, backbone straight to indicate he wished to share more than one word.

"i want to know more of you, suliya," sun eater said at last, tones thunder in a distant flatland. he was able to see her beauty, the knowingness of her eyes; he was a man for such things and their appreciation did not escape him.

focused as she was upon the herds, perhaps she might not have noticed the linger of his glance — but he did not hide this. "what will you tell me?" a tease ghosted across his mouth.

the sharp angles of her face remained impassive, her expression giving little away. she was not the sort to offer her truths easily; the walls she had built were thick and unyielding, fortified by years of necessity.

not much to tell, she replied after a moment, her voice cool, clipped. her gaze darted briefly toward him, catching the weight of his lingering look before it flitted back to the herd. i was born to wander, same as any lanzadoii. life begins when you can keep up, and it ends when you can’t.

she swallowed, the motion subtle, her throat bobbing once before stilling again. the rest, she added, a faint edge of sharpness lacing her words, doesn't matter now.

but she did not let the coldness settle too heavily. after a beat of silence, she allowed herself to glance his way, meeting his single eye with her own. what would you like to know, sun eater? her tone softened, just barely, though her guard remained firmly in place. her own tease lingered there, unspoken but present. let him ask—if he dared.

"my sister, meleys. she follows the caribou alone to herself. it is what she wants. it is what she says she will keep in the spring," sun eater began directly, putting aside his notice of that pained moment. "i ask if you will do the same."

how easy it was to speak with suliya; how not fraught with tones held back, eyeblinks veiled as not to give. there was no difficult dance between he and she, and the lanzadoii flowed between them in honeyed current.

suliya had no husband. sun eater would ascertain first if it was a status she wished to change. it was practical that they choose one another; the chieftain predicted harmony upon basis of shared ways. she would not weep before him if children were left behind; he would not need to enforce upon her as he had done with stubborn red leaf.

it was the absence of sugary flightiness in his belly which most displeased sun eater. here was a woman long of leg with all-seeing eyes; he could allow her to drive away any other memories, and yet he did not move to ask.

suliya’s ears twitched at his question, a faint smirk pulling at her lips as she regarded sun eater with her usual composed demeanor. forward, aren't you? she remarked, her voice cool but not unkind. her gaze shifted away briefly, as if considering the landscape rather than the weight of his words.

children with you, she echoed softly, letting the statement hang in the air. it was not a refusal, but neither was it an affirmation. her thoughts turned, unbidden, to the man she had met not long ago—winter's wake. fleeting though the encounter was, it had left a ripple in her otherwise still waters. yet, obligations to the saatsine loomed larger than idle musings about the snowrunner.

it is not something i have decided, she admitted, her tone measured. more for the saatsine... it is a noble path, one i do not take lightly. her eyes found his again, steady but guarded. but i am not one to rush into such things. there is much to consider.

she hesitated, allowing the silence to linger before adding, almost as an afterthought, and you? is this what you truly want, sun eater, or is it simply what must be done?

brave suliya. her words minced nothing, strayed from no dour truths. she saw for herself what sun eater had not asked. he felt the warmth of her pelt beside him and wondered if they would be enough for one another.

"a chieftain marries. he shows his people the way forward. how am i to make them lanzadoii if they must suffer a sacrifice i am not also forced to make? we are saatsine, all of us."

but swiftly, unbidden, his mind flew to morwenna.

"i married lanzadoii. she died. i married sharadoii. she fought me. twice i took a wife for love." and both times had ended in grief. "i agree there is much to consider." if they did not choose one another, their mates would be outside lanzadoii blood, built into the saatsine. someone to teach.

"i believe it would be easier between us, suliya." she would not have to find a man who understood her need for careful thought; their minds shared the same language.

yet sun eater's mind circled now the distance of the creek, the shining pale mark on that velveteen forehead.

suliya turned her gaze away, allowing the weight of sun eater’s words to settle. the truths she offered in response were not born of wisdom but of lived understanding, each syllable carefully measured, not for ease but for meaning.

easier does not mean happy, she said after a long pause, her voice low, steady, contemplative. and what would stop me from dying? from you losing a wife a third time? there was no cruelty in her tone, only the solemn acknowledgment of risk that loomed like a shadow over every choice they could make.

we are saatsine, she agreed, echoing his sentiment. but being saatsine does not shield us from the teeth of the world. it does not promise that what is easier is without pain. there is still risk, sun eater. always.

her gaze shifted to him now, her amber eyes searching his singular one. for what it’s worth, even the muradoii would even marry for love. though i wonder, she hesitated, her voice softening, if love, too, is not its own kind of risk.

with that, she fell silent, letting the breeze carry the rest of her unspoken thoughts. had he known of her blood? she was not fully lanzadoii. would this change things?

suliya was right to say it. nothing could prevent the spirits from carrying away breath. he might have said more upon that subject had not she mentioned then the muradoii. any caribou hunter child knew the stories, whispered by mothers who wanted them to stay close.

