“She is a fine storyKeeper indeed.”
An impromptu gambol was starting around the drums: children skipping, others circling, open dancing for all upon thisdark.
“I bet you won’t dance with me. You’re oških.” Madoc spun the last word out, altogether close to mocking.
“If ever I would, the way you ask ensures I won’t.”
“Tokela would dance with me.”
“Ahlóssa of one idea, aren’t you?”
“Hah?” Madoc’s eyebrows did their own gambol.
“Tokela, Tokela.” Anahli pitched her voice high as Madoc’s, and a’io, with that distinct whinge along its edge. “Surely Tokela’s oških himself, above dancing with whingy ahlóssa.”
“Take that back! I tell you he’s not!”
Blinking at the overreaction, Anahli held up her hands and started to turn away.
“Anahli. I missed greeting you earlier.” A hint of reproof slid through Inhya’s voice; enough to halt Anahli and turn her.
Just beyond Inhya stood Aylaniś, expressionless, her powerful arms crossed.
“Ah.” Inhya placed a light hand on Anahli’s arm, stroked the gifted blanket’s nap. “I see someone has made welcome for you already. Then let me have the honour of taking you to your new den. See, even now the other oških retire to their places.”
True enough. First Running’s firstdark catered to little ones and elders; for oških it meant time to share tales, gain new playmates, polish and preen finery for the upcoming games and Dances. Anahli slid her eyes to her dam.
“I will see you nextSun,” Aylaniś said, quiet. “Našobok is here.”
“Of course,” Anahli replied, just as soft. No matter that he thinks of you—of all of us!—as less than nothing, ones to be left behind… yet you and Dada both jump like beckoned fleethounds when he does bother to appear!
Aylaniś seemed to ken the thought as if spoken, started to protest. Instead she swallowed the breath and turned away.
And for half a heartbeat, Anahli wanted to follow. Cling to her dam as if she were still ahlóssa. Go with her, see…
“Come along.” Inhya’s tone brooked no nonsense. It was easy to obey, take the extended hand and meet her hearther’s eyes with a nod.
“Aška?” Madoc was still there, still the ahlóssa of one idea. “Tokela’s nowhere to be found.”
That hint of strange and culpable… ai, it was altogether close to grief, which trembled the strong hand in Anahli’s and lingered in Inhya’s bodytalk.
“No doubt he’ll return by Sun’s rising. Until then?” Inhya slid her chin towards the drums and the other children.
Madoc might be game for many challenges, but not this one. He gave a dramatic sigh and sauntered away.
SO MUCH better, that Anahli would be taking the Spawn’s place.
The drums still spoke to the dark and what elders remained, telling soft tales about Fire’s lingering grace. The ahlóssa had been herded some time ago to the sleeping dens.
Yet Madoc lay wakeful therein, trying not to look at Tokela’s very empty bedshelf. Trying, and failing. The light of Brother Moon and His siblings angled down from the high window near to the curved ceiling, and set full relief across where Tokela usually slept, spilling over the rest of the slumbering inhabitants of the ahlóssa den.
The Spawn’s place was also empty—and for other reasons than normal. In this much Madoc had cause to celebrate; he wasn’t on the bedshelf edge with the Spawn’s toes nigh in his tail-split. For even when he shoved back, the Spawn would just end up there again. Even if Madoc complained to his dam, she would smirk and shrug and tell him he was perfectly capable of moving to another place. To remember his cousin was little, and from duskLands where families slept together in wide and well-bedded hollows.
For thisdark at least, Madoc’s shelf was his own again, and the Spawn with his family. Fine, it was an ugly name, so Madoc wouldn’t use it aloud. At least, not to Anahli, who was much more interesting than her Spawn-y little brother.
Madoc craned his neck to eye Tokela’s bedshelf yet again, as if its occupant might have snuck in whilst none was looking, then tried to calculate how long before the next adult passed by. Likely a while, since when Inhya had last come in, everyone had been asleep. Except Madoc, who had just pretended.
His dam’s eyes had glowed, faint, as they’d swept the den then lingered upon Tokela’s bedshelf. Then she’d sighed, dropped the hide back across the doorway, and retreated down the hallway tunnel.
Perhaps, Madoc considered, he should go hunt for Tokela. Or… since he was the eldest here, in this heartbeat, perhaps he should take his rights and seat himself in the window ledge. Look for Tokela that way. Always a challenge amongst the eldest of them, to shinny the wall and find the tiniest of footholds in the smooth stones, to sit triumphant and watch Moons and Stars skim across Sky… or, more often, clouds scudder and spill Rain across Grandmother’s ever-changing skin.
Some say Grandmother was first amongst ones to walk both Earth and Sea, and we are her young, laid upon every beach…
How many times had Tokela sat up there and told stories? Forbidden to sketch, what talk he’d rather express with graphite stub and nimble fingers instead crowded on his tongue, filled him with stories gleaned from the storyKeepers. And all the while his fingers would twitch, as if they longed to visualise what Danced behind his eyes.
Madoc rose and padded over to the wall, started to climb. It was not easy, but neither was it impossible. Madoc took longer than he liked, but finally settled into the curved stone with a triumphant prop of feet opposite.
His entire world lay at his feet: inner compound spreading out, a little valley bearing lodges and paths, the latter which disappeared into the upwards curves and bluffs. That swell of stone and thatch dawnward led to the tribal cooking pits. Several dogs slept along the well-swept pathways, one with several fowl roosted on ša’s hindquarters. The council den entrance, where the gnarled and ancient wyrh tree
