As soon as K'ailia had left, the three Elders had fallen back into a lengthy, heavy silence. At some point, K'deiki stood, leaning against her staff for support, and walked the length of the tent, pausing at a shallow, broad bowl carved from bone. In its surface had been etched a half-globe and rays depicting the sun, and in the center of the bowl there sat a small pile of burnt incense. A shrine to Azeyma, the Warden, the guardian who had kept their tribe on a true bearing for generations.
With K'takka and K'jhanhi in silence behind her, K'deiki knelt before the shrine and bowed her head.
***
Hours passed and not once did the Elders in the tent stir - not until a commotion from outside pushed past the insulating walls of their isolation. It began as one voice, high and challenging, and then there came others as everything merged into a din of excitement.
K'jhanhi was the first to speak, his once powerfully muscled form lifting to his feet as he lumbered towards the entrance, "That cannot be another hunting party, not so soon." There was expectation in his voice, tempered with a certain caution. His ears, all but hidden in the thick mane of grey sloping down his head, flicked back and then forward, listening.
K'takka looked across the room towards where K'deiki still knelt, silent. In the diffuse yellow light of the tent, her tattoos and blue eyes cast her weathered features in an eerie tableau. The woman at the shrine did not look up from her thoughts; instead K'deiki said only, "Go and meet her return. I will be along shortly."
The former nunh said no more to them, pushing through the flap of hide that served as a door and into the orange and red tones of a desert evening. It took longer for his eyes to adjust to the new light than it would have in earlier years, but he did not let this slow him, instead making straight for the source of the commotion, where a small but not insignificant crowd had begun to gather. His steps in the sand were uneven, harried by an old limp, and tired, but certain. On the air there was the scent of blood and dying flesh, and the tang of sweat from a hunt well made.
"What is this we have before us," his low voice rumbled, and many of the miqo'te immediately near him fell silent, turning eager faces in his direction. They fell away and K'jhanhi took in the broken body of a massive sundrake, its scales shattered where rocks had pelted its form, flesh scraped raw and ragged where wind had made its inexorable mark; white bone splashed in the red of gore and dirtied from its trip back to the camp peeked out from ruined leg joints. The creature was undoubtedly dead, and standing before it, with a stance befitting the confidence of a seasoned hunter, was K'ailia.
With K'takka and K'jhanhi in silence behind her, K'deiki knelt before the shrine and bowed her head.
***
Hours passed and not once did the Elders in the tent stir - not until a commotion from outside pushed past the insulating walls of their isolation. It began as one voice, high and challenging, and then there came others as everything merged into a din of excitement.
K'jhanhi was the first to speak, his once powerfully muscled form lifting to his feet as he lumbered towards the entrance, "That cannot be another hunting party, not so soon." There was expectation in his voice, tempered with a certain caution. His ears, all but hidden in the thick mane of grey sloping down his head, flicked back and then forward, listening.
K'takka looked across the room towards where K'deiki still knelt, silent. In the diffuse yellow light of the tent, her tattoos and blue eyes cast her weathered features in an eerie tableau. The woman at the shrine did not look up from her thoughts; instead K'deiki said only, "Go and meet her return. I will be along shortly."
The former nunh said no more to them, pushing through the flap of hide that served as a door and into the orange and red tones of a desert evening. It took longer for his eyes to adjust to the new light than it would have in earlier years, but he did not let this slow him, instead making straight for the source of the commotion, where a small but not insignificant crowd had begun to gather. His steps in the sand were uneven, harried by an old limp, and tired, but certain. On the air there was the scent of blood and dying flesh, and the tang of sweat from a hunt well made.
"What is this we have before us," his low voice rumbled, and many of the miqo'te immediately near him fell silent, turning eager faces in his direction. They fell away and K'jhanhi took in the broken body of a massive sundrake, its scales shattered where rocks had pelted its form, flesh scraped raw and ragged where wind had made its inexorable mark; white bone splashed in the red of gore and dirtied from its trip back to the camp peeked out from ruined leg joints. The creature was undoubtedly dead, and standing before it, with a stance befitting the confidence of a seasoned hunter, was K'ailia.
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"Song dogs barking at the break of dawn, lightning pushes the edges of a thunderstorm; and these streets, quiet as a sleeping army, send their battered dreams to heaven."
Hipparion Tribe (Sagolii)Â - Â Antimony Jhanhi's Wiki
