Qeya River run

Meleys followed the caribou. She always had, something which had been pushed onto her in just a pawful of months. She remembered the aching in her limbs, the tiredness of her eyes. She also remembered faces of those she had met in those early days and how many disappeared just as quickly with the only reasoning being "they were weak". 

The Blackroot clan was as hard worn as any Lanzadoii, if not harder. Their hearts as hard as the beaten tundra plains of their path. 

Having abandoned the herd which she had followed for over four years of her life, she felt at a loss. She felt almost naked, without them. A bleeding sorrow for those caribou far outweighed any yearning for the clan members she had left. She had to find another herd now and so she did. 

She approached the herd slowly, accessing, quiet, keeping her distance. The scent of others of her kind near, but she minded her place from them. Meleys only wished to know of she could find home among this herd.

very slowly had sun eater gathered a collection of small skins. many were stashed for now, but others lay in the last place he had slept.

each night the lanzadoii man chose a different part of the riverland in which to sleep. it was as natural to sun eater as drawing a breath, a practice encouraged by his deep suspicion that the other hunters would turn upon him.

raccoon musk cling thickly to the hunter as he watched a small tangle of caribou. they had arrived early, though welcome, and among them was —

he stared, surprise outright writ upon his stony features. "meleeys?" his steps quickened. "meleeys! how did you make it here?" 

she was his older sister, and now it was cen who stood before her, almost boyish in his shocked delight.

There was such a great many of them, here in the taiga. Her focus remains to them. Grey eyes seeking, she thinks of 'Scar', a great old mother of Meleys' old herd. Meleys had tried to down her many times with her people, yet they failed each time. Scar had even trampled Meleys twins and a few others of the season. 

It was her own name being called back to her which broke the woman's focus. The phantom lifts her head, duel-shaded eyes squinting. A stark black wolf, large and of no particular distinctive markings savor the fact that he was missing an eye. 

His steps quickened, he drew nearer. His one blue-grey eye... Cen - brother. Alas, this was her young brother! The dark woman lifts, pacing quickly after him. Their run causing some of the herd to slitter away. You've grown into someone far larger and stronger then I remember!

animals scattered as the hunters approached one another almost playfully. "here i am called sun eater. i found this place. it had no leaders. i fought, killed, and took it. sulukinak is here. she is daughter to aniktuktun."

meleeys. sulukinak. cen. "i have a son upon the coast, ghaden." he had married gheli far away and red leaf also; he had not seen meleeys in some time. she had married into another band. "soon i will send runners to find him. you come at a good time, my sister."

his single eye told her of his trials; his expression asked after her own.

Meleys ran to him with a swiftness, despite her seasons and romped around her brother, less kisses of affection and more nipping and prodding with her nose in teasing manner of the great big man he had become. He was but a tall, gangly yearling when she left. 
 
The phantom listened to her brother's tale of his time here. He spoke of one of many cousins, known by passing name only to her. But what of his wife? Maybe she had died on the caribou runs. Meleys didn't know the woman. Had not known the first wife, either. Yet the caribou clans picked up much gossip with their constant moving about and rekindling with others, and were deep in their politics. She had heard the humors.  

A son? Does he show strength for the runs? This would always be at the forefront of her mind. Why was he at the coast and not with his father? Did he fall behind? If Meleys were to find out it was that damned woman who had seperated Cen from both his son and eye, she would gut her in a far less respectable manner she would the caribou. 

No children of my own will be following. Her expression grim, eyes hard. My pups were too weak to keep up. It was as simple as that. Deer were made to be on their feet and constantly on the move without hours. The pups were at least given a few months and if this wasnt enough, well - My husband shamed me with this. So she put the blame on him, as he did with her. I could not stay with this blight upon me. So I left. 

She had missed her brother's temper, even in youth, his resilience. He showed strengths she never saw in her own pups. She left out the details, as had Cen. Perhaps, one day... It seems so. She then added, when he said she had come at a good time. We are in need of one another, now. Her one pale and one dark eye cast to the herd.

meleys had suffered. their earlier joy fell away beneath the bunching of his jaw; he hated to think of the dead children and the weakness to which she had paired her blood. yet it was their way. if a child could not walk, what could they ever do for the lanzadoii?
still; they would have been nieces and nephews to the man once called cen, and he mourned them in silence as his sister's voice continued. "my son is strong," sun eater murmured, "but his mother lives among the fish-eaters."
he knew this might only bring new looks, hesitation, surprise; he did not look at meleys as he spoke of the seal hunters. "she is sharadoii," he said at last. meleys knew the politics of the lanzadoii, and so he looked down at the ground as he said, "her father was round horn. i went away, my sister. i did not seek the blessing of our elders. i went away and on my travels i met gheli. we loved one another." she might remember the dancing eyes of the beautiful woman. "she gave me ghaden. she died, meleys."
"when i met red leaf, my heart was filled with pain. she brought me joy and loved ghaden as her own. he drowned in the meeting of the cousin and the brother rivers. the other bitterbrush, they accused her, meleys, of answering that old blood-call between black stick and us. for grey stone."
"so i brought red leaf here and i tried to make her lanzadoii. but you see she is not here, and neither is ghelan." and his voice, choked with bitterness, dissolved now for a time.

