K'ailia smiled and gave K'deiki a hug, careful not to injure the elder in the process. After a few moments she separated herself from the elder.
"Thank you elder. We still need yer guidance. You are our leaders." she bowed and exited the tent. Her destination was to her mother's tent, to see if she was home.
As the flap fell shut, cutting off the bright rays of late afternoon and sending the tent back into perpetual lantern-lit night, K'deiki sighed, her fragile form seemingly sinking into the floor. With her head bowed, one knotted hand reached out and felt around on the ground beside her until fingers touched smoothly carved stone. She brought the object to her lap, holding it in the palm of one hand, and let her thumb run along the worn edges of the flat, roughly circular shape. Across its surface she could feel shallow grooves radiating outward from a central point.
With her eyes closed to the orange light of the lantern, K'deiki could, for just a moment, call up the memory of a stubborn, young woman presenting this token to her, thrusting it out as though to ward against any protests she might make. It was the mark of Azeyma, carved and carried in ritual by their chosen shaman, and the day her daughter presented her decision, K'deiki had finally felt secure in the strength of her family.
The icon had not been worn in years, however, and to K'deiki it now represented the full weight of the changes forced upon her and her people. Abandonment, loss, fear for the future and fear of the past.
"May we have the strength to face what you could not, my child," she muttered down to the stone icon and then, with regretful bitterness in her heart, she set it aside once more. "We must remain strong. We must not break." Her spine bent forward, curling beneath the layers of cloth that shrouded her body like a withered willow branch, and swayed in thought.