Verdigris Ravine and the rest hope for a shoulder

*

her readings informed her the haka had took; it shrieked over desert sands and up into the throat of akashingo. the gods of chaos would do the rest.

qiao studied the progress of a man in the canyon. a bib of startling red whetted his throat, and his manner called back to something primordial.

she did not call for @Zoug, but her gaze bid him forth just the same.

today zoug kept to the cool cast by the archways of the ravine. he panted to cool himself and by turns toyed with a piece of sharp bone he was slowly whittling with his side teeth.

the other one was new, draped in intriguing scents. but her stare unnerved him, and so zoug pretended that he did not see her. 

yet it went on. the clan customs of politeness were instilled in him: staring was rude. he sat up and slanted his ears backward. usually he would have slowed his signs for another of tribe, but now he moved in quick gestures and a single hard grunt. "say what you want. i am resting."

qiao peered from the cool shadow of a resplendent red arch. the man must have felt the burn of her stare, for eventually he writhed like an exposed earthworm under the careless heat of sunscorch.

at length the recipient of qiao's interest rose, slender ears canted back. 

a grunt; qiao could parse any manner of meaning from that singular, devastatingly eloquent utterance. her gaze fell now to the sharpened bone at his sides, traveling back to him.

she rested a paw upon the chipmunk skull at her feet. it hissed with the mindless chatter of madness.

his eye was upon the skull. now he turned and showed the woman the full sight of his scarred, ruined eye. it had been given to the spirits once, long ago.

there was age in the other but she also had no age. neither young nor old, zoug saw in her the same sort of weight he carried. and secret things.

he lifted the piece of sharpened bone. did the staring one want this? in trade? zoug did not think so, but offered it on the flat of his paw all the same.

in that dark face sat an absence; a bloodprice paid to the insatiable void. qiao wondered what it was zoug gained in return. 

the chipmunk skull’s spirit chattered wildly as the hunter rose. qiao turned to deerpelt and upended its contents upon the red floor. 

she did not wish to trade; her totem came at too high a price. but she could offer zoug one thing. 

my to’lang warn me of a fox. the roving of her olive gaze passed over the thinned bone, then to the totems strewn upon the floor. the antler that pierced stigmata’s throat had a single tine buried deep into the crimson sand. upon its face draped a broken conch, toothsome side to the earth. qiao read the implications there with solemness. 

but for you, they say beware of water. 

ironic, considering their proximity to very little.

fox, she said. water, next. both these things zoug knew, along with the spilling of bones and her intent magpie look.

she meant to warn him.

zoug glanced toward the few inches of sunwarmed water sloshing lazily through the ravine. but he was thoughtful.

he lifted a paw. "should tribe leave this place?" he did not expect her to understand; he thumped his chest, said "tribe," and pointed out, beyond into the burning reaches of the sun.

qiao learned from s’ari that this man did not speak. his grunts conveyed a language beyond her tongue.

it bothered her little, as she had experience in reading the hidden language between signs.

zoug thumped his merlot-stained chest, signaling to the sulking outlands beyond. qiao measured the glimmering distance in thought.

she pulled her totems close and cast them anew, studying their orientation against the starmap in her mind’s eye. this place is safe, for now. again comes the hen, and this time — ah. qiao frowned at the lone rib, its head turned in the direction of zoug’s gesture. the to’lang speak of a journey.

safe. but only for now. she communicated a long walk. zoug glanced around at the various members of tribe, knowing almost instinctively where the others were if he did not see them.

he looked down at the bones, listened to the soft slick of water.

now a gesture for the hated ones, a quick slash in the air. "wolf?" and the clan word for those killers was an imitation of the longnose's hunting snarl.

from his gaze qiao learned of each resting tribe member; some lounged under shades of chollah, others hid from view. 

it was not so easy to understand what zoug communicated next. his chest rose and a fearsome snarl gurgled from his throat. 

yet his eyes cut to her with inquiry. a long pause between them, saturated by stifling heat. 

i do not understand the question.

she did not know. zoug let out his breath. he framed his muzzle with his paws, pretending to elongate it.

he made the slashing gesture a second time and accompanied it with the wolf sound.

zoug would only try this twice. after that, he must find a spot of some kind, a touch of fur, to elaborate his point.

displaced in a land where none knew his culture, zoug must be used to such burdensome obstacles. 

he framed his muzzle with claws, slashing forth in a shape. qiao watched this rudimentary finger-spell, taking mental inventory. 

she thought first of herons, of birds with broad bills and long legs. but the growl was the thread that pulled the tapestry together. 

wolf. there are many to the north. many more than coyotes.

relief bathed his features. having made himself known in this way sparked confidence and he listened closely.

wolves. many. north. 

"wolf will come here," zoug rejoined, using the blend of clan and tribe words that were starting to become his own pidgin. his eyes were solemn on her face.

an expression of relief softened the hard bite of zoug's singular crystal eye. qiao's reassurance her guesswork was correct came in that visible shift -- even the cloak of ruthless red to his cheeks seemed to relent in their glaring.

wolves are everywhere. they will come and go. qiao understood only a segment of the hunter's hurried speech. do they scare you?

perhaps his fangs had crossed with his wolven brethren, and that was how he'd lost an eye.

zoug narrowed the single eye. "not want," and this communication was silent, only a deliberate paw-sign that he had slowed down for the purpose of making her see the other part to his speech. it seemed so little and yet was such a great thing, to know clan, to teach clan.

he did not know if they even shared his memories.

"bad." and that one was in tribe language, punctuated by an emphatic flick of his ears. he could not explain what he had seen happen to coyote women by wolf men. or to coyote children by wolf women.

but surely she knew.

that narrowed single eye was enough to communicate all that words failed to convey. how an eye could share so much of its beholder's emotions was a magic lost upon qiao, but not unappreciated.

he did not wish to see wolves populate the red clay of verdigris.

bad. other words swam to mind, from days and cultures long past. for a moment those memories walked near the surface of her mind.

bad. qiao reaffirmed and chucked the to'lang once more.

bad.

more than bad.

evil. abomination. aberration. men of the clan put wolves to death when they caught the monsters alone or wounded. better this mercy than what men of the Others did to coyotes found alone.

and those unfortunate cubs made of mixed essence. well. better too that they met the fate of their fathers. they would never have been accepted in the clan.

zoug grunted. there was little else to say, for he had not the words to speak of their atrocities.

the to’lang fell to the earth with a clatter, a small cloud of red dust rising. 

the hunter remained silent. he may have been near qiao, but his mind was far away reliving experiences too abject to put into the sparse and piecemeal command of his newfound language. 

one sigil-bone intrigued qiao. it pointed to zoug with its head oriented towards the eridanus star. again came the sign of water. 

this portentous sign qiao kept to herself. she begun to clean the dusted edge of her instruments, comfortable in the shared silence.