Lost Creek Hollow the prayer of the apostle paul

the great river had led him here and his eyes sharpen with comprehension, the rest of his features falling into feral relief. this ground was blessed! he kisses the soil and the snowmelt beads on his whiskers like a string of crystals.

piriawis! life-giver, i hear you!

he dances then, paws marking a tight figure-eight in the slush, leaping into the air every so often. his movement recalls a school of fish coalescing, contracting, then fleeing as one, something mindless and automatic. something so unusual it could only have been dredged from base instinct, or instilled by a higher logos. there is no mundane in-between to the canaanite and the prayer that moves him.

the rhythm stutters to a stop. he is flushed with exertion. he tips his head back and calls out, breathless, for the denizens of this sacred city.

glassblue eyes watched from the sweet dark greening of riverclan's hidden little world. already there when he called, and watchful, silvertongue waited a few more minutes. he had kissed the earth; he had danced, his movements mimicking even the river. he seemed excitable and not aware of himself, and now he waited. now she did also. and then with a slow movement of softly bending ferns laced with ice and long grasses bending but not breaking, she came into view with a slow, knowing smile crossing her mouth. that he was a perfect stranger meant nothing to silvertongue, who favored him with a tracing look up to his very eyes. "you have found riverclan." but her tones said he would walk no further — for now.

she materializes out of the wrought-iron undergrowth, her gaze lovely and pale. the canaanite bows his head until his chin hovers over the earth, churned and scored by his dance just prior.

river-clan, he breathes with delight. to have piriawis in their name! the great vein of the world that fed and cleansed them, that ferried the wretched and worldly masses to the World of Light! a holy name!

nearly rapturous, he turns to the sterling woman. would you have space for a wanderer?

he did not consider even the possibly of a rejection - to do so would be to doubt that a stone would fall to the ground after being thrown. it would be to doubt tomorrow's sunrise.

the stranger was reverent and strange. silvertongue watched him with her glassblown eyes and then her lips curved into a grin. "we were all wanderers once." her eyes swept to the viridian shadows here and there. "what is your name? what do you bring? we all come together and offer what we have." there was no price for entry, only a willingness to learn and to listen. she liked the way he bowed, and stepped forward silkily to see if this man would offer more obeisance.

he is pleased at the way she watches him, how a smile slides over her face like the spreading of cards on crushed velvet.

i am jacint kanaani! he declares. i hunt and i sing. my mother herself was a singer by trade, and my father a priest. briefly, his mind flashes back to samyaza and hualit, his brothers. the two of them had struck out on their own nearly a year ago now. he wonders if they, too, had found and followed the cosmic pulse of the life-giver.

she is yardna in the body of a wolf as she steps forwards. readily, he shows her the off-white fur at his throat, bared and vulnerable in all its pallor.

what do you call yourself, senhoreta? from below, his molten eyes catch on her mouth.

this jacint, spawn of priest and singer, flashed her his throat. she felt her senses ripple with ardent fascination, which she hid with a smile of teeth over tongue. his words were not his own but familiar enough for her to answer. "mi nombre es lengua de plata," she spoke back in the almost-forgotten roll of the river beside which she had been born. jacint kanaani. "we have holiness here. hunters. herbalists. who is your god?" silvertongue pressed gently, winding softly closer to examine this bard with a closer look.

the fine muscles around her lips move to form butter-smooth vowels. tongue of silver, he trills back. a strange but beautiful name - he is not sure what to make of it.

when she asks after his God, a fresh wave of joy threatens to sweep him off of his feet. Hayyi Rabbi! his face shines with a new fervor. it dwarfs any notion of the zeal of the convert - his faith is innate and fundamental. there is a brightness in him that leeches through his sharp features as the sun does through stained glass. the Great Life, the creator of all.

she approaches, closer - closer still! yet he does not move to close the gap. minute details coming into plain sight, now: the flutter of eyelashes, the subtle flare of nostrils, the smell of both her and river-clan, nigh indistinguishable.

He has brought me here, he says. her proximity brings him to the cusp of nervous chatter. through the living-water that flows through your land.

silvertongue had seen such fervency in the priests and holy men of the palace. but jacint seemed almost unconscious of his own body. his eyes sparked with a beautiful light; his mouth was lovely in the formation of such syllables as to praise his god. to state that he had slain her, in a proverbial sense, would have irritated silvertongue. but he had, without a single and equally proverbial shot fired. jacint's praise of the river brought her head up and she gave him a long and searching look before stepping aside. "come now. you can see what this living water has created."

at her words his whiskers tremble with awe - awe in the original sense, the old testament fear.

do you lead with another?

a matriarch was an uncommon thing but he had seen them enough to feel a respect and fascination for them.

after all if anyone had led his family it had been his mother, despite his father's silent, and spectral eminence.

still he hesitates before entering their territory, mincing across the scent-line with deference in the slope of his shoulders. but once he is firmly on the other side his disposition brightens once more like a fern curling in reverse. who is your god?

"yes. his name is crowfeather. he has a soul that is gold." silvertongue looked up at jacint with a small laugh. "i serve no god. only what i can see." and what she saw was a beautiful man. "we have two allies, swiftcurrent creek to our northwest, and kvarsheim closer, southwest." her lashes veiled her eyes a moment and then, "you should acquaint yourself."