For a very long time, the elders held the tent in silence. The weight of memory settled over the place, a sombering pressure heavy with grief and a longing for what once was. K'deiki continued to watch K'ailia, did not speak as the girl moved the bowl but remained cowed, did not move save for the occasional slow blink of her clouded eyes. K'jhanhi persisted in his refusal to acknowledge the girl and K'deiki understood.
The silence had permeated every corner of the tent until suddenly the small things, the unheard sounds of life like the slight shifting of sand in the wind outside and against the tent's walls, the movement of bone in flesh as lungs filled with oxygen and then released, the faint scratching of a beetle seeking purpose in some shadowed corner, and the wispy breaths of incense wafting from bowls about the tent.Â
When all of these sounds became louder even than her own thoughts, K'deiki finally spoke once more, "Now is not the right time, young one. Soon we will leave behind all we've known for generations, soon we will be uprooting ourselves to seek a new beginning. It is all we can bear to manage just that." The old woman, once one of the tribe's most esteemed huntresses, closed her eyes and turned her face away from K'ailia. "We cannot shoulder a reversal of what little we have left, not yet. You must leave, as you already have, as so many already have." Her words faded as she spoke, until they were little more than a breath, and her head bowed.
The silence had permeated every corner of the tent until suddenly the small things, the unheard sounds of life like the slight shifting of sand in the wind outside and against the tent's walls, the movement of bone in flesh as lungs filled with oxygen and then released, the faint scratching of a beetle seeking purpose in some shadowed corner, and the wispy breaths of incense wafting from bowls about the tent.Â
When all of these sounds became louder even than her own thoughts, K'deiki finally spoke once more, "Now is not the right time, young one. Soon we will leave behind all we've known for generations, soon we will be uprooting ourselves to seek a new beginning. It is all we can bear to manage just that." The old woman, once one of the tribe's most esteemed huntresses, closed her eyes and turned her face away from K'ailia. "We cannot shoulder a reversal of what little we have left, not yet. You must leave, as you already have, as so many already have." Her words faded as she spoke, until they were little more than a breath, and her head bowed.
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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
