I Can Hear the Toll...

Ralla · 07-18-2011, 11:10 PM

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I shall archive this tomorrow ^^

The other woman's true colors finally showed, but Ralla stood her ground. She was no longer the scared and complacent girl she had been when she had arrived in AniWaya, but a woman who understood things beyond what those of her years normally would. And she understood Chitsa's anger, too, even if it stirred the fire within Ralla as well. For the first time since her anger with Shiloh's attacker she felt the fur rise along her hackles, and although the rest of her body remained calm, she matched the fire in Chitsa's eyes with every ounce of fervor--the energy between the two could perhaps have been rivaled with the brilliance of the Great Fire itself.

"You speak of shame so easily," she began as evenly as she had spoken before, "but look how you shame yourself. I know there are many reasons for you to think me shameful: I am an outsider, a single mother, and someone who has risen above you who are of the Great Tribe. But I know the laws, Chitsa. Our laws dictate that being a single mother is, yes, looked down upon. But what part of that is my shame? I did not force him to leave nor did I know it was to happen. Surely you didn't know it was to happen with you?" Oh yes, Ralla knew that Chitsa had undergone a similar situation. She knew not the name of Chitsa's mate or how he had died, but she knew that the woman had once been mated and was no longer. She could've stated that 'shunning' was not a part of the laws or ethics of someone in her position, but she left it alone. Ralla needed not recite the ethics to make her point clear. From where he sat Nootau began to shift foot to foot, feeling the fire within the white wolfess build. "And where have I made rash decisions and poor judgement in your eyes, Chitsa? You have only just arrived here and presume to know me. You presume to know what I feel and what the laws say. I can easily name all of the ethics you have broken in this one conversation alone, respect at the highest. I do not want to hear you lecture me on being a true AniWayan, Chitsa, when you cannot follow the very things you throw at others." At her rank, Ralla was well within her rights to lecture Chitsa so. The white mother had even admitted the requisite shame upon herself--as she knew it was--but she had weathered through that chapter in her life, and would never let that shame hold her back or tie her down. Only then, if she let it, would the spirits truly look down on her.

Ralla did not respond to the last sentence given to her, but held her ground firmly as the other wolfess left. Had she been perhaps a harder wolf--more traditional, as Chitsa perhaps would've wanted it--she would've punished her right there for the disrespect. But Ralla herself had upheld the ability of free speech and to speak one's mind; doing otherwise would've painted her as much a hypocrite as Chitsa was. So when the song floated from the Amara woman to Ralla's ears, all she heard was the echo underneath the crackle of the Great Fire. The song had lost its meaning to the woman.

Moon walks. "Moon talks." Moon thinks.

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