08-29-2010, 10:34 AM
The question was one that she had not been expecting, and it shocked Ralla to raise her head and ears to full point. Why could she not return...?
"...I ran away, Chief Dawali," she began. It was a cowardly way to start the explanation, but why try to cover spoiled meat with honey? "This brand on my forehead," and she lowered her lupus-form head to show the crescent moon marked in black, "was given to me during my last days in the Moon Tribe. I was to be their Shaman, and my family and the elders had trained me since birth to do the duty. I can see signs and divine certain things that no one else in the tribe can, and I was told that one day I would use the gift to help lead the tribe. But...during the three-day initiation...I was told that I could never have contact with any other wolf again outside of delivering the messages and words of the moon." Faces of the elders trying to decorate and paint her with the traditional Shaman garb appeared in her memory, as well as the memory of her fervant pleading to her father and brother who only looked sad as they said goodbye. "I...I couldn't bear the thought...The gypsy luperci woman who told me of this place... She and her travelling pack brought me to Nova Scotia, telling me that there was a tribe of wolves much like the Moon Tribe, but without the cruel restriction that was placed on me. Can you understand, Chief Dawali? A lifetime of loneliness with nothing but the moon and stars?" She hoped he could, because the reality of what might've been paced like a circling hunter in the edges of her mind, and she fought to keep it back. The monster of loneliness...
"However many signs I can perceive, I cannot clearly see my future as well as I can other's. It has always been so for the Shamans of the Moon Tribe. But they never questioned the fate named them, and so they didn't have need to guide themselves. I do, and so I came here to define my own destiny." It was a very lengthy speech, and it certainly was filled with noble words, but what mattered was the heart and meaning, not the complexity. And she knew that the fact that she was a runaway probably didn't help her much, but...Ralla was not known to lie, even by omittance.
The tooth and claw necklaces around her neck echoed the chief's hair adornments, and she stood standing submissively while he pondered his verdict. But with her explanation done and nothing but the suspense of waiting heavy in her mind, she had time to contemplate the haze surrounding his shoulder. The light of the rising sun glinted through it and made it sparkle, but it was not completely see-through. Color--shades of brown--could be seen against the pink-blue of the morning. And peircing eyes identical to the chief's bore through Ralla, making it feel as if her very soul were being judged. She could choose to try and use the moon's power to see, but with its slow disappearance behind the horizon, the power to see visions was weaker than signs.
"...I ran away, Chief Dawali," she began. It was a cowardly way to start the explanation, but why try to cover spoiled meat with honey? "This brand on my forehead," and she lowered her lupus-form head to show the crescent moon marked in black, "was given to me during my last days in the Moon Tribe. I was to be their Shaman, and my family and the elders had trained me since birth to do the duty. I can see signs and divine certain things that no one else in the tribe can, and I was told that one day I would use the gift to help lead the tribe. But...during the three-day initiation...I was told that I could never have contact with any other wolf again outside of delivering the messages and words of the moon." Faces of the elders trying to decorate and paint her with the traditional Shaman garb appeared in her memory, as well as the memory of her fervant pleading to her father and brother who only looked sad as they said goodbye. "I...I couldn't bear the thought...The gypsy luperci woman who told me of this place... She and her travelling pack brought me to Nova Scotia, telling me that there was a tribe of wolves much like the Moon Tribe, but without the cruel restriction that was placed on me. Can you understand, Chief Dawali? A lifetime of loneliness with nothing but the moon and stars?" She hoped he could, because the reality of what might've been paced like a circling hunter in the edges of her mind, and she fought to keep it back. The monster of loneliness...
"However many signs I can perceive, I cannot clearly see my future as well as I can other's. It has always been so for the Shamans of the Moon Tribe. But they never questioned the fate named them, and so they didn't have need to guide themselves. I do, and so I came here to define my own destiny." It was a very lengthy speech, and it certainly was filled with noble words, but what mattered was the heart and meaning, not the complexity. And she knew that the fact that she was a runaway probably didn't help her much, but...Ralla was not known to lie, even by omittance.
The tooth and claw necklaces around her neck echoed the chief's hair adornments, and she stood standing submissively while he pondered his verdict. But with her explanation done and nothing but the suspense of waiting heavy in her mind, she had time to contemplate the haze surrounding his shoulder. The light of the rising sun glinted through it and made it sparkle, but it was not completely see-through. Color--shades of brown--could be seen against the pink-blue of the morning. And peircing eyes identical to the chief's bore through Ralla, making it feel as if her very soul were being judged. She could choose to try and use the moon's power to see, but with its slow disappearance behind the horizon, the power to see visions was weaker than signs.