1/29/2026, 10:30 PM
a burden.
in protest, the flare of his nostrils, the heavy rumble of a caribou bull overlooking a stalwart herd. even by mentioning this, cen defied those lanzadoii spirits who worked to cull their blood as they hunted among that of the herds.
what fa'liya had left was her pride, and though his tattered ears twitched in a father's refusal, the silence that followed spoke. chieftain would grant daughter the dignity for which she asked now. to trust in her ability was to see her as fully caribou as any of those in the riverlands beyond the glacier.
perhaps he did not think this day would come, robbed again and again of its proceeding with each failed married and each children broken by something beyond himself, or so he had twisted himself to believe.
fa'liya wore his face. how could she not move his heart?
cen had built the edicts of the long march into his very marrow. but now as the only daughter left to him asked for the regard of a hunter, the faultlines of his soul shifted in tectonic pain.
denial was a balm.
but before he turned into its thorny shawl, a last thing;
the band would not stop. cen would not slow them. that was why, for the next moments, he did not mind a slower journey back to their camp.
in protest, the flare of his nostrils, the heavy rumble of a caribou bull overlooking a stalwart herd. even by mentioning this, cen defied those lanzadoii spirits who worked to cull their blood as they hunted among that of the herds.
what fa'liya had left was her pride, and though his tattered ears twitched in a father's refusal, the silence that followed spoke. chieftain would grant daughter the dignity for which she asked now. to trust in her ability was to see her as fully caribou as any of those in the riverlands beyond the glacier.
perhaps he did not think this day would come, robbed again and again of its proceeding with each failed married and each children broken by something beyond himself, or so he had twisted himself to believe.
fa'liya wore his face. how could she not move his heart?
cen had built the edicts of the long march into his very marrow. but now as the only daughter left to him asked for the regard of a hunter, the faultlines of his soul shifted in tectonic pain.
denial was a balm.
but before he turned into its thorny shawl, a last thing;
never could you be a burden, fa'liya of the sun clan lanzadoii.
the band would not stop. cen would not slow them. that was why, for the next moments, he did not mind a slower journey back to their camp.
