Chapter Sixty Seven

Home is a thing of stages. Home is never a complete place, formed from nothing, emerging as a complete object. Home is a living thing - and like all living things, it must come about through gradual evolution. And even when revolutions, happen, dramatic and sudden, a careful eye will see the wide gradual stones which formed an inevitable tide to the painted wood of one's front door, and when the stones are all aligned like the stars of a constellation, then home emerges with such elegant certainty that you wonder how on earth you were ever surprised by it to begin with. For Carza, it began with little things. The swamp was ugly and strange and studded by salt. But there was a dour greyness which she remembered from dull winter mornings in ALD IOM, when the mist clambered up to the roofs, seemed to rule the city, then died by the time noon came, and left the waking world seeming all the more wonderful for its longer-than-usual absence. And as they crossed, she remembered drizzle, and light rains - the steppe and the forests around Krodaw were characterised by sudden, torrential rains, but the extremes of weather, yet ALD IOM was all of weather's moderation stored up and dispersed in one place, nothing ever too awful, nothing ever too extreme. The salt, too, reminded her of the Court of Salt, and all its strangeness. It was funny - she'd always loathed that place, with its debt and its dogmatic profiteering, and now... now she thought that they weren't all that bad. They were human, right? They still believed in ALD IOM as a city, right? They still believed in the basic cultural framework that she believed in... no Scabrous mutation, no Sleepless atrocities, no ancestral inhumanity, just...

Neighbours.

Miss vo Larima had been... traitorous, yes, but she'd also been understandable. And understandable as a fellow citizen, not as a wild beast which behaved in predictable patterns while remaining utterly terrifying, like the Sleepless did. And she still remembered helping Miss vo Larima to lace up her clothes when her hands shook too much to do it, before expressing her own jealousy for how the Court of Ivory operated, with its tradition and prestige. Carza wanted to see her again, see if she was doing well. Hell, if Kani and Ayat were amenable to the concept, then... well, one reason for coming out here was to build a network of informants for future exploration. Maybe the ancestors would be... violently opposed to anything like train tracks being laid in their territory, but maybe they'd be reasonably when it came to a few anthropologists, linguists, historians, archaeologists... it'd be easier if Kani and Ayat were willing to negotiate, convince the ancestors to be reasonable in the first place. If she got back, things would be... interesting.

If she got back.

Just because she'd settled on going home didn't mean the world would part before her, mountains shuffling aside with eager deference. Go on, get the journey over with, head on back home as quick as you can, we're sorry for the earlier inconveniences! She glared at her horse for reasons she found hard to fathom. Maybe it was the long face which made it look haughty, smug, wise. Like it was the one mocking her. She didn't mind the creature, but she was going to eat it one of these days, put that in a prophecy and call her an oracle. She was an anthropologist, she predicted human culture, and humans were more advanced than animals, so by extension she could basically predict everything and anything about any given animal at any given time. She was basically a master zoologist, she'd already done advanced zoology in the form of anthropology, so... yeah. The same principle applied to psychology, biology, and... uh, probably a few other things. Archaeology! Principle didn't apply in reverse, of course.

They rode through the marshes, and... well, they'd considered finding their own way back. But the Scabrous weren't likely to attack them, and the marshes were truly vast. In the end, they just chose to follow the enormous ditch left behind where the Scabrous had approached. Still curious about how they'd found this place... maybe they'd caught the scent of the trio, but if that was the case, why bring a hound during that initial hunt? Why split up? Maybe... hm. She'd considered the idea that this temple was associated with the Scabrous in some way. Didn't take a genius to suppose that little conclusion. Hell, maybe that was why they'd been spared - 'oh crumbs, they've found the holiest site in our entire damn religion, that means they've earned the ritual rewards, right? Oh yes, the sword, the neck-eye, and the tusks! The three things that they always earn, and-' alright maybe not. But... maybe that was how they'd been found in the first place. 'Oh dear, lost cause looking for them, let's go to pray at the great temple - what's this, someone's inside? Oh my days, what are the bloody chances!'

...she doubted they said 'crumbs' or 'oh my days', but the point still stood. The point still stood and no-one could convince her otherwise. So there.

So they just rode very slowly down the enormous ditch, their horses snorting uncomfortably at even the dying scent of the Scabrous. Carza was... honestly surprised at how little contamination was around - and she was checking very diligently for even the slightest sign of the stuff. The Scabrous were clean, she had to give them that. Indeed, as she rode, she asked questions, trying to occupy her mind. The thrill of going back home was overpowering the fact that one of the Scabrous had shoved a needle in her neck and opened her third eye and that she'd almost become a raving mindless mutant. Mostly. But sometimes she'd twitch, flinch, and realise... what had almost happened. She'd been found naked in a basement shrieking like an animal as contamination wound around her brainstem, pressing deeper and activating long-buried instincts. Still wasn't sure if she'd eaten any of that dog or not... she'd never find out, most likely. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have proof of that negative, and if she had, the Scabrous would've taken care of any lingering meat in her system that could be infecting her from the inside out. And when she thought about that, her stomach clenched, her throat shivered, her breathing increased, and she found herself staring blankly ahead for a solid few minutes until... until something utterly random broke the stillness. A bird screeching, water splashing into her face, someone talking to her...

