Flycatcher Downs the veldt

it was the same way for the ukyomrai. common everywhere, she would suspect. the women knew the land where they were born, were tied to it in a way that the men were not; especially as tsahik, as the voice of eywah. as tey'gan spoke of the short leash of his responsibilities, skuka understood and empathized.
my mother is next in line as tsahik. that makes me next to her, should something happen. she shared this now, not to flaunt it or to make herself seem somehow greater, but to explain her dispersal. perhaps their stories were not so different. skuka chose to withhold the deeper reason for her leaving—it truly did not matter, she thought to herself. let him think it was merely the weight of expectation that sent her off.
i have learned to be tsahik, and hunter, and... it is the hunting i enjoy more. i do not want to think of the day i might become the voice; that would mean my mother is gone, and... she shakes her head, as if that might terminate the idea or send it drifting in to the aether of the world, rather than roost it in place.
that thin smile appears again, trying to distract.
we are people of the forest. i have seen rivers, but i have not seen the sea. there have been tales of the sea brought to us—that it is the widest of the waters. a great lake, the size of the sky! is that true? maybe he would tell her, and the conversation could pivot away from her and her fears.