Shadewood tusk dawn

AW but @Daa'ka

---

the hide was folded with care.
stitched along the edges with sinew from the last kill, scraped clean and softened between her teeth, talvani had worked through the night beneath a thin sliver of moon, breath misting over fur as she pressed each corner flat. it wasn’t large—caribou, not deer—but strong. warm. enough to serve a man in spring chills, even one as broad as daa’ka.
she did not speak of it.
kusax̱asaa had not asked her to go. had not looked her way in days, not since the last words hung heavy between them like a storm refusing to break. but talvani knew duty. knew gratitude. and his brother—silent and watchful—had been kind in the way men of the north could be. she remembered that.
so she moved now through the brush, careful as shadow, soundless as the thin wind that stirred the spring-soft grasses. no words on her tongue. no call. she would find him. and she would place the hide before him with no boast, no claim.
just offering.
as quiet as she was.
as sure.

— daa’ka kneels in the grass, breath visible, lips cracked. before him, a caribou fawn lies gutted, its body healthy, sacred. he had caught it in silence.

the blood is warm in his paws, slick and dark. he lifts it, smearing it slow down his own face—across the bridge of his snout, into the jagged scars at his lip, over brow and throat.

ice raven. trickster. ghost of the white. thief of souls. i offer blood. caught in your wind.

his paws drip red now, and he presses them into his own chest, over the old scars there. rubbing it in. painting himself with it. he draws a red line down each leg, leaves handprints over his ribs. the fawn’s body slumps beside him, its eyes wide and glassy. a red feather lies near its belly—he had found it there, tucked beneath.

he hears the approach of @Talvani. but he does not turn to address her, to look at her with those cruel red eyes or that daunting devil's smirk yet. he is lost in the throes of his worship. his praying.

you see me. you see daa’ka. son of blood. brother of brave lanzadoii chieftain. he drags his claw through the grass, circles the hare, traces sigils known only to the faithful. his body is painted in streaks of rusted red, dried to his hide like war marks.

bless us. keep the herd close. keep the forest full. make our teeth strong. make our limbs fast. bring no sickness. take no pups.

give me wife. one with sharp eyes. one with womb full of strength. one who speaks to wind. i give you blood, you give me blood. let her have children. caribou-blooded. lanzadoii-hearted. pups who howl your name before mine. let my seed make hunters and warriors. not cowards.

he stands now. bent, trembling with intensity. breath loud in the hush of the shadewood. feeling the watchful gaze of talvani now but continuing in his worships.

bless my brother. kusax̱asaa, your knife. your spear. make his bones unbreakable. his mind clear. his hunger true. bless his son. c’ede’. the future. chieftain-to-be. make his steps silent. make his bite final. i offer you the old ways. give us the new path.

---

she had found him as the spirits must have—quiet and watching, a shadow between trees, the caribou hide folded over her shoulders as if it weighed less than what she carried in her chest. she smelled the blood before she saw it, the sharp iron tang thick in the still air. but she did not turn back.
he knelt in the grass like a blade laid bare, and she would not dull it.
so she waited—poised in silence, the frost of early light caught in her fur, her breath held in small, shallow pulls so as not to disrupt the rhythm of his rites. she watched his paws move, smearing blood like scripture, and felt the gravity of his voice as it called the spirits by name.
her scent, subtle but present, drifted near him with the hush of pine sap and wind-washed skin. she knew he would smell it. knew he would feel her there, not as interruption, but witness.
his prayer was not hers to join.
it was his to complete.
but when he stood, trembling and red-painted, and the silence after the last word hung like smoke in the trees—only then did she shift forward. a single step. just enough to say:
she had heard.
and she had brought what she could.

— his prayer is finished and daa'ka does not wait for response. ice raven never speaks so soon, and his son does not expect him to.

his attention is now for the pale woman come to join him. the one who shadowed so closely the muradoii woman; but it had been some time since daa'ka last seen her. he can only wonder how she has evaded his notice for so long.

eyes red as fresh blood gutted from a doe appraising her. the mangle of his face pulling into leathery smirk, and pallid tongue swiping across the fawn's blood that decorates his face. you visit daa'ka. he hums.

where has the pale doe been? he asks, trailing past her; walking in the steps she left behind in her assail of him.

