Lost Creek Hollow my light

saatsine ways — a place of impasse.

for a moment sun eater only let their gazes touch, watching her with an intensity that threatened to become hunger. the tine was tangled; he would pluck at it with his teeth to set it further, but for now it was twined prettily in his fur, immediately a prized possession. and perhaps the only one he owned.

his ways.

"my ways are hard, morwenna." heavily accented voice moved with care over syllables not made for his tongue, for he saw her trust and cradled it softly in his grasp. no desire now to break it. to let it fall. "not yours. the caribou," he gestured to their numbers threading even now among these dark green trees, "they are everything. life. blood. breath. birth. is hard to be lanzadoii. is harder to be lanzadoii mother," he insisted gently, breath mingling in their nearness.

"there is death. there is — losing. if children are not strong, we leave them." never had he felt regret before this moment, but sun eater fought the clawing guilt. tradition had built his spine and made the caribou hunters of the long march powerful in the eyes of both their clans and the others.

and yet; single eye softened; "i do not want — hurting for you."