Verdigris Ravine the smoke between our fingers

@Asun :> she's thinking again.

Life rolled on for the shadow of the tribe as a new mother, searching within her heart for a thread of who she wanted to be. Who she was for her child, who she was as a member of the tribe, and who she wanted to be for herself. But her mind drifted back to Kusuma-love, it always did. Those days were sweet, and gentle, rolling on her back and pawing at the she-coywolf with playfulness still in her sunrise eyes. 

The days she knew nothing of heartache or death, an innocent girl who pranced in flower fields with the woman she loved most. It brought hurt to her heart, knowing she wasn't the same woman that had fallen in love with the coywolf, and that if they ever met again, it would be under familiar and foreign circumstances.

Would she even accept the sweet little bundle of joy she curled around and nursed, and fitfully licked clean? Would their promises still hold despite the time that passed? Kusuma had really had a hard time admitting she liked women at all at the time, still a girl at heart and living a very different life. 

And yet all she could do was hold onto those memories. The memories of when life was good and no one had died and everything was okay. 

We make more memories, huh, Harta? she cooed at him. Kusuma teach Harta how to avoid Wolfs and how to be coyote-jackal. Something no one can take away from Harta.