fa’liya had chosen the far side of the crown because no one came there unless they wished to be alone, and she wished, very badly, to be nothing at all.

the ground beneath her was ruined, bearing the thin, sour mess of what little she had managed to swallow that morning, yellowed bile and half-digested meat. her jaws hung parted over it, strings of spit swaying from her lips before snapping against the ground. another heave seized her ribs before it came up empty, and her whole slight body folding around the pain as if something inside her meant to claw its way free.

behind her, distant and muffled by trees, the camp was bursting with life. thirteen children born through the season of spring, five of them her father's—five little mouths. five little bodies that grew against iglux’s belly, five little lives that would blossom beneath the attention of both mother and father. five futures soft and new and loud with life, while fa’liya stood at the edge of it all like a shadow cast by an old fire.

she had told herself she was glad. she had told herself a chieftain always had need for more children, that saatsine always needed stronger blood, that it was deserved, the happiness that they could bring. it is all a lost cause, in the end. she could not help but be bitter. it sat under her ribs where breath already came hard and warmed itself there while she watched her father become someone else’s beginning.

oh, how it stung, to know what could've been—what would have been.

so the girl had learned to scarce upon approach. it is made possible with the help of her condition, a strange silver lining.

more bile does fa’liya spit out. her claws curled into the dirt with trembling shoulders as she lowered her brow, dizzy. fuck.

He had seen her from time to time, lingering at the edges of his vision. A shadow seemingly without a caster, the shape of a wolf but lacking the presence of one - she was quiet, even timid in her appearance, and Nen'tah was perplexed by this. They were Saatsine! It was not like them to be timid (or so he had gleaned thus far). They were hunters; bold and fearless, searching and ready to take on the next challenge.

So who was this shade that drifted among their ranks?

Nen'tah followed her unbidden, nose to the ground as he relied on his senses whenever she would slip out of view ahead. She was small for her age, he thought, and wondered if she was perhaps sickly because of it -

- when the stench of stomach acid and rancid meat hit him like a wall. She uttered an expletive he had never heard before, although he would certainly remember it, and hunched forward as spittle dribbled out from her quivering jaws. She looked to be in a particular kind of agony that he did not recognize.

Quietly he approached her, tail held inquisitively out behind him. Obsidian eyes blinked in the dappled light that filtered through the trees around them, little mirrors of Iglux̂ as his expression shifted between curiosity and consternation. The Saatsine were strong; so why did she suffer this way? He came fully into view, and remained silent as he waited for him to notice her.

Maybe it would distract her from retching.

it is the silence that gives him away. fa’liya feels the space change around her, and as she looks up, she sees iglux̂’s eyes staring back at her from a child’s face. she recoils internally at the sight.

for a moment, she does not move. she leaves the spit hanging from her lower jaw in a bright, vulgar strand, while she stares, bile burning at the back of her tongue. nothing comes of it but a wet, ugly sound in her throat.

something mean and wounded twists in fa’liya so sharply that she nearly bares her teeth. she does not.

you should not be out here. she says, voice hoarse from her retching, raw and thin. she lifts one paw and drags dirt over the mess with a clumsy scrape as if to undo it, and the smell worsens once disturbed, rancid meat and acid blooming beneath the leaves. her stomach turns again. she shuts her eyes hard until the world steadies.

go back, child. fa’liya mutters. she does not look at him when she says it; she does not know his name.

An eternity stretched between them as the singular line of saliva dangled from her jaws. Nen'tah watched in silent fascination as it caught the sun, glittering like a very long dewdrop in dawn's first light, swaying gently with every ragged breath the woman took.

Her voice suddenly cut through the air, knife-like, aiming straight for the child's jugular as she harshly bid him leave - but the blade missed, and the child remained.

In the anatomy of a wolf's ear, there is a thing called the cutaneous marginal pouch*, a petite but distinct fold of skin located on the outer edge of the lower part of said ear. While its exact purpose is still under question by modern experts, it is suspected to enhance hearing by filtering high-frequency sounds and aid in greater flexibility when pivoting, swiveling, and flattening to better locate prey.

This small pocket is also more specifically known in pups as the 'No Catcher', which, literally, catches the No's, Go away's, and 'Don't do that's from every adult thrown their way until late adolescence and holds them captive so efficiently that the child does not even hear them.

It worked extremely well in this instance.

Nen'tah remained, and observed with increasing curiosity as the girl messily scraped a clod of dirt over the offending pile of stomach contents, presumably to cover them - but she stilled and closed her eyes, seemingly enduring another bout of whatever secret pain ailed her.

She clearly needed help. If only Goldblossom were here! Surely she would have some magic herb to feed her in this instance. Oddly, he hadn't seen her of late...

The boy steeled his resolve, walked right up to the steaming pile, furrowed his brow, positioned himself just so - then set to work kicking up more loose earth to better conceal the accident.

