Qeya River dawn country

pping @Anselm w permission! <3 round two! @Sulukinak next, then no posting order <3

his blood-kin was quick beside him, her face unreadable as usual. yet many things lived beneath the quiet planes of the young woman's features, he knew, and did not underestimate her. 

now he must trust in sulukinak to translate properly, to say his words as he had said them. he would hardly know otherwise.

ash was next, prompting a steady look from sun eater. the healer-man kekoa arrived next, which pleased the chieftain. it signalled the boy wished to stay, at least in this moment. sheep killer and stone crier arrived next, her gait unsteady, his support clear.

another look lingered there on the expressionless and scarred mask. 

the boy gideon came then, and lastly his father. sun eater had idly taken to calling that one 'grey man,' as shallow a name as the things he knew about them.

peering hard at that golden-eyed trio in saatsine's midst, he rolled hard shoulders. "i will speak now." only sulukinak might see that beneath his harsh light, nerves flickered their endless points.

through her, he said: "i am sun eater, chieftain of saatsine. you are hunters of caribou and i will teach you to how to run them, how to bleed them. but it will require us to leave this land. you are saatsine. sun clan, included now among the other lanzadoii caribou hunter bands. and the lanzadoii, we march."

behind him the water spoke in calm rushing, its voice speaking of the ice soon to come. "we do not keep one land. all the world belongs to us. we follow the caribou from forest, to taiga," and now he began a slow pacing before their eyes, "to sea, to mountain, and back. in twelve circles of the moon they return to the woodlands of bracken, and we will follow."

he paused beside stone crier, the single eye moving over the woman's strong, injured form, and then sheep killer's own face. their scents tangled, spiked; they had fought as one and were here now, together. sun eater regarded them now in this union, no matter what true form it held. "already the leaves fall. the mornings are cold before the sun rises. this year, we cannot go so far." he walked on. "and so, we will meet the caribou as they run over the mountains and back into the valley. they mean to come here, to our good grazing and fertile trees. the males are fierce now. they have begun their fighting."

sun eater regarded ash with expression smoothed of all emotion. "we will kill them in the mountains. we will eat their hearts in the valley. and we will flesh them here, for winter stock, then let them go on to the forests. in spring, we march again." again he went on, enjoying his great words.

that smile was a feral, glittering thing once more. "now is a good time to learn, hunters of the sun clan." there was much, much more to be said of caribou, but sun eater knew it was the moment for mention of how he meant to mold them for a new day.

now he stopped alongside kekoa, watching him for a moment. "here are the rules now for the saatsine, to be heard. to be observed: do not marry those who are not caribou or will not become part of us. since i have been chieftain, all of you are caribou hunters." sun eater stalked slowly away. "marry among one another. lanzadoii deliver their children as the caribou birth theirs. it is the only time we stop to build shelters."

"keep these ways. speak in our words as you learn them. i have learned to trust no wolf beyond those who are known to me. learn to give me trust and i will give it back. kill many caribou. become bloodhunters. i will make you warriors, saatsine."

onward he went, a lazy circling. "my son is in a place beside the sea. his mother betrayed me. i was punished. my eye was taken. my son does not know my face." his stride onward was colder now. "i want him here, and so this is what we must do."

he stood now before grey man and gideon, his eye somehow lighter on the boy before he set his attention on the man. "i want him here. so he must be brought to the river. sheep killer and grey man. when the healer has said it is time, i want you both to travel there. find him and bring him back. i will show the rest of you where we will make our first camp outside this land."

stone crier and gideon would remain here, sun eater binding them to this earth with a final tether that surely obligated sheep killer and the charcoal father to return. and this was how he intended it to be, a reminder of what he had done to gain their head.

it was anyone's turn to argue, and sun eater signalled the end of his words with a lashing sweep of his tail. "speak if you have words to say." he wanted agreement. he had told them of the caribou. he had given them his edicts. he had opened a familial future for those who desired it. now they would repay his power by at last reuniting @Ghelan with the father who had never forgotten him.