A tightened jaw of her young brother. A sorrow, spoken but seen in his expression. Her eyes remained on the herd in these moments, her own jaw tightening. She would not seek his sympathy. She would not look upon it. 

Now, he speaks of his son again, drawing the attention away from her failed children and onto his failed marriages. He opened himself to her, even as years had passed between them. They were Lanzadoii before they were anything else. They followed and abide by the Lanzadoii ways before anything else. This bound them, if not by blood. This was where trust was built. She drank in his information given to her. Of the sunflower girl, of his first son, another wife in the valley hunters, a new son named quite similiar to the first. The weaknesses, the mistakes, the death. 

When he finished, she sighed deeply. I know your suffering you speak, brother and the shame of it. Her jaw remained tight so and the hairs along her nape made to rise. And have heard the tales of this. They travel with the herds. Spread like disease. Her brother had tried to run from it, to start anew. Yet here he had left his clan behind in order to take the side of the woman who apparently was not here with him now and had their son just the same. 

What if she had, brother? Sun Eater, what if she had and now seeks to seperate you from another son?? She would fuel the fire, the rage. It was what she did best, as it were. Perhaps we are both phantoms, then... She murmurs, oddly paired eyes seeking her brother's single remaining. I have been made death-touched you know. The pale side of her face turned to him, her dark grey watching. They whisper among the Blackroot that my children die because I am cursed. The siblings were both black sheep now. She wondered if they might become as feared and hated as the Muradoii.

too long it had been since sun eater had spoken with such emotion to another. sulukinak had seen his anger and perhaps some of his hurt; she had known he now could kill and offered respect. meleys was another way, a closer conduit. she took some of this great pain inside the man was once was cen, and he breathed as her words came.

strong. bitter. like disease his story had spread, and like wildfire the shame of it crept on heated claws along his nape. a man who had thrown aside his band, the memory of his first wife, a son lost — he had not even succeeded in the great sacrifices he had made. it had been for nothing. 

for a moment sun eater was angry that meleys spoke of red leaf in this way, but the wisdom of her tones forced him to think. if she had killed ghaden, why not ghelan? 

death-touched. cursed. the blackroot turned their back on his sister. "suppose — ah. the boy's leg is twisted, from birth he has lived like this. i blamed her. and now — meleys. the sharadoii make amulets. i learned among them to make such magick. have you heard of it? red leaf, she believed i held her soul."

If you held her soul, she would have not betrayed you. She spoke flatly, honestly. Meleys may have been a cruel woman. A hard woman, but an honest one. There would be none which could say with truthfulness that they had caught Meleys in a lie. 

Meleys did not know if the magicks of sharadoii was real or not. She didn't know if she had the ability to believe such a thing. Meleys believed in what you could see, what you could touch. She believed in tooth and claw and sun and sky. The snow and the grass. The thought of magick and gods and protective amulets... 

Meleys shook her head and sighed, You will find your son and when you do, find her. Then, you find the truth.

sun eater hated to admit that meleys was correct; he favored her with a brother's glower and then relented. "i do not want her," he declared, pawing at a tuft of frigid grass. "i will find ghelan and he will come back. not the sharadoii woman." 

there were no secrets she might offer. the sight of her face only brought anger, and he imagined again in tormentous detail how she must have writhed and cried out for that damned fish-eater.

with a bleak expression, sun eater glanced out across the taiga-land of the saatsine. "i will be happy to leave here," he grunted. "it has been too long since i walked long through the snow after the caribou."

can end here if you'd like.

The woman snorted first, then nodded. To her, the Sharadoii were weak when compared to the Lanzadoii. Their superstitions held them back. They did tend to have the most perfected of skins to trade, however. Yet the Muradoii? She had never met one in even all her years and travel. Stories told of their ferocity and endurance yet their violence made them seem unhinged and unstable. 

Her brother would find a new wife. Away from that tainted history. Away from the expectations. She would be molded to become what he needed of her. And Meleys? She did not think to marry again, even of the want to try and raise a strong pup remained. There was far less Lanzadoii for a reason, given the harshness of their customs. 

One day I will come to love this herd as my last. She said only then, her eyes following the one-eyed gaze of her brother's, out over the lands and the distant herd.