Qeya River i like it when the bite marks cut through the skin.

intended for @Sun Eater but all welcome! @Blackfell and @Meleeys arrive with her but may disperse upon arrival.

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the journey back to saatsine is a quiet one. gjalla carries stark’s severed head between her jaws.

it has begun to fester, skin peeling from flesh in places where decay has taken root. his face is twisted in something ugly—mid-scream, mid-thought, mid-fear. his last eye ripped from its socket, leaving only crimson that ran down his cheek. and his mouth hangs open, as if his last words had never quite left his tongue. her breath hisses through flared nostrils when the stink of rot becomes overbearing (which was often).

she grips him tightly, carried by the scrap of scruff behind his ears. the weight of him is an anchor, but she carries it without complaint, without faltering. the iron tang of old blood has seeped into her gums, a taste she has long since ceased to notice. 

blackfell is beside her, meleeys on the either. they do not speak, they do not dare break the quiet. she does not stop. she does not slow. 

gjalla pads through saatsine with stark’s rotting head hanging from her jaws, all the way to where sun eater rested. when she reaches the center of it all, she stops, loosens her jaw.

stark’s head hits the frozen ground with a sickening thud. gjalla does not blink.

she stands tall, chin raised, shoulders squared. blood still mats her fur, though the worst of it was washed away in the lake. she reeks of death, but she wears it like a mantle, a crown. let her be the queen of death, if they needed one.

"gift."

feel free to skip me, but ill reply if he's addressed!

there is nothing but silence. silence, shared between the three hunters. but the world is loud with its contempt. the hardened snow from days where more had not fallen, leaving ice to take root where winter made its forge.

there is something grim about carrying a man's head to where he may be made an example. not that blackfell cares; he had pissed on the bastard's body before it even grew cold.

he moreso is concerned about gjalla. again, she has grown silent—but he knows what goes on in her mind. it is turbulent, now, but in the coming days it would settle. the storm would pass. she would not feel the weight of taking a man's life for long. and if she did, blackfell would be there to ease it. distract her with the future awaiting them both.

the man comes to a halt several feet away where gjalla approached sun eater. crimson eyes onlooking, the guardian at her shoulder, but he understood this was something she must do alone: shaking the ghost that breathed down her raven neck.

there was much for which to be grateful.

there was much to grieve.

but this was not for the return of silently glorious lanzadoii hunters. sun eater gazed steadily at the head, churned to his shoulders by flying snow. carefully he committed each decaying detail of that sundered face to satisfied memory.

with meleeys he exchanged a long look, and when sun eater allowed gjalla to capture his attention again, it was with a flickering of desire to scrape the lowlands of his single eye. seeing her so powerful was alluring, though he did not allow it to be more than manful need.

"where did you kill?" he asked of her, nosing the head along until it rolled to a place against his own ankle, stiff and cold, its rot reaching splendid to his nose. "alone?"

she doesn't move when he noses the head, but the muscles in her jaw twitch. the fetid rot in the air is thick, a reminder of what she has done, what she carries—what she is.

"blackfoot forest," she answered finally, her voice low, rough like the scrape of metal on stone. "alone."

she shifts her stance, her claws clicking softly against the frost beneath her paws. a storm inside her churns with something dark—not quite regret, perhaps the violent rush of delight. the faintest, bitterest taste of satisfaction lingers on her tongue.

Clutched within her jaws is the tail of the man which they had killed. It stinks, too. Stinks of him mostly. She would need to cleanse it in the ice waters of the river and sit it out in the sun to dry like she might the skin of a weasel. 

As they arrive, she pauses at the side of Gjalla though as her brother comes, she steps forth, their eyes casting upon one another in silent greeting as she keeps her pace, moving past him and continues on.

 Her mision accomplished, a prize to remember and a good night's rest needed back along the caribou lands she called home.

alone. cut down. it was as he had ordered; it was as he had wanted. his eye was swallowed by the visage of gjalla. now it was the moment for all to be gained, and he jerked his chin first toward her. "you new bloodhunter. saatsine call you 'nehzuunxel,' dark snow to cut the eyes."

to meleeys; sister with her own trophy gathered. brother gave glittering grin. "bloodhunter. saatsine needs you, as do i."

now to blackfell. "i give saatsine name." not the rank of the others. a test for the man to train his face still, to be reminded that which was earned was not always seen. sun eater observed all. there was more to know. "saatsine call you 'uuts'taa,' long flying-feathers of blackbird."

his look was cold but pleased; now he turned his gaze between blackbird and dark-snow-knife. "you and you, is there want?" for one another, to be a bonded pair in the sun clan.

she had known this was coming, and she was not particularly excited for it. gjalla had no use for a new name, and yet it did not seem optional.

nehzuunxel. dark snow to cut the eyes. strange choice. the meaning is was thing she could carry, familiar, but the name itself feels foreign on her tongue, unfit to wear—it does not sit well with her. she does not flinch. does not speak against it.

the one-eyed man finishes with her and turns to blackfell. he grants him a name, but decides to forgo a fresh rank, and something coils tight within her. he had been beside her, fought at her side, held the snake still so she could cut off the head, and yet..

gjalla does not look at blackfell immediately, though there is a tension in her frame that is telling. it is only when sun eater speaks again that her gaze shifts.

"is there want?"

her lips press together. want. it is too small, too simple a word for what she feels.

periwinkle eyes fall to blackfell—searching, debating. she does not dare move, nor answer. if he felt the same way he did months ago, then he would say so. if he says no, then so will she. if he says yes, then she will not deny him.

blackfell is not bothered by the lack of bloodhunter rank. not the way gjalla seems to be by it, tension tolling through her almost immediately.

blackfell ignores instinct to reach the woman. but cannot help the amused smile twitching at his lips; the way she is moved for him.

he chooses to look to sun eater and offer the man a curt nod, acknowledgment of the name. blackbird. uuts'taa. it was strong, reflected who he was, and he accepts—there was no reason not to.

he had told the man he wished to learn the ways of the lanzadoii. truthfully, only for gjalla—but now… not even she seemed too convinced. and this unsettled blackfell.

but onyx man draws himself closer finally when the elephant in the room is brought up. whether or not gjalla had made her decision. he moves slowly, to gjalla’s side, looking to the chieftain with those red eyes. he says:

we have spoke. he looks to gjalla when he speaks next. she tells me she will have me.

so was this it?

gjalla looked to blackfell, and it was the man who spoke. interesting. "then you go away soon, for seven-day. be alone. hunt together. lie together. when you make return, choose then if you will be wife and husband."

he ignored the lingering tautness of the moment, though he wondered indeed if suliya should have become the mate of this man, and gjalla to have another. but this might only cause dissent in his ranks.

"you have pleased the caribou spirits. you have pleased me," he told them, wanting to go and find meleeys before she had gone too far. "keep on this path."

a wave of his tail released them; sun eater snorted and turned to pad after his sister.