Herbalists' Cache swirling cloud

running concurrently to this! men are unwelcome in the clearing, but not yet forbidden <3 made this an RO, tagging for visibility & reference: @Star Eater @Ridgeback @Meleeys @Gjalla @Kekoa Suliya @Blackfell @Ishmira @Other Shore @Veksar @Nagruk @Black Hawk @Night Fire @Nutuyikruk @Ghelan

such a work took time and great effort. where the cache's trees thinned to become the dawnlark plains, a clearing opened. ringed in pinewood, caribou could be glimpsed beyond in their huge numbers. their stamping was audible, their snorting majestic. he loved to hear such sounds, and was pleased to think that his children would take their first breaths beside them.

and it was an effort that sun eater was pleased to have put in. ghelan had been born beside the sea, far from the caribou and their spirits. it had been the cause of so much misfortune, he believed, and perhaps even the reason for his son's leg.

no more. never again, the lanzadoii man vowed to himself as his arms strained with the effort of moving many drifts.

hours passed. his claws cut beyond ice into the frozen ground beneath all, and slowly he hollowed a den for his mate. dirt was carried off in hides and dumped back along the treeline. when sun eater was satisfied with his excavation, he tamped down the snow before with his paws.

next to come were smooth stones to line the birthing path, the ritual of it still unknown to him. he laid down roughened logs, cutting them with teeth and clawing their faces to smoothness.

two pieces of windfall framed the doorway, and two caribou skulls lined the place his wife would walk.

he panted, head bowed, sides heaving; but it was done. and it was suddenly a place he should not be, sun eater realized.

he must bring hides. but for now, he rested, drawing huge draughts of air. tingling; the pulse of spirit power gathering around the shelter.