Qeya River longing sun

let @Veksar post first! whenever you have time, ebony <3

the river ran cold, its waters swollen with the melt of distant peaks. star eater walked the banks, her pace slow but certain, the dark shape of veksar lingering at her side. the saatsine watched from a distance, their eyes sharp, their judgment reserved.
she did not fear their stares, nor did she offer explanation before it was due. instead, she lifted her head to the darkening sky and called for her husband.
@Sun Eater. come.
her voice carried, threaded with command, with expectation. the saatsine would hear it, too, but it was meant for him.
when he came, a great shape moving through the twilight, she turned to face him. her expression unreadable, her stance unwavering.
this man lingers, she said, her gaze flicking briefly to veksar before returning to her husband. he claims he is a good hunter.
blackfell had not been far behind, either, so it was clear that she was not alone traversing to invite trouble.

they had arrived.

saatsine greeted him with no sense of hospitality. even the environment was harsh, snow-clad and dark. the sequoias towered over him.

morwenna called for someone — her husband, he guessed. nervous would have been a good word to describe his feelings had he not swallowed it as soon as it bore its teeth to him.

he waited, for he had nothing else to do.

why was she out here again? why was she not within saatsine land? it irritated sun eater, who could not forget the image of her gravid body beside that swollen river while ghelan was swept into its grasp.

why! why twice!

he found her with a man, and, fighting the urge to seize her, to thrust her behind himself, he turned his angered stare between them both. "who is this?" and his voice was a command, one to ring out above her own.

his arrival was like lightning, and his voice was thunder. she moved quick, forgetting veksar at her side, to behind where he husband stood. it was what he needed— a man of possession, quick to anger. entirely territorial, a facet she had grown to love.
it was his crushing lanzadoii that had her respond, blackfell found him, she urged. i was by the stream collecting winterberries. it was clear that she did not know him, however the lie spun upon her tongue.
ghelan's rolling body against the stream had set the chieftain up for rolling trundles of anger, quick to burst at any moment. it had star eater edged, too, but she didn't know how he felt for her growing affections for the boy. she had made it a mission to get more herbs to quell such events— but the nature of winter had left the qeya sparse.
she lowered her head toward her husband— finding herself at once afraid to touch him when his body radiated with such heat, but she doubted his stare would catch to her. i only wished he spoke to you. these are your lands, husband. she reminded him, which she thought, would temper him for the time being.
do what you must, but i am afraid i cannot keep eyes on ghelan for much longer. a glance to her belly, the urgency to become more recluse to the qeya stronger than ever.

veksar immediately regretted his decision.

morwenna abandoned his side, and with that he felt he was no longer safe. the dark-coated man says something furiously to her in a language veksar couldn't parse a word from. she responded in the same tongue.

he said nothing in return. his ears fell flat and he bit down a growl.

he wanted to quell the sensation in his heart when she spoke, but was unable. frustrated when he should not be, suspended between that and his feeling for star eater, he turned his attention hard upon the stranger.

well-built. hale. healthy. a threat.

"what name?" he demanded, reining the firmness of his voice for his wife's sake alone. "what do?" he could see strength and power; he wanted to hear more.

sun eater felt alone of his own design, pressed and hemmed on all sides. the pending birth of his young ones goaded the man to further and further anxiousness.

the caribou fur draped over her shoulders, cut by his own teeth, smelled of him—of the life they had built together, the home they had secured. she let it comfort her, let the solid weight of sun eater against her cheek steady her mind.
settling her cheek against his flank, her breath left her in a slow exhale, misting against his dark fur. she caught only a sliver of veksar between the space of her husband's flank and the world beyond him, his shadow long in the gathering light.
she did not speak yet, not when sun eater held command, not when his voice pressed firm but controlled. he reined himself in for her, and she knew it. her gaze flickered up, catching the sharp lines of his face, the rigid posture that masked unease.
her ear twitched in anticipation, flicking against the thick fur of his side, before she returned to stillness, waiting.

veksar watched as morwenna soothed him, leashed this man that looked like he was just itching to bite him. his tail swung low at his heels. he wasn't about to do to this guy what he'd just done to blackfell. morwenna's husband proceeded to shout at him in broken common like a sleep-deprived toddler.

my name is veksar, he left out crownore on purpose, but he spoke measured and fairly. i can hunt. and i can fight. well.

those two things seemed like they would be important enough to the man to consider allowing him entry. he could only await a response and hope.

gjalla knew who star eater had been. blackfell roved too close. this one; there did not seem to be familiarity between the two, but his trust had been shaken and shattered.

he had no reason not to admit a hunter. "veksar," rumbled the chieftain, and then he nodded. "you will stay. go to find suliya. tell her you new. want learn."

go now, was the implication. acceptance was brusque. compliance must be immediate.

and he must have words with his wife. "you should not be out here," he was unable to keep from murmuring. "you are unsafe most when you are with child. do not endanger the future, star woman."

and with a man!

she watched veksar go, silent, listening. her ears flicked, catching sun eater’s voice, the weight of his words settling deep in her chest. she had never been ashamed before—not truly. not in the way that made her tail tuck, in the way that made her throat feel tight.
she had always been defiant, unyielding. but this man—this man had given her safety, a place to rest her head without fear. he had given her a future.
i hear you, she murmured, voice quieter than it had ever been before him. it was not submission in the way she had once understood it. it was something else. a need to please, to ease his worry, even when she ached for the wildness that still burned in her veins.
her belly had been full when she had slain men before. she had danced between blade and blood, and she had survived. but now, the weight she carried was not just her own.
she inhaled, slow and steady, nodding once. i will be more careful, she promised, though the words felt foreign on her tongue. her freedoms—how she longed for them! but she longed for him, too. for you. for them.
her gaze lifted, searching his face. but i will not be weak. a vow. a quiet defiance, even in her concession. not even now.

vek out

veksar hadn't expected it to be so easy.

it sickened him to see morwenna submit to this man, but he did not comment. he didn't say anything else at all. he simply nodded his head and began to turn away, but as he did so his eyes spoke silently to the star eater — i will find you later.

veksar disappeared into the brush and immediately began to search for blackfell.

"i do not ask you to be weak." he wanted her submission, not a bowed head or shrinking mien, but a deep trust that he knew how best to tend her. a lie, however; he did wish her head bowed, if only to show any loyal eyes that she was beneath him of her own accord.

veksar went. sun eater turned all his focus to his wife, breathing his affections upon the roundness of one shoulder; "soon you will not be able to hunt. but today, come out to the herds with me, wife. hot blood will be good for you to drink."

a compromise; he did not wish her to think him angry, even if he was unsure now of trust.

star eater exhaled softly, dipping her head in quiet acceptance. she did not protest, though the longing stirred in her chest. the thrill of the chase, the strike of fangs against flesh—it called to her as surely as the tide called to the moon. but her body was not her own now, not entirely, and she knew better than to test its limits.
i yearn for it, she admitted, voice hushed like the wind through the pines.
her gaze lifted to his, searching his face. there was no defiance, only understanding. she did not wish to be weak, either, nor a burden upon him or their people. but neither could she deny the ache in her limbs, the slowing of her step, the weight of life growing within her.
i will go, she relented after a beat. but only to watch. i will not risk them.
her lips pressed together, and she looked toward the distant herds, the hunger sparking in her belly at the thought of fresh blood. her tail flicked once, and she turned back to him with a small, knowing smile.
but i will not refuse a share of the kill.

fade?