67th SUMMER 1
1 Mile from Ravok's lakeshore
11 Bells
1 Mile from Ravok's lakeshore
11 Bells
"
Pitiful."
He was not here with her on these lakeshores, yet Kuhamahama heard her brother's deep, confident voice scoff in her ear nonetheless. Her third eldest brother, and fourth in line to the ankal, Taeg'r. He liked her the best among his sisters but perhaps it was just because she was the baby of the family. The Nighthoof daughter cleared her throat and trekked down the clearing to retrieve the arrow she had shot. Composite shortbow in hand, she past by the thick tree trunk it was supposed to have hit. Taeg'r, memory or not, was right, her aim was pitiful.
The drykas' leather boots made dull thuds as she trudged under the shadows of the trees that grew thickly in the wildlands. Kuhamahama was struck with a persistent, irrational surprise—not for the first time—at how little grass there was beyond the Cyphrus plains. As she stooped to pluck her arrow from the dead, crumbling bark of a fallen tree, Kuhamahama's thinking of the grasslands turned it real in her thoughts. In the quiet of the woods she heard the soft rustling of grasses, chased by the rhythmic beat of hooves against semele's earthen skin.
Her lips flickered with a faint, soft smile.
She couldn't help the thrum of her heart at the mirage sounds, that the strider still visited her in her thoughts this way, though everything in her faith and her head told her the strider's spirit had not followed her across the continent to the lakeshore city. He was in The Web—the intricate knot-work of djed laid across the vastness of the grasslands that tied the drykas to their pavilions, their animals, their ancestors and the land itself. Yet she felt him, here, with her, wherever she wandered.
"Grief-sick." Her grandmother had said she was one evening after Kuhamahama had described the kinds of visions she was hearing and seeing. "These are not visions, child, you are only seeing ghosts stuck in your heart."
"Semekhe." blessing, the drykas breathed, despite herself, and regretted the utterance as soon as it fell into the thick, heavy wood, hushed by the trees. Kuhamahama felt the twinge in her spirit where the threads of the bond were frayed. When the drykas looked up, though, there were no grasses. There wasn't a strider galloping across the steppe, lit golden by syna's fervent summer's warmth. Kuhamahama was in a land of trees and shadows.
Even as warm Summer winds striped the land of moisture, Ravok felt cooler—somehow darker—than her grassland home. Although she was glad she had worn her light wool leggings and linen blouse, and left her coat, realizing faintly that she was acclimatizing to Ravok's northern temperate climes. Drykas were so used to Syna's unrelenting touch in the grasslands, where trees were sparse and where life was lived all under the open sky so that their skin bronzed and their brows were worn in almost-permanent scowls. Was she losing her roots so quickly?
Kuhamahama thumbed a piece of dried moss off the tip of her arrow, gently shrugging off her thoughts.
He was not here with her on these lakeshores, yet Kuhamahama heard her brother's deep, confident voice scoff in her ear nonetheless. Her third eldest brother, and fourth in line to the ankal, Taeg'r. He liked her the best among his sisters but perhaps it was just because she was the baby of the family. The Nighthoof daughter cleared her throat and trekked down the clearing to retrieve the arrow she had shot. Composite shortbow in hand, she past by the thick tree trunk it was supposed to have hit. Taeg'r, memory or not, was right, her aim was pitiful.
The drykas' leather boots made dull thuds as she trudged under the shadows of the trees that grew thickly in the wildlands. Kuhamahama was struck with a persistent, irrational surprise—not for the first time—at how little grass there was beyond the Cyphrus plains. As she stooped to pluck her arrow from the dead, crumbling bark of a fallen tree, Kuhamahama's thinking of the grasslands turned it real in her thoughts. In the quiet of the woods she heard the soft rustling of grasses, chased by the rhythmic beat of hooves against semele's earthen skin.
Her lips flickered with a faint, soft smile.
She couldn't help the thrum of her heart at the mirage sounds, that the strider still visited her in her thoughts this way, though everything in her faith and her head told her the strider's spirit had not followed her across the continent to the lakeshore city. He was in The Web—the intricate knot-work of djed laid across the vastness of the grasslands that tied the drykas to their pavilions, their animals, their ancestors and the land itself. Yet she felt him, here, with her, wherever she wandered.
"Grief-sick." Her grandmother had said she was one evening after Kuhamahama had described the kinds of visions she was hearing and seeing. "These are not visions, child, you are only seeing ghosts stuck in your heart."
"Semekhe." blessing, the drykas breathed, despite herself, and regretted the utterance as soon as it fell into the thick, heavy wood, hushed by the trees. Kuhamahama felt the twinge in her spirit where the threads of the bond were frayed. When the drykas looked up, though, there were no grasses. There wasn't a strider galloping across the steppe, lit golden by syna's fervent summer's warmth. Kuhamahama was in a land of trees and shadows.
Even as warm Summer winds striped the land of moisture, Ravok felt cooler—somehow darker—than her grassland home. Although she was glad she had worn her light wool leggings and linen blouse, and left her coat, realizing faintly that she was acclimatizing to Ravok's northern temperate climes. Drykas were so used to Syna's unrelenting touch in the grasslands, where trees were sparse and where life was lived all under the open sky so that their skin bronzed and their brows were worn in almost-permanent scowls. Was she losing her roots so quickly?
Kuhamahama thumbed a piece of dried moss off the tip of her arrow, gently shrugging off her thoughts.
