Grey skies had filled the shallow valley leaving smooth sloping walls of granite feeling robbed of life and dull. High above jagged windswept ridgelines and peaks, the sun usually bore down with burning intensity, though the ambient air could rarely be considered warm. Blue-green mosses and native grasses clung tightly to the greys, pinks and tiny crystals of the imposing rock, lest they be swept away by frigid alpine winds. Gusts of biting air chilled Anita to the bone, even while thoughts of the ice and snow of ColdTide celebrations of the coastal folk were still a minor moon away.
It was already much later in the season than they would have stayed, even if any of them had still been alive. Somehow, she knew that seeing the village this time of year would have comforted her. The two rows of granite houses had long since been washed of the blood that stained them, the ash of burned straw roofs had not lasted long in the wind. She could have pretended that nothing was different, that her people were simply in the hollows below, in their iconic houses of the madrones, maples and giant firs; the lifestyle from which the Yibouhese had named them.
IunDzuehr - Woodswalkers - they foisted the name on them just as they had done so with Anita and Davin when they began the process to become bei. Anita could no longer remember her name, nor that of her people, but in a different era they had called themselves Nedjleen.
The Yibouhese, like those of Eirdren, and most coastal peoples, celebrated time with the phases of the moons and the swelling of the oceans while the Nedjleen saw the passage of time with the coming and going to the chill winds and ice, and their annual migrations back and forth to their alpine and wooded homes. As such, the coastal peoples prepared in these months for the ColdTide celebrations - the one night when the major moon was highest in the sky and the minor moon could not be seen so long as the sun was gone from the sky. But for Anita's people, the festive time of Descent was over, and when the sun fell, the constant moonlit sky was an ill omen of hunger on the way.
They had been an old people - well older than the clever agrarian folk living further down in the valleys and plains who eventually built a shining city of marble white. While it stood at the crags at the base of mountains, Woodswalkers had been pushed further up the hollows and further from the mighty firs their ancestors once used for homes year-round. For hundreds of years, though she encroached further and further, Yibouh did not bother them in the summers when the Nedjleen inhabited this Alpine refuge. Here, they collected the blueberries and mountain cranberries that grew in the meadows and glacial bogs, and caught fat little rodents called marmots or the occasional bear - all of which they dried and cured to bring down in the winter months for as long as it would last them. Here they were allowed to make a life for themselves, until little more than a decade ago.
Anita strolled though the forgotten village, as she did when she was still a maiden. Her hands extended out, as if she were carrying a basket heavily laden with sweet berries of the summertime, though she neither recognized her actions, nor could she recall those happier days even if she had. The blindfold about her head whipped in the winds like her headscarf might have once, but the familiarity had long since been scorched away.
They always seemed to come back here though. As they awaited the call of the Silent Scholar, Anita and Davin usually wandered up to this rocky grave of the Nedjleen, ever since one particular mission saw their bei'thal slain and them aimless without instruction. Somehow Davin had found enough articulation to request these visits whenever they were unoccupied, and while most of the bei'thal feared desertion or violence from an unguarded bei, the Silent Scholar held no such concerns. It knew too well that a lost dog wants nothing more than to go home.
Davin made mental note as the woman who was once his bride shuffled down the sandy path. She did not know what she did, but for him, feeling her existence there was his only tenuous connection to life. He felt a desire to pick up his spear and join his fellow scouts, the arms and lets of the Nedjleen, in stalking fish in the glacial lakes, and while the knowledge that his fellows were dust saddened him, it was a feeling. In a reality of numb, the sadness was addicting.
It was already much later in the season than they would have stayed, even if any of them had still been alive. Somehow, she knew that seeing the village this time of year would have comforted her. The two rows of granite houses had long since been washed of the blood that stained them, the ash of burned straw roofs had not lasted long in the wind. She could have pretended that nothing was different, that her people were simply in the hollows below, in their iconic houses of the madrones, maples and giant firs; the lifestyle from which the Yibouhese had named them.
IunDzuehr - Woodswalkers - they foisted the name on them just as they had done so with Anita and Davin when they began the process to become bei. Anita could no longer remember her name, nor that of her people, but in a different era they had called themselves Nedjleen.
The Yibouhese, like those of Eirdren, and most coastal peoples, celebrated time with the phases of the moons and the swelling of the oceans while the Nedjleen saw the passage of time with the coming and going to the chill winds and ice, and their annual migrations back and forth to their alpine and wooded homes. As such, the coastal peoples prepared in these months for the ColdTide celebrations - the one night when the major moon was highest in the sky and the minor moon could not be seen so long as the sun was gone from the sky. But for Anita's people, the festive time of Descent was over, and when the sun fell, the constant moonlit sky was an ill omen of hunger on the way.
They had been an old people - well older than the clever agrarian folk living further down in the valleys and plains who eventually built a shining city of marble white. While it stood at the crags at the base of mountains, Woodswalkers had been pushed further up the hollows and further from the mighty firs their ancestors once used for homes year-round. For hundreds of years, though she encroached further and further, Yibouh did not bother them in the summers when the Nedjleen inhabited this Alpine refuge. Here, they collected the blueberries and mountain cranberries that grew in the meadows and glacial bogs, and caught fat little rodents called marmots or the occasional bear - all of which they dried and cured to bring down in the winter months for as long as it would last them. Here they were allowed to make a life for themselves, until little more than a decade ago.
Anita strolled though the forgotten village, as she did when she was still a maiden. Her hands extended out, as if she were carrying a basket heavily laden with sweet berries of the summertime, though she neither recognized her actions, nor could she recall those happier days even if she had. The blindfold about her head whipped in the winds like her headscarf might have once, but the familiarity had long since been scorched away.
They always seemed to come back here though. As they awaited the call of the Silent Scholar, Anita and Davin usually wandered up to this rocky grave of the Nedjleen, ever since one particular mission saw their bei'thal slain and them aimless without instruction. Somehow Davin had found enough articulation to request these visits whenever they were unoccupied, and while most of the bei'thal feared desertion or violence from an unguarded bei, the Silent Scholar held no such concerns. It knew too well that a lost dog wants nothing more than to go home.
Davin made mental note as the woman who was once his bride shuffled down the sandy path. She did not know what she did, but for him, feeling her existence there was his only tenuous connection to life. He felt a desire to pick up his spear and join his fellow scouts, the arms and lets of the Nedjleen, in stalking fish in the glacial lakes, and while the knowledge that his fellows were dust saddened him, it was a feeling. In a reality of numb, the sadness was addicting.
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