Rising Sun Valley takinik ⥉

set for anywhere! backdated to after they left but time isnt real. just a getting to know u thread :D

the woman @Wylla was very grim.

a thousand questions had come to the mind of kukutux. was she also anaa? if so, had she borne them to this man's hearth? was she a warrior, and how had it hurt to lose her eye? she had offered much to moonglow and to the duck, but what if kukutux was not able to end this illness?

so many things to say.

when they stopped to rest, kukutux pulled the skin of herbs from her shoulders and stretched. "will you tell me of your husband, wylla? what sort of man is he like? i ask because some men do not wish a woman to give them medicine."

What she wouldn't give to be able to sprout wings and fly home with Kukutux in tow.

That wasn't how the world worked. They had to make the arduous trek up and over the mountains. Luckily, Wylla had a little experience in that department and was able to guide them through a shallow pass. It still wasn't fast enough for her tastes. If she thought for a second she could bully Kukutux into traveling through the night and foregoing meals as she had to reach Moonglow, she wouldn't hesitate to do just that.

Thing is, Kukutux was not the sort of wolf to be cowed by her. She commanded a matronly air that Wylla couldn't mimic if she spent a lifetime practicing it. Her voice might be soft, but there was a firmness to Kukutux when it was called for. Wylla both respected and resented the mastery the other woman had over herself. So they traveled swiftly, but did not push themselves too hard. It chafed to have to hold her tongue on the matter.

While she owed Kukutux much and more for agreeing to come and help Mahler, Wylla didn't exactly want to get to know her. She didn't have any friends and she wasn't about to start making them in the form of this somehow soft and gentle yet universally respected wolf. Kukutux was pretty much everything Wylla wished she had, but somehow could never grasp. She didn't want to answer her questions.

But she relented, reminding herself that Kukutux might grant her precious time with Mahler she wouldn't have otherwise. Stubborn, she said with a snort. He could give a bull an aneurysm. But don't worry about that. He's a midwife, so I think he gets it, and he'll get an earful from me if he refuses medicine from anyone.

"he is irnisiksiiji?" kukutux asked, surprised. she thought on this new thing for a small while. "my mother had the words that men were too rough to be so close when a woman gives children. he is a man of great skill then? maybe i will ask him for this wisdom."

it would be a good trade.

kukutux looked toward wylla. "it is good that a stubborn man has a strong wife. men do not know when to follow." this woman with the one eye, she had come far. and she had found what she sought. the duck looked around the unfamiliar place. "maybe we make a hunt here?" she suggested softly. "we will bring meat with us when we come to your village of rivenwood."

they were both wives. she felt they were mothers also. it was with a companionable wave of her tail that she stepped to the other woman's grey flank.

Kukutux spit out some long, complex word that made Mahler's language seem comprehensible in comparison. What? she blurted without thinking. Obviously it was some kind of word for midwife. Why did all these wolves have to speak gibberish seemingly at random? Whatever happened to good ol' proper common tongue that everyone could understand, even someone as culturally stunted as Wylla?

Yeah, I guess? I don't know anything about it. He saved our daughter when she was born full of water, but that's the most I know. Women trust him, I guess. It was a bit of a thorn in her side, for women seen in such a vulnerable light were particularly susceptible to fawning, and she was about ready to drop the next bitch who fawned over her mate off a high cliff.

Her opinion of Kukutux was failing before, but grew tenfold when she shared her thoughts on stubborn men. It pulled a hollow laugh from Wylla's throat. You got that right, she said. Men are idiots. He always asked me to be his wife when I was super pissed off with him for doing something stupid. As if I wanted anything to do with him then! Sometimes she wondered if they ever would have got to this point if he hadn't told her he was dying and if she hadn't asked herself.

Kukutux suggested a hunt. Wylla cast a skeptical look around. She wanted to just get home, but a year of helping provide for Sagtannet and feeling responsible for the pack wasn't so easily shrugged off. Besides, Mahler could use the food and a break from doing it himself. I'm a pretty shitty hunter, she admitted, so you might wanna take the lead.

women trusted him. he knew how to bring a newborn from the first drowning. kukutux marvelled at this. and she wondered what sort of man he was. did he feel temptation for these women? moonglow was a place of family and often male hunters. she did not know what it might be like to see another she-wolf's eyes upon the sun man.

wylla admitted her faults to hunting. moonwoman took the leadership of it and began to search for scents. "men give learn what it is to be alone when they are left with their fear. they do not want to stay there. so they ask you to come with them." she had seen it many times. but she only had the words for it now.