---

*Also known as 'Henry's Pocket'

fa’liya opens her eyes to the sound of earth scattering.

for a breath, she does not understand it. the world has gone soft at the edges, blurred where sickness has made the trees lean and swim, and the boy before her is nothing more than a small dark shape moving too close, mirroring her with another spray of soil kicks over the mess.

her stomach twists again, but this time there is nothing left in her to offer.

stop— he does not stop, nor he does not recoil from her, and she is horrified by it. i said stop! she rasps, and there is more force in it now, though it shakes at the edges. clearly, she is not sharp enough for the word to mean anything. do not touch that!

too late, of course. fa’liya stares at the dirt clinging to his paws, using her vomit like glue, and something in her chest gives a sick little pull. one trembling foreleg shifts, claws carving a shallow line into the ground as she forces herself straighter, ears flattening hard against her skull. you should be with the others. the fact falls on deaf ears, she is sure. this one had the listening skills of a rock.

but the boy is adamant on remaining with her, so she concedes with a hiss. fine. but you cannot tell anyone, she says. do you understand?

He thought he'd done a pretty decent job. Nen'tah stepped back to admire his work against her garbled protests, head tilting to the side in puplike fashion as he surveyed his handiwork. The mess had been covered (to the best of his ability) with only a few scattered remnants left to show for it - satisfied, he chuffed softly and returned his attention to the distressed woman.

Her words poured out like venom, eyes flashing cold as she regarded him with what could best be described as disdain. Nen'tah was unfamiliar with being beheld in this way, and he felt the first stirring of something uncomfortable in his gut; but maybe it was just the result of a really, really bad day for her, and she otherwise wouldn't be so unpleasant. Otherwise what could he have done for her to be so angry? He had only tried to help when she was clearly struggling.

Won't, he agreed to her request, the first word to escape his lips since he'd arrived. It wasn't that speaking was particularly difficult, but he already found life much simpler when he could simply remain quiet and observe the world around him.

Some things, however, did require speech.

I'm Nen'tah. The child didn't smile, but his expression was open and curious, and it was clear he wanted her to offer her own name in exchange. Why're you sick?

nen’tah.

fa’liya, she says in turn, tongue passing over her lips. the taste of bile remains, bitter and oily, lodged between her teeth.

she glances toward the buried mess before lowering herself slowly to her haunches; standing had begun to make the blood pound strangely behind her eyes.

he asks a question, and though she does not wish to answer, she does anyway: i was born too soon, she says; it is an oversimplification of what she has always known; she was the runt of her litter. some things inside me did not grow correctly, so they do not work right. and the end result sat before them in a disgusting pile. that is all.

How strange, that weakness could manifest in so many cruel and unseen ways. He never would have suspected her of any ailment had he not stumbled across her like this. Nen'tah took Fa'liya's explanation solemnly, his expression flickering between that of confusion and concern; whatever the case, it hadn't seemed to stop her from surviving the March.

She bore her situation well, he thought.

Oh.

That was all he said. Still, he studied her with renewed interest, wondering whether she vomited after every meal, whether it hindered her on the hunt, whether it ever caused her pain. He had a great many questions, all of them drifting together in a vague cloud of wanting to know, but he thought of Iglux and Cen and remembered their stoic, unintrusive nature, and how he wished so much to be like them.

So he quelled his thoughts, unconsciously mirroring her pose as he sat back on his little haunches and stared.

Strong anyway, Nen'tah said after a long pause, and nodded his head as if to affirm the statement. Still here.

mh. still here, as if staying had been a choice. as if she had not been dragged into every dawn by teeth and duty and the stubborn, ugly machinery of a body too broken to thrive and too spiteful to die.

her mouth tightens. for one sharp second, something cruel rises in her throat alongside the bile. she wants to tell him that the two things did not coincide. roots were still here when they rotted. bones were still here after the meat had been torn away.

but he is little. little enough to mean it, so fa’liya says nothing at first. she lowers her gaze to his paws again, to the damp earth clinging there, and hates the strange ache that moves through her at the sight. he had helped with no disgust. no flinch. no great show of mercy. he had simply seen something shameful and covered it.

it is the least i can do, i think. she murmurs before twisting on her heels, tossing the boy a sidelong glance, coaxing him along. come. you should wash your paws off.

Perhaps had he been older, he might have seen the nuanced pain, the fleeting bitterness behind her eyes. One day, when he was grown and had learned the small tells of faces and expressions, he would speak with more tact - or maybe he wouldn't. Nen'tah did not like to mince words, if he even cared for them at all.

As it was, he noticed nothing. Just a dark-furred woman with a troubled stomach.

The child looked down at his dirtied paws. While it wouldn't normally bother him, Mother might possibly hold higher standards in that regard; he'd never seen her with vomit-soaked limbs, after all. Nen'tah followed her without question, trotting along like a silent shadow at her side.

Until a question popped into his mind.

Smell like... Caan? he said curiously, gesturing toward her with his head. Same eyes.