Dawnlark Plains Pagwį

AW!

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the morning came with mist, curling like pale breath around the base of winsook's mountain. silatuyok moved slowly through the fog, her pale coat nearly indistinguishable from the haze. worn into memory after seasons of tending to wounded kin. a woven pouch, stitched from softened bark and animal hide, hung gently from her shoulder, light with what little she had gathered so far.
she paused at a bend in the stone path where low light struck green, and knelt beside a patch of early-rooted yarrow. the blooms were not yet open, but the leaves were strong—bitter, sharp, good for clotting blood. she ran her nose carefully over them, muttering quietly in her mother tongue before beginning to harvest.
ayovi needed these. the birth had taken much. and though silatuyok could not give the mother her strength, she could offer the earth’s.