Silver Moraine kill

oops!!!!!

 

His question was answered with an affirming rumble. He reminded her of them, her people. Quiet. Strong. Resolute. Firm. I walk the path of one who chooses. I am becoming, and for that, it made the name Tartok mean that much more. Not idly given. Earned in blood, more often than it was not. None would be able to recognize the difference between coincidence and creed when it came to that much. The strong that survived became. 

She had already spilled much blood, and shed some of her own too. Perhaps that aspect of it was completed in the earning of her name. Perhaps? No—she knew that she had accomplished such in that area. Had been told. What came next was why she wandered—where would Tartok lay its newest claim? 

Tikigâk looked toward the looming horizon, to the snow-capped mountains far from here. I seek my people—those becoming, those that are. Those that will choose to be, her tail lashed behind her, speaking of what was ultimately inevitable. 

An unspoken invitation there—not meant for now, not meant for any time but for the hour that he might someday choose. That much mattered; more than anything else it must be his own desire. A path carved in the same way they two had cut for themselves in the hunt—through their own force of will, their own tenacity. What was said then was not because she doubted him, nor Darukaal… rather, the opposite. 

It would never be provided to any deemed weak. For in Tartok, only the strong survived. 

Tikigâk had no good way with words. She spoke with her body, which could not be misunderstood or misconstrued. Tone, tenor—it was hard for her to master, too many nuances. The body was honest where words might not be. So he would see in her no desire to insult, no desire to take from him what was wholly his own—no wrath, no contempt, no ire. She did not posture before him in anticipation of what she intended to be—she was not yet that. There was more she must yet do. 

And yet, there was something here—something that gave her pause, as though there might be some sort of unfinished business to consider. Ancient and wild, that feeling—small enough to brush aside this day. Strange to look at him and think, though, provider!—a word that had never occurred to her to matter, in the context of self, in the context of future. 

Warrior. Hunter. Poisoner. Healer. Never provider—did not all provide, that had such skills? 

Now Tikigâk slowed, as though to see if he would again match her pace—walk with her, shoulder to shoulder. The slow beginning of natures oldest dance, that could last them weeks unbeknownst to her. Tikigâk would not know refusal for what it was; she abided only by her own instinct then, which compelled her to act this way. And so, if he did not match her, she would find nothing amiss nor awry.