the muradoii. stalkers of the blood ice. killers who had grown ivory teeth like the narwhal. like the orca.

it arrested sun eater, brought his breath in a stubborn, sharp exhale of white pluming; "what do you know of the muradoii? they do not love," he declared, leaving off the fragments of their earlier talk for the shadow of this one.

suliya’s gaze turned distant, her eyes narrowing as if the weight of sun eater’s question pressed her into the icy ground. she did not shy from it, though; the murmurs of her lineage stirred like ghosts in her blood, carried by the cold wind.

monsters, they call us, she said, her voice low and even, as if speaking more to herself than to him. stalkers, killers. that is what the world remembers. but our blood is thick, sun eater. it does not freeze, and it does not forget.

she tilted her head slightly, meeting his single eye with an unwavering steadiness. muradoii, she spoke the name in the sharp, cutting cadence of her people, letting it linger on her tongue like a blade. they do not love? perhaps not as others do. but they endure. they carve their stories in ice and blood, and it remains.

a brief pause as she turned her head away, her ears flicking against the wind. i know of what my mother told me, she admitted, her voice quieter now, almost reverent. but their blood runs in me. the monster in me is silent, but i hear its breath in my dreams.

she turned back to him, her expression unreadable but her voice steady as iron. you may not love them, sun eater, but you cannot deny what is in the marrow of my bones.

it horrified sun eater, to know that such black blood was able to be hidden behind such a face. suliya spoke in bitter strength, chilling the chieftain, for he had not heard another talk of the muradoii with anything more than loathing.

they lived in her.

"all the more reason to marry lanzadoii," sun eater said at last. it was not a withdrawal, but he was more pensive now. suppose muradoii raised its head in the arteries of their children? 

and then, because he could not help himself, the man asked, "do you come to their blood through your mother or your father?" fixing what small boyish memories were left to him of kavik in the hallway of his mind.

suliya’s gaze sharpened, though her expression remained composed, as sun eater’s question settled in the air between them. she did not flinch under his scrutiny, though a flicker of something—pride, bitterness, or perhaps defiance—flicked across her features.

my mother, she said after a moment, her voice steady and clear. she is full-blooded muradoii. born among the ice and shadows, as they are. but she strayed from their path, taken by a lanzadoii man. my father. her tone softened slightly as she spoke of him, though there was no affection in the words, only fact.

she gave up their ways for him, suliya continued, her pale eyes meeting his with a measured intensity. but their blood doesn’t simply fade away. it lives in me, in my veins, whether i embrace it or not.

a pause lingered, heavy with unspoken thoughts. i don't know the answer. she added, though her voice carried the faintest edge of doubt. but blood is stubborn, sun eater. it remembers.

her gaze narrowed slightly, searching his face for the answer he would not yet give. do you think that would be enough to keep the shadows at bay?

"you are lanzadoii," he seethed toward her, plume raised dark and high. flagrantly she rejected the ways of the people she had claimed, and she had claimed them, else she would be with her murderous mother's people —

"your blood does not waken unless you wish it for yourself. you are saatsine, not one of the muradoii. speak of them only in your mind. guard yourself, suliya. you may only choose one family of spirits."

snort razed the cold air. "take a husband yourself and make him lanzadoii. or choose me when it is time." her children would be part of the saatsine, and she would learn that there was no way to escape what her heritage demanded, for the caribou spoke to suliya in a way the sea did not.

"go out. go hunt. taste their blood now, for all your talk. muradoii ghosts do not walk here."

insult and preservation turned sun eater, though he waited to see if she would heed or continue what he had taken as a challenge.

suliya huffed, her breath curling in pale wisps against the cold air. she did not meet his seething with anger of her own. no, she refused to fight him, not over this—not over something she already carried within her heart. her tail flicked once, a deliberate gesture, before she steadied herself under his gaze.

i will find a husband worthy of me, she said, her voice even, though it carried the faintest edge of defiance. one who will stand beside me and honor the lanzadoii ways.

she let the words settle, exhaling softly as her thoughts wandered. winter's wake. his name rose unbidden in her mind, a fleeting spark of curiosity mingling with the ember of something she could not yet define. what would his realm grow to be? could she ever be part of it? the thought hung in the recesses of her mind, unanswered and quiet.

and then she was gone.

<3

a curious attraction glinted inside sun eater as suliya submitted and turned away. he did not believe her; she spoke so passionately of her muradoii blood that he knew it would have to be excised from her in some way.

so at odds with his feeling for morwenna, this newly-mint sensation, that suliya should bow her head as a lanzadoii wife. she would know there was nothing of the sea here. perhaps ice diver would see fit to accept her as a second woman.

what sun eater would not abide was the monster people's lore being spread among the saatsine, and for her passion, for her beauty, she gained the hard eye of the chieftain that day.

he too went out among the caribou.