---

talvani stood still beneath the weight of his gaze.
she did not flinch when his blood-slick smile curled toward her, nor when his question licked at her heels like flame. he was strange and sharp, this one—painted in worship, dressed in war. and yet her chin lifted, steady and proud, in the way of her kin.
brother of chieftain, she said first, words slow and rounded by her accent, the common tongue thick on her tongue but shaped with care. daa’ka.
her breath clouded faint between them as she bowed her head—not low, but with intent, as one kin greets another beneath the sky that made them both.
talvani lanzadoii, she offered then, voice softer, but sure. cousin to kusax̱asaa.
her gaze flicked once to the blood on his face, then back to his eyes, unreadable. not far. only… quiet. a small pause. her eyes narrowed—not with suspicion, but thought.
from beneath her hide, she shifted the folded offering at her feet—fur, clean and strong.
you hunt. you call to spirits. you bleed. a beat. you are seen.

— his name in her mouth sounds right. his fur bristles at the sound of it but not from anger. from wanting. from shivers. he tilts his head as she speaks, blood drying in flakes along his jaw, ears twitching once at cousin to kusax̱asaa.

his grin does not fade. if anything, it deepens.

has ice raven been so swift in answering his devotion?

his eyes flick to the offering at her feet. his body shifts, moving closer, slow—

i see you now, pale doe. daa'ka offers her a gentility he would not any other woman. she has offered him a gift; he will give her one in return. spirits see you too. ice raven see. he lifts one paw and touches the edge of the fur.

thank you. he grins an exhale.

---

talvani’s smile curved delicate, like the melting edge of a late spring snow. her nod was quiet but sure, her breath misting lightly between them. she did not shrink from him as he stepped near—his blood-painted face, his scar-scored body—she only watched, steady and soft, as his paw brushed the fur.
daa’ka, she said again, gentler this time, like the name had settled warm against her tongue. spirits see. i see.
her eyes, pale and full of hush, lifted to meet his. there was no teasing there, no coyness—only the clear, calm water of truth.
kusax̱asaa… he say it is good, she murmured, voice slow, for you. for me. to be… she searched for the word, paused, then: joined.
her ears flicked, not from fear but from the weight of what she shared. still, her smile remained.
chieftain think you and i— she touched her chest, then his with the faintest motion of her paw —make strong blood.
a pause. then softer, almost shy:
what does daa’ka say?

— daa’ka stares.

the stare soon turns to a grin.

he thinks he would like to fall into her like a stone into water. ripples unseen but deep.

my brother is wise. his will guided by the ice-raven. he hums. unafraid now to come closer to her. reaching to inhale scents of the warm hide, then to drag it upon his own shoulders.

wearing her gift with pride. how it smells of her. the sea-stink blood of her mother’s line. muradoii. like the woman who nursed his nephew, feeding him her milk.

the sea-monsters. stories of them told to him by his mother when he misbehaved. he had always been envious. he did not burn with disgust by them—they were powerful. he revered. the muradoii raid. take. burn. they kill kin. they drown men. drown pups. but they are strong. cruel. faithful in their own way. and she—she is not sea-bride. she does not stink of salt and salt alone.

i will take you. he tells to her. brushing scarred face against hers, affectionate, already wanting to spread his musk upon her. we will go away together and hunt, learn of each other. soul and body. he tells to her.

daa’ka burns with hope for the future of his clan. a marriage not made by lust but faith. he hoped soon to make her a mother.

---

talvani did not shy from the closeness.
his face brushed hers—blood-marked, scar-laced—and she met it without recoil, her eyes soft, steady, pale as sunlit snow. there was heat in him, yes, but not recklessness. not now. he had spoken, and she had heard. his desire was not brutish; it was bound in faith, in bloodlines, in legacy. she understood that. she had been raised for it.
her muzzle touched his shoulder once, briefly. her breath left in a hush between them.
take me, she said quietly, the words slow, shaped from her thickened tongue and accented breath. when you are ready to go.
she would follow him into that solitude. seven days, the sacred count. not for play. for bond. for knowing.
there was no fear in her. only resolve.
and a silent promise: she would meet him in full.