Lost Creek Hollow my light

gift.

without preamble he lowered his head, breath washing over the piece of caribou antler. bird spirits had breathed their life into its shape; his lips were soft against the good sinew and the fletch of black feathers.

an offering. an amulet. and though he did not wish the thought, it was red leaf who swam to mind, her sharadoii words in ghelan's own voice. but he must separate them. this was not that moment. he was no longer that man.

and this was morwenna, morwenna swathed in the caribou hide, her face uplifted to him.

take you for the saatsine? or take you for myself?

but he knew that no matter her meaning, his answer was "yes." slate-blue of his eye searched the moon-winnow of her own as the shadows around them shifted into a lightening charcoal.

to her offering in the snow he pointed. "i wear." sun eater murmured in a voice gentle, one unused, one tinged in vulnerability. "here," the saatsine man murmured, but it was over her own heart he demonstrated where she should tangle the tine into his own fur; his touch was light beneath her collarbones, the press of his claws only just separating her pelt.

in that same place over his own heart he asked morwenna to twist her talisman, sun eater breathing in the good nearness of her, of her scent mingled with the soft leathery fragrance of the hide.