"they need us," she smiled widely. she had located the thin soft trails of pheasants, creeping from the snow to forage. how odd, to be duck and be hunting bird! "do you run fast, rivenwood woman?" she asked in a friendly way, a bit of good-hearted competition rising in her head.

Wylla, being a simple sort of wolf, puzzled over what Kukutux said even after the moon-woman clarified. She rather doubted that Mahler's untimely advances were the product of fear at all. She would name it arrogance that drove him to not consider the harm he caused in asking only when fire licked at both their souls. It was irrelevant now. She would never admit that she had also asked him in a heated moment and was no better.

They sure don't act like it. It was nice to think that a man like Mahler needed her, but she felt that if it wasn't her, it would be someone else. She still doubted that he had really waited all that time for her to return when he had no way of knowing he would ever see her again. To hang one's hopes upon an improbability like that seemed foolish. She supposed he hadn't done that, after all; he had had plans to impregnate many women, once.

Wylla could not think on it any longer, lest she get mad, and was glad for Kukutux's distraction. Fast? It was hard to think of running, of being joyous in any fashion, when she was tired and worried for her mate, but the question made something spark in her eye all the same. She'd always been competitive, often too much so. Maybe we should find out, she challenged, and two steps later, charged into a dead sprint.

kuktutux did not have time to speak before wylla was flowing into lovely and graceful motion. she was indeed swift. the moonwoman followed suit. long years of living among stone and forest had hardened her own muscles. but the rivenwood wife was like water. kukutux saw how she rushed over the terrain as if she were a wild stream.

the birds rose in an aggravated wave.

for now the duck ignored them. she kept as close to wylla's flank as she was able, even as the distance between them increased inexorably.

laughing, panting; kukutux eventually slowed and blew out her breath, taking draughts of air. "are you certain you are wolf and not hare?" the duck asked, her eyes bright with the exertion and mirth.

Dead grass and spots of snow flew by beneath Wylla's sure paws. For a time she forgot that Kukutux was with her and simply soared across the terrain. Only when the moon-wolf's laughter made her pull back her ears did she remember and grind to a halt.

Wylla breathed hard, huffing like a stallion, but there was a triumphant grin plastered across her face. My... My mom was like... Like practically half rabbit, she said between gasps. Could just jump... Riiight over you. It was a poor explanation, but Kukutux might get the gist. Wylla had certainly inherited her wiry frame from her mother, so why not her agility? She was not quite as fast, but had the supple slenderness of a willow branch.

You're not half bad neither, she said.

kukutux laughed. "i must run more days to be like you." she enjoyed hearing of wylla's mother. the delight that had spread across her companion's face was endearing and showed more of the rivenwood woman than she had shared thus far.

"your anaa, she is also in your swiftness, wylla." she did not know the other well but she had seen the great passion in the racing.

moonwoman paused to take the wind, which held the suggestion of killed-meat. something felled by another creature, perhaps. she set her green eyes upon wylla with curiosity.

Wylla remained breathless while Kukutux spoke, listening to the airy chime of the other woman’s laughter and watching the swell of her breast as she drew each breath. Kukutux was undeniably the leading woman of Moonglow, but how could she command respect when she was so soft? It made no sense.

To Wylla, leading was for the strong. When she led Grimnismal, she did so because she thought it would give her authority and power over the others. Not her brothers, of course. They were outside any hierarchy for her. But Caiaphas, Chusi, Nyx? She naturally had wanted to stand above them.

When she led Sagtannet, she did so in what she felt was the natural way. To be the leader, she had to be the strongest, the most intimidating, and if she cared for the wolves of the pack, it was veiled by her overbearing manner. If she had her way, she would have bullied every she-wolf in the territory out of estrus and presided over them with an iron grip. Nyx had challenged that status quo by existing almost outside the hierarchy, apart from the pack, and that lack of control served only to infuriate Wylla and set Nyx further against her in her mind. It was no wonder, putting so much pressure on herself and her authority, she had found reasons everywhere for her paranoia.

