Redsand Canyon You've only known the ones who leave at dawn

crowfeather began to speak. germanicus listened to each word but noticed as the story went on how many times the shadow evaded his gaze. eventually he did not try to look into the other's face. he only allowed the words to sweep over him and through him as he set his eyes upon the water.

it was fitting that crowfeather chose a story to explain his softening toward the way of a seer. and as the tale took form, germanicus realized it was perhaps one of the only times that the shadow had mentioned the starsea. he had not long asked. and the other had not been apt to share.

editum had not seen a need for seers nor oracles nor sages. it was the culture which raised arsenio that had put their mettle and their hearts into those things. had germanicus never visited those vibrant shores he might never have become acquainted with his own respect for the spiritual. it was the reason why he was able to understand the importance of the ancestral story spoken softly against the backdrop of the lapping water.


at last crowfeather looked toward him and the silver eagle gazed back. several things warred within their connected stares. it was not nightrunner upon his mouth, it was something beyond this. he tightened his paws against the loamy shoreline and nodded. "i am," the imperator said instead.

memories of his children's birth came to mind, balancing the chaotic run of his pulse.

"when we last spoke, i had not yet made a decision." the recollection of that night was clear as a sunlit stream. "i came here and began my building. lady ruenna found me soon thereafter. we agreed and were married that day." crowfeather had not come so torturous a way to hear condolences or platitudes. 

"after that, mereo was beset by a violent occurrence and the potential of another." the third reality, that he had kept close to the canyon to fulfill the wish of both his wife and himself, was not something germanicus would ever say aloud to the exhausted dark ears of the shadow. "i did not see how it was possible i could leave, and that is why i was eager to use ramesses' emissary."

crowfeather deserved the bare honesty that now shone in the imperator's eyes. "lady ruenna delivered our children yesterday."

his moongilt chest swelled. his eyes shut for a moment of struggle and anger at himself for it. the births of his sons and daughters which evoked such joy in him now would only be of misery to crowfeather. and how now would his words of not forgetting pale? but it was the truth, and germanicus silently asked that the shadow see it, that he had never let the silently beloved face slip in the illustration of his mind's eye.