The omen-dreams came again, with their desperate, dying spirit. And this time, the option weren't only to watch, or to scrabble through snowdrifts chasing after a magic they didn't understand.
The gates promised storm, terror, darkness- and the chance to defeat them.
This weren't their land; these weren't their people, or their gods or spirits or stories. This place didn't want them here, and Cecil couldn't be sure what had taken them here in the first place to want them gone so fervently.
This spirit, though- it weren't the same. Or maybe it had been the one to snatch their dying spirits away, to fix what it had done wrong; maybe it needed another's hand to do these things, in the way those people who shaped the earth held the burden of never again being able to touch.
And truth was, speculation didn't matter; fact was they were here, and so were people they'd come to care for. If the choice were to actor stand idly by and let the stars fall, well, it were hardly a choice at all.
Neither were this, if Cecil got to thinking on it. They were no warrior, not the way a wolf was, and even on two legs, not in the way of the battle they were being shown. And
they sure as hell weren't in a place to pass judgment, and knew enough of men by now- in their kindnesses and cruelties- to know any judgment they made would be fought to the bitter end. Would be wrong.
It weren't about strength, or proving something, or being right. It were about helping, in the best way they could- and that didn't always need to be through shedding your own blood.
Cecil stepped through the first door and into a gathering storm.
The wind howled like a living thing, driving snow and ice into skin and eyes, sharply enough that even in their winter coat they flinched away. It weren't a wind they'd felt before, not even since the clouds had hid away the sun. It had something behind it, and Cecil wondered about the Naayéé', and the snarling spirits that clawed at the great tree, and what monsters had been left free here to call down plague and ice and endless frozen winter.
They were no slayer themself, nobody told of in legend. Just a person-who-was-wolf, and one who felt very small indeed standing in front of it- even as the doors welcomed wolves and dogs and beasts of every shape, tiny specks of shape in the frozen dark, giving voice to songs of every pitch and color.
And there was no ceremony to be made here. Only the cold and the snow and the endless clouds; and it weren't their place to make it, and it weren't the sun and stars that First Woman had crafted and placed above them. But it could be- it was- their place to sing, and hope that this world cared enough to listen in the same way.
They didn't have the voice of a man, but still had most of the tongue of one, somehow- enough to speak the language they'd been raised with. Cecil lifted their head, pitched their voice into a sloping rhythm familiar from long hours spent in firelight, in the company of elders and storytellers and clan and family, and sang the sun and moon out from the slowly thinning clouds.
The gates promised storm, terror, darkness- and the chance to defeat them.
This weren't their land; these weren't their people, or their gods or spirits or stories. This place didn't want them here, and Cecil couldn't be sure what had taken them here in the first place to want them gone so fervently.
This spirit, though- it weren't the same. Or maybe it had been the one to snatch their dying spirits away, to fix what it had done wrong; maybe it needed another's hand to do these things, in the way those people who shaped the earth held the burden of never again being able to touch.
And truth was, speculation didn't matter; fact was they were here, and so were people they'd come to care for. If the choice were to actor stand idly by and let the stars fall, well, it were hardly a choice at all.
Neither were this, if Cecil got to thinking on it. They were no warrior, not the way a wolf was, and even on two legs, not in the way of the battle they were being shown. And
they sure as hell weren't in a place to pass judgment, and knew enough of men by now- in their kindnesses and cruelties- to know any judgment they made would be fought to the bitter end. Would be wrong.
It weren't about strength, or proving something, or being right. It were about helping, in the best way they could- and that didn't always need to be through shedding your own blood.
Cecil stepped through the first door and into a gathering storm.
The wind howled like a living thing, driving snow and ice into skin and eyes, sharply enough that even in their winter coat they flinched away. It weren't a wind they'd felt before, not even since the clouds had hid away the sun. It had something behind it, and Cecil wondered about the Naayéé', and the snarling spirits that clawed at the great tree, and what monsters had been left free here to call down plague and ice and endless frozen winter.
They were no slayer themself, nobody told of in legend. Just a person-who-was-wolf, and one who felt very small indeed standing in front of it- even as the doors welcomed wolves and dogs and beasts of every shape, tiny specks of shape in the frozen dark, giving voice to songs of every pitch and color.
And there was no ceremony to be made here. Only the cold and the snow and the endless clouds; and it weren't their place to make it, and it weren't the sun and stars that First Woman had crafted and placed above them. But it could be- it was- their place to sing, and hope that this world cared enough to listen in the same way.
They didn't have the voice of a man, but still had most of the tongue of one, somehow- enough to speak the language they'd been raised with. Cecil lifted their head, pitched their voice into a sloping rhythm familiar from long hours spent in firelight, in the company of elders and storytellers and clan and family, and sang the sun and moon out from the slowly thinning clouds.
english | navajo