Here, now, was a wolf who seemed more denmother than leader, and yet her wolves deferred to her. Wylla had seen it at the borders of Moonglow. Kukutux had not had to say a single world. She had not had to lift her tail or stare down her subordinates to demand respect. It had been given freely.

She thought to pick the woman’s brain on the matter. She had already decided she would never lead Rivenwood if Mahler asked her to because she felt it would end the same as Sagtannet — those she toiled for would never respect her — and she was unwilling to waste her time on wolves she knew would oppose her at every turn. But perhaps it was Wylla’s approach that was wrong. Perhaps there was another way.

The drifting scent of meat on the wind stilled the words that lit on the tip of her tongue. Later. She met Kukutux’s eye with a swift glance of her yellow one, then forged ahead, making a path for where the smell originated. You say words in another language, she noted while they walked. It piqued her when others did that, but she schooled any little flares of indignation for her own lack of understanding. Mahler does the same. Why do you use these words when you know your company does not understand them?

kukutux considered as they walked. it was good to travel alongside a woman who was close to her own stature. they held ways of their own but she appreciated their commonality. "because they are my first-words, and so come first to my mind." her mouth curved pleasantly. "i knew only some of your speaking when i came here. i told myself that i must learn. so i did this thing. but i speak first-words with my children. so they are not far from my mind, even if they are not always known."

wylla was careful enough that kukutux did not consider her companion might have felt offense. "often when i share words with another, they teach me things. they give me new words or tell me how they saw a place i have not seen. it is trade, to give something back. sometimes i offer words." she considered keyni and her cloudberry sister, and how each of them had somehow known this trade between them.

it was the way of the snow wolves, perhaps.

"your husband, he teaches you his words?" she asked, interested to know. "my sun man, he does this. we speak different ways, and he does not always say his own." 

it was good also to speak with another wife, kukutux was discovering.

The only part of what Kukutux said that Wylla understood was about her children. The words were a connection to her children and in thinking them and speaking them, Kukutux remembered them. Wylla wished she had something to remember her children by other than just memories of them. Her memories of Thade were fading now, and her memories of Tiercel were blackened and curled at the edges. She could not appreciate how one's mother tongue would alter their very thoughts; she had been born with only the common tongue.

Words were not food. They could not heal a wound. They could not chase enemies from the borders. Wylla saw no use for learning the languages of others, which explained why she was so resistant to learning Mahler's. She had picked up a couple words here and there on account of Phaedra also speaking it, but it was still incomprehensible to her. He does not teach me, Wylla said. He shares the words with our... With his children.

She wished it had only been theirs, but knew he shared the words with Ciri, with Elke, with Astraeus, and not only her Phaedra and Thade. I guess I haven't deigned to learn any of the words. I see no reason to when he can speak this way and we both understand. Another aspect she lacked that Kukutux boasted: a curiosity about others, respect for their ways and cultures and a desire to be part of theirs.

Even her relationship with Mahler was selfish, in the end.

the way that wylla spoke of these children said that they had not been born of her body.

kukutux wondered at this. these things were commonly done among her own people; a man who had children of different mothers was a man often with status enough in the village to support each of them. but the duck knew this was not the way of the teekon.

and so she did not ask.

"it is good to speak in a way that both a husband and wife understand," she said softly, tactfully. "will you tell me how many years you share together?" she had known aiolos for a long while but they had not shared the same hearth for many cycles of the moon. 

she hoped for this to come, however.

Fading here!

That was a difficult question to answer. Wylla herself didn't know. Did she start at the beginning, when a much younger Mahler had met a much younger Wylla at the borders of Grimnismal? Or after Grimnismal? Or when she returned to the Teekons and ultimately gave up her search for her eldest daughter to build a home with him? But they were not together then, either, not really.

Wylla chose to start at Nova Mountain when she wove their tale for Kukutux, with only a passing mention they had known each other quite some time, and omitted most of when they had not spoken to one another. She did not want to sully Kukutux's impression of Mahler before she even had a chance to meet him.

A change, that; several months before she would have stopped at nothing to drag his name through the mud.