Herbalists' Cache song of time

her eyes narrow, crinkled by age and blood-heat, her breath heaving in thick fogs through flared nostrils. she leans against the tree trunk, glaring upward at the red sky like it owes her something.
your mother leave because she weak. not because she wise. comes the growl. her head turns, blood-red eyes fixed now on suliya’s back as the girl digs. suliya know our stories. but stories not enough. muradoii not just songs. not just glacier. it is pain. it is teeth. it is hunger that never leaves mouth.
a pause. she shifts, belly sagging, breath rattling with effort. suliya want to be muradoii? then drown what soft in you. drown your mother from your blood. crush it. kill it.
she chuckles—dry, cracked.
then you swim. maybe not to glacier. maybe not today. but someday. if you live long enough, you swim. and if you strong, women let you stay. then, quieter, more like wind through dead trees:
sivaak stay because she killed the ones who try make her leave.