Redtail Rise sanguine

<3

once tasted, wealda transformed one into itself. wounded. sick. recovering. the rise was redtail blood, and redtails moved upon it.

and redtails left it, and redtails returned.

redtails set the mettle of their pack. teeth defended rank. she herself had dominated thorn caller before them all.

but pride was also their birthright. thorn caller had not been able to hold pride. he wondered if that was what he read in the lines of their sister now.

he drew further back the longer blood star walked. their eyes met, and he saw in them a sorrow remembered.

the great man slowed, his form halting at last. he did not assume what she meant to do, but he saw her stride and recalled her frustration.

the hours would spell her decision. again and again his patrol, until he knew it to be true.

this time, he felt rather bereft. mountain boulder thought of the bleeding woodland to which he had not dispersed himself and his family. choose, blood star had instructed. and he had chosen the rise. 

the rise, perhaps, the land itself. the memory of what had been rather than what could be.

but flux taxed his tongue as if it were grit. 

mountain boulder at last sat to wait for a long, long while.