Lost Creek Hollow ánni

neighbors? :D

anybody who knew bjarna would notice that she seemed more lively with the cold that had settled over the wilds.

it was easier to work. no longer did she bake and pant in the summer sun. with this finally came the adventurous nature of all children. although most children found it sooner than she did.

she had kissed @Sanja before she left, promised to bring something good back.

but here was something unexpected. not the herds she often spotted moving through the rise. this was a collection of scents very much like home.

just not home.

without second thought she began to poke around.

silvertongue had become good at remaining unseen in the deep green shadows. as the child approached, she watched. the wind brought her the scent of kvarsheim; charmed by this reminder of gunnar, she at last slipped from her position and approached the little wolf. she was quite fluffy, and somehow not wolfish, though this mattered not at all to silvertongue. "hola," she said softly, ears cupping forward. "are you lost, sweet thing?"

bjarna often times thought of others in terms of bears.

sanja was mother bear. taktuq was polar bear. gunnar a brown bear.

this woman was distinctly not a bear at all, in bjarna's mind. she did not know what the woman was. besides beautiful — and that horrified bjarna.

fyrirgefðu að ég vissi það ekki...

and now she was lying! she had known full and well of the scents here! embarrassment gripped her tighter and harder.

her tail pushed tightly under her awkward body.

the child quailed. it could not be said that the artist formerly known as belen had any maternal sympathies. but she saw the horror. "no conozco esas palabras," she said gently. but then she crept forward again. "kvarsheim? i know gunnar." maybe these names would soothe the child.

kvarsheim.

gunnar.

words she knew and it showed in the way she stilled. her face shifted to something softer beneath all of her ruffle and brow folds.

my heim. she replied softly. those two words were part of her home. this woman knew her home. y-your...heim? she asked with gently pinched brows.

here! so close to kvarsheim!

heim must be home. silvertongue nodded. "this is my heim. this is riverclan." she stepped away and allowed the girl a glimpse into the shadowed green land. "i am silvertongue," she said, tapping her chest and then gesturing to the child.

her heim.

she glanced around nervously. suddenly feeling like an intruder. which she was in nearly every sense of the word!

then the beautiful woman said a word, tapping at herself. bjarna was much too embarrassed by her lack of what seemed to be a common tongue beyond kvarsheim. but she nodded. at least understanding what had been exchanged.

bjarna. she tapped at her own chest now.

s-see...heim?

suddenly she wondered if that was a bad thing to ask!

silvertongue tilted her head from one side to the other. she did not think crowfeather would mind, he trusted her judgement. however: "yes," the woman agreed. "but not all of it. i' will show you one place." here she would dance backward into the long-standing grace, melting as she had learned to do, though her glassblue eyes could be seen shining and looking for bjarna.

she did not fully understand.

so she was simply prepared to follow. uncertain what she might glimpse from such a place or such a fanciful woman.

bjarna would not be nearly as graceful traveling through the creek's growth.

it would be the waterfall. it crashed down into a great pool of dark azure. high above were trees. the waters smoothed into a wide river which wended through all parts of riverclan. she smiled at the girl and leapt onto a small bank, weaving up and up to the willow forest which overlooked the falls.

bjarna had seen different kinds of places before in her life.

yet she had never seen something like this. the water falling from a grand height down into other water. winding water. how did she not know there were so many types of water?!

still she followed. hardly any bit as nimble as the silver woman. struggling behind, but finding no fault in that.

she could merely admire the beauty as she struggled.

"these falls do not have a name yet." she spoke close, under the roar of the waterdowns rather than attempting to shout over them. "but this is riverclan. the river there, it flows through the whole hollow. maybe even to kvarsheim." she grinned a little, then turned her eyes back on the sight.

kvarsheim.

her home had not a thing like this! only a humble creek that kept them cooled and fed when needed. there was something in her chest. akin to when she saw all the pretty women of the world. only somehow that feeling had now transferred to the land.

heim! she did not know how to say how gorgeous it all was, but she hoped the whimsy tone and wide eyes were conveying her wonder.

bjarna. silvertongue. riverclan. kvarsheim. she heard the girl's tone and thumped her tail against the ground. "que bonito!" she sighed aloud, enlivened by the sight of her land. "crowfeather is the leader here. crowfeather," she said again for bjarna's ears.

she could commit the sound to memory, but there would be no way for her to perfectly mimic it. it sounded almost like a title of somewhere, something.

like kvarsheim. like riverclan.

ah! she nodded sharply, showing she heard and understood — as best as she could. then a thought planted softly in her mind.

trade? perhaps it would be good to have neighbors to share things with. bjarna trade! her face morphed into a happy look, wondering if the beautiful lady might accept.

silvertongue's tail swayed. "trade? yes. what do you have to trade?" she herself had nothing, but riverclan possessed good deep resources and herbs, even if she did not know their names. whatever kvarsheim had to offer, she was sure crowfeather would accept. "and what do you give?" she went on, gesturing vaguely to punctuate her words.

it took her a moment, to find the words she wished to say. words that beautiful lady might understand.

bjarna...trade. huh-nt? her head tilted softly as she looked to the woman. wondering if she might understand the word that bjarna stressed so deeply. she had heard it before, from gunnar and those in kvarsheim of two tongues.

a word she had come to know might mean something a bit more specific than trade.

silvertongue grinned. "i think so, si. sandulf is a man here with us. he is a very good hunter. and i am learning. hunt together. yes." she liked the idea. presently she glanced from the falls to the girl, wondering at how far from akashingo the girl once known as belen had come.

fade? <3

hunt.

hunter.

she bobbed her head, delighted and revitalized. it gave her some sense of self confidence before the beautiful lady, to be agreed with! ja! huhnt, huhnt. she could not wait to go home and deliver her good news.