And then reality would flood back.

The memories would end.

And normalcy would resume.

Until the next long silence, at least. And she could still... still feel her third eye moving underneath its bandages. Invisible flinches, really, just... the natural twitching of an eye, made thoroughly unnatural but where it was, and where it'd come from. She was a mutant, by every definition. Founder, she needed a back-alley doctor to burn this thing out while she was absolutely drunk and couldn't feel a thing. Burn it out, say that she... she got drunk and fell into a fire neck-first, that was it. She smoked a lot, having a raspy, fire-charred voice was on the cards for her anyway, so... so... damn it all, why did this thing feel so normal? How had her body adjusted to it so quickly? She felt like, if it were cut away, she'd still feel phantom pain from it. Total integration. A shade of the naturalisation which made mutation so horrifying to her, the fact that it didn't just change the body but made the body accustomed to the changes.

Adoring the thing that was killing it.

...and then those little sods had neutered her gun.

Her gun had been castrated, and she didn't appreciate it.

"Hey, Ayat?"

Ayat just blinked owlishly at her. Even more silent than usual.

"What's the desert like? In terms of... mutants, I suppose."

Ayat shrugged.

"Not nice. But... also not so bad, you know?"

"Not really?"

"Lots of sand, lots of heat... 'oh no, vile matter is bubbling up like pus in a wound, how awful, if only anyone lived near that place!'"

He paused.

"You see?"

"Kind of like the steppe, then."

"Pretty much. But the desert is worse, because no-one wants to live there anyway. The steppe is lovely. The steppe has excellent horses, the desert... has camels. Ugly things. Bad things. Angry, too. So, the desert is like the steppe, if no-one wanted to live there and everything was too hot and there was no water and all the horses looked like mutants anyway."

Carza blinked.

"You seem... passionate about it."

He sniffed, seeming genuinely haughty for a moment.

"You haven't spent a year or more out there, wandering around in the heat with no shade and no water and nothing but sand in every direction."

"Sounds awful."

"It was. But they do have mutants. You see them sometimes... big shadows in the distance, or shapes in the sand. They burrow, out there. Swim in it. Wrestle in the deep desert where no-one can bother them, drink the sand and lick up the putrid stuff from it. We never fought one, and good. Leave the desert to them."

He warmed to his theme.

"When the world was made, there were places people were meant to be and places where they weren't. The latter are the places where all the mutants are meant to go. The former are the places where we're meant to go. My commander said that was a good reason to wage war on the desert-people. Teach them that they were idiots for going there in the first place and that, really, they deserved everything they got."

His tone trailed off, and he lost some of his passion. Right. He'd... done things out there, clearly regretted most of it, and now... crumbs, she'd just made things worse. Kani looked over, her tusks gleaming like crescents of pure silver in the shapeless grey light.

"You really hated it out there, didn't you?"

"...no, it was fine. But hot. Nothing to do but complain, you know?"

"Sure. Sure. You know, if you want to talk about..."

She shrugged.

"I'm here. All I'm saying."

"...not much to tell. Lots of fighting and running... nothing much else. And I don't like telling stories. How is the cat?"

"He's fine."

Carza growled under her breath, some of her inner rodent rebelling against the idea of travelling with a feline.

"You know he abandoned us in there, right? Just ran off."

Ayat stared at her.

"...and?"

"It's very disloyal. All I'm saying."

"...would you have thrown him at the Scabrous?"

"What? Of course not, that's-"

Kani wrapped her arms around her chest where the cat still nestled.

"That's evil, Carza. Why would you want to throw our little friend at them?"

"I wasn't going to, stop putting words in my-"

Ayat shook his head sadly.

"I always thought you looked like a very large rat, but-"

Carza exploded.

"I do not look like an enormous rat, I-"

Kani sniggered.

"You do. A bit."

"How?"

"It's a general air you've got. I didn't really think about it, but... you do look like a rat. It's the teeth and the hunching, I think. And the way you never really walk anywhere, you just... scurry. Also the venomous stares."

Carza stared venomously at her.

"There you go."

"Shut up."

Kani grinned.

"It's fine, I understand that your rivalry with cats must go back for many generations. But please, try to keep it quiet when Little Friend can hear you, he's very sensitive."

Carza hadn't wanted to throw the damn thing. But now she did, purely out of spite. Carza was starting to slowly realise that her closest friendships were defined by constant bickering. Hull, definitely. Lirana, to a degree. Kani and Ayat had now firmly reached that point. It wasn't her fault that bickering was easier than friendly conversation, friendly conversation was a complex arrangement of social cues she didn't want to understand (on account of them being stupid) while bickering was more straightforward. Someone would insult her, she'd insult them back, they'd debate the semantics of each insult... it was easy, light-hearted, harmless... oh, wait. Speaking of harmless - she dragged out a cigarillo from her bag. Only a couple left, now... she'd been ruthlessly rationing them, and even so