The Bracken Woods [m] marrow sliver

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"the people of this place do not know lanzadoii. they will not know what you say. so when we meet them, be silent." cen did not mention that he too had no idea the language of these wilds and their inhabitants. 

"i have heard from the eastern lanzadoii that these ones devour wolf flesh." he ate a piece of dried meat, then another. they had been walking for two days, as he had promised. @Red Leaf had carried their foodstuffs, the pieces of bone, rolled into the sleeping-skins which doubled now as bundles. cen had carried the caribou teeth and the sacred dewclaws of the forelegs. "i have heard also that some are soft, but that their men are cruel," he lied, embellishing the very few things he thought he had overheard.

but now he gestured to a halt, and ate ravenously. when he had finished, the caribou hunter stalked away to inspect the pool of ice and its frozen center, leaving his wife to lay out the skins for now. they would move in some hours. the bracken woods were thinning, and he felt he could smell the frozen grass of open land more clearly now.

something had been shattered inside of red leaf.
the welts beneath her fur now began to bruise and scab, and were hardly visible beyond her thick ivory coat that acted as a concealer. in the passing days of travel, she kept mostly to herself; spoke only when spoken to, ate whatever scraps were provided, and prayed each night before she curled beside her husband.
by the time they found a new place to camp, her back ached dismally from the weight of their supplies, and the pads of her feet were calloused and well-worn. the crimson gaze was puffy and bloodshot, and her temples were being near constantly squeezed by a brutal, thundering pain.
she wonders now if this is not freedom at all, but a punishment.
i have heard of them, she mutters, gazing over her shoulder to watch cen's smouldering expression. she swallows hard. as far as she knew, he was right; the sharadoii held these superstitions close to their hearts, and red leaf felt her stomach churn with the fear of generations passed. why do you mention it?
was he only making conversation, or was he planning something?
either way, now was not the time to cross him. as he parts from her with quelled hunger, red leaf carries out her task of setting the pelts and the supplies. she tries to pretend that her paws are not trembling.

at times when cen looked at red leaf, it seemed her eyes were ancient. gone was the laughing girl she had been, the one who had traveled with him over the glacier from the valley of the sharadoii.

she was quiet now, no less beautiful but without an inner fire. cen observed this openly and grunted. red leaf pleased him immensely in many ways and infuriated him in others. she would learn. she was learning.

when cen came back, he ate again and settled in the skins. "i only want you to be careful." curled against her back, his paw slipped down to the flat belly of his wife. "the sooner you are pregnant, the sooner the lanzadoii hunting spirits will know you," cen murmured against the back of one ear. "then you will have more protection from these flesh-eaters. do not speak to them. do not look at them. not until i have told you it is safe."

the caribou hunters had one more camp to make. then they would be in the world beyond the bracken. red leaf must understand now how to act as a lanzadoii woman in the face of vastly new strangers to them both.

i only want you to be careful.
red leaf shudders beneath his touch, feeling the delicate pulse beat against his wrist and the weight of his muscled arm against her ribs. sometimes, when he is like this, she feels as though she cannot breathe.
cen speaks of pregnancy. she had always wanted children. she just never imagined it would be like this. i think my season may arrive soon, she purls, gaze fixing on the space between the trees; rancid iron lingers on his breath, and she buries her face further into their bedfurs. i do not want to travel so much when i'm with child. it could be bad for the babes.
her heart skips a beat. how far out do the flesh-eaters live? if they are near, if he had brought her into the mouth of danger so callously — i trust you to take us somewhere safe from them.

cen exhaled. "i have told you. we must follow the caribou until you give birth. our children arrive when their own take first breath." and red leaf had better move the stars above and the earth beneath to reward cen for his stewardship of her foolish sharadoii ways.

he pulled her closer, but now glanced up at the frozen sky between the weave of the shivering branches. "any of the Others we meet might be one of these flesh-eaters. i will look behind their eyes into the place that the spirit lives. you must not. a flesh-eater can still your breath with a single look."

cen wove a story together, gathering black tendrils and spinning a web meant only for red leaf, yet as he spoke, his own heart thudded with growing fear.

"the sharadoii make themselves weak, resting so often. hardly leaving their valley. we lanzadoii are harder. we are made to walk as the caribou do."

softly he kissed red leaf's face. "you are no longer sharadoii. and so you will walk."

time for the delulu

a flesh-eater can still your breath with a single look
red leaf feels a sickening feeling crawl from her belly and up into her throat. she knew the flesh-eaters well, even without having seen the face of one; cen's words bring her back to the way she would curl at her mother's breast while aapa wove tales of gristle and grit and ash, pointing out each scar upon his limbs. the enigmatic sea-hunters. the bloodletting, the yellow eyes, the feverish, curdling howls.
every sharadoii held the fear of them deep within their core.
she shivers, eyes growing wider at each thump of her flickering heart. you will not expose our children to them, it came more from fear than anger, but for the first time, her voice raises. your children. your sons, and your daughters.
a time ago, she would have trusted him plainly, openly, willingly; what was so different now? why had she begun to question him, question the sincerity that spills from the slate of his gaze? and we are not weak, what if he had said that to her father? her ears flatten, and slowly she begins to peel herself out from beneath him. we are only strong in a different way.

did red leaf dare to defy him?

cen listened with incredulity that grew increasingly cold. it was true: no child's spirit could stand against the eldritch magick of the flesh-eaters. around red leaf, the hard muscles of his arms rippled with his anger. nothing she said had been untrue, but it was only in how she had said it.

"it is true. they will be mine. and so you understand, wife, when i say that i decide what they must face. who they must face," cen snarled in a low pitch, holding her hard against the iron of his body. "the sharadoii keep their women and children behind wooden walls; i will not! the sharadoii trade for what they need across the big ice, but the lanzadoii have always had it. look around you, red leaf! we are no longer in the valley of your father. they will walk, and they will see." 

"and you will learn to trust me as a shaman, hm?" cen growled. "remember: i own your soul. no flesh-eater has more power over you than me." he paused then, expecting no more of her valley-babbling, assured in his position.

he wanted red leaf now, the fire in her voice rousing his ardor. how very lovely his sharadoii wife was, even as she spoke nonsense to his lanzadoii ears. and then cen wanted to sleep. there was more walking to be done. but the long unknown lands lay just beyond the bracken, and now, very soon, they would reach it.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: implied sexual assault/dubcon, conception

they will be mine too! i will bear them from my body! a senseless, dangerous anger now rattles her, overtakes the instinct that begs her to stop. why was he being like this? where had the man she loved gone? jagged edged, cut and bruised and bleeding; red leaf can feel her bones beneath her skin and the blood in her veins, the white-hot defensive panic; whether you like it or not, cen, they will be sharadoii as much as they will be lanzadoii. they will have my blood in them. my spirit will make up halves of theirs. i will not let you take that from them!
and then there was the cruel reminder. i own your soul; red leaf felt her heart seize and her stomach flip and spasm, gaze catching onto the locket that rests beneath the coil of his fur. she freezes beneath his touch, fawns; a whine slips from her throat, and it is as if someone had stomped out the flame she held close to her chest only a moment ago.
i own your soul. but her spirits would not do this to her, would they?
for a moment, she questions it. there must be good in him, still. there must be a reason for this.
there had to be.

when she is pushed back down into their bedfurs, it feels wrong again. her body hungrily reciprocates, and yet her mind is elsewhere; gone, gone, somewhere else entirely. she thinks of the mountains surrounding the big ice, and how she knew each peak by name and by shape. the stream that cut through the rendezvous, the flowers in june. the blue-green that dances across the sky in the heart of winter, when the time is just right.
she thinks of how her children will never know those things. they will never know aakaaluk or aapaaluk. they will never know the taste of crab, or the feeling of the spirits smiling over one's shoulder when building their first amulet.
whether red leaf liked it or not, they too would be lanzadoii.
and they would arrive much, much sooner than anticipated.