3/23/2026, 7:44 PM
Xvan'tay banks. Wind whistles in a low howl past the tips of her wings, and below the wolves are singing.
What feels like a lifetime ago- when she'd been learning with Yatixil- they'd make her pitch her own tents on the mountainside. A hunter needs to learn the land, they'd say, in that low growling voice of theirs. It had been scary when she was a kid, but she'd never admitted that to anyone, least of all them, and eventually when she got confident and had her own familiar with her it stopped being terrifying at all.
But she'd lain there, a lot of nights, and just listened. To the sound of insects in the trees, or the chirp of birds, wind in the leaves, the thunder and heavy downpour of a summer night. And the wolves. They'd howl back and forth for what felt like hours, in a way that made her skin prickle at first, waiting for one of them to leap into her tent at any moment. And then in a way that felt like... comfort.
Xan'tay doesn't have the throat to howl, or the hands to hold an instrument, or the lips to blow air into one even if she could. But she has an eagle's voice- and when she lifts her head in a long shrieking call to join the wolves, she imagines long summer days on the mountain, and Yasa'at's midyear ceremonies, and sunlight breaking through the clouds.
What feels like a lifetime ago- when she'd been learning with Yatixil- they'd make her pitch her own tents on the mountainside. A hunter needs to learn the land, they'd say, in that low growling voice of theirs. It had been scary when she was a kid, but she'd never admitted that to anyone, least of all them, and eventually when she got confident and had her own familiar with her it stopped being terrifying at all.
But she'd lain there, a lot of nights, and just listened. To the sound of insects in the trees, or the chirp of birds, wind in the leaves, the thunder and heavy downpour of a summer night. And the wolves. They'd howl back and forth for what felt like hours, in a way that made her skin prickle at first, waiting for one of them to leap into her tent at any moment. And then in a way that felt like... comfort.
Xan'tay doesn't have the throat to howl, or the hands to hold an instrument, or the lips to blow air into one even if she could. But she has an eagle's voice- and when she lifts her head in a long shrieking call to join the wolves, she imagines long summer days on the mountain, and Yasa'at's midyear ceremonies, and sunlight breaking through the clouds.
common | txsit'si