Blacktail Deer Plateau tuviatchiak

She was happy, and so he smiled to her; Kigipigak wondered what sort of leader she might be, and what sort of people might come to follow her.

So far as the young man knew, a leader was an issumatar — a warrior.

Sakhmet did not strike him as such. She wasn't physically imposing nor willful, she did not act in a dominating manner but a more subdued one, too caught-up in her own head to see her own potential. She had the sharp features of a fox or a coyote; her affect was of a creature struggling to survive rather than the truth: a tenacious woman fully capable of survival and more, if she set her heart and mind to it.

He saw what could be. It was different from what he believed to be true strength (in the way that Tartok believed in physical power above all else) and as such, he would have to learn to see things in a new light.

In his silent way he watched her, and in her own curious gaze he saw himself reflected back; but it was only a moment of many thoughts blustering inside of his mind; more thought than Kigipigak had put towards anything else before. He feels his cheeks flush with warmth and with a little laugh, drops his gaze from her dark face.