Ocean's Breath Plateau [m] wind runner

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the day was rather lovely. lulled by the sound of surf upon sand, little ghelan had fallen asleep and cen was recounting to himself the ways in which @Red Leaf had defied him since they left the bracken forest. 

there she had been far more malleable. grateful. she had not sought to change him. to ask for more. now she demanded. now she dared to speak to him with scorn, to order him away as if she were the head of their clan.

no more.

the raven's smile was warm when he came back to the den. "the otters have come out to fish while the tide is in," he told red leaf, eyes flicking to ghelan. "come and see them. he will be all right for a short time; we will stay where we can still see the den."

his voice sought to be a soft touch, tinged with apology cen did not feel.

the caribou hunter pair were oblivious to the scheming of the moon village leaders, and as a result, perhaps they were a bit careless.
red leaf tirelessly cared for brave one. she did many things to try and heal his leg; in one such instance, she wrapped the tiny limb in a cast of sea-kelp, other times fed him medicine. he was not yet ready to wean, which made things ever difficult; her fear was that he would not live to taste meat.
tension between she and cen grew. he would have struck her by now if not for the eyes of the moonwolves, and she knew this. and so it was a shock to her when he invited her to the beach to watch the otters.
hesitantly, she tilts her head up to look at him with wary, but curious eyes. there are otters? she asks in lanzadoii, as to not upset him. how are their pelts looking? perhaps they will make a good blanket for b-- ghelan.

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red leaf was beside him, speaking, speaking, and his heart ached, and his jaw twisted.

her voice was so subdued! so small! and yet he remembered how she had forced rodyn to look upon her, had not remained at his side, silent! 

how she had spoken to him, dared to order him away; oh, oh, cen whirled on red leaf without another sound, and caught her nape, and flung her into the surf;

"do i need to remind you that you are not a seal hunter? not moontide, not sun people, nothing! nothing, red leaf!" cen snarled as he sought to force her deeper into the waves; "do you enjoy my humiliation, wife? you mock me, shame me, and you cannot even give me a child that is whole! why should i leave you alive? why should i keep you, hmm? tell me now!"

cen could sell her at the next village. this one was soft and filled with fish-eaters, but they would not all be like that. one camp or another would recognize the worth of a skilled woman, and pour gifts into his arms. but the insult red leaf had dared against him, that would not stand.

she was foolish.
red leaf tried to scream, but instead her throat and nostrils filled with saltwater, eyes burning. instinctively she forces her mouth to close, holds her breath even as the urge to hack and cough rumbles deep in her chest. behind her eyelids is a flash of white, and for a stretch of time she thinks she is going to die.
when the waves pull back, she fights for air, sputtering miserably as she finally looks up at cen, wincing beneath his rage. you are nothing, red leaf, he says, and right now especially it was true. her very soul torn asunder and splintering into tiny shreds; she had disappointed him again, failed him again;
again
again
again
tears spill hotly from the scarlet eyes, but they cannot be discerned from the rivulets of water. she whimpers, ekes out a humiliated, anguished sob, and it is followed by her only answer, garbled and meek and shrouded in the tones of the plainspeople: you cannot leave ghelan without a mother.