Dawnlark Plains ι

Sun Eater. Star Eater. Nagruk. The huntress too struggles to make sense of the violence which has already ensued, and that which is to come. But it does not matter, even as the cache which had been drudged up painstakingly spills into the snow. Skorpa moves to guard her, his words voicing her own confusion, but the woman’s cries are high and heart-rending. They cut through Ayovi’s chest and she runs forward, dropping to elbows beside her, arms resisting to pull her against her chest. Blue eyes shift to the younger girl, wordlessly asking what more can be done.
“When the war comes, we will stay,” she speaks to both, “we will tend to the injured. Where is your sister? Where are your wounded?” And the children?
Ayovi looks back at Skorpa. Heavy images swirl in her mind amid the whispers. She had witnessed the forging of a revolution among the Ashēer, the senseless killings, and similarly the slaughter of band chiefs by those who came to destroy their way of life and butcher their people.
And she is moved by the notion that this is all much deeper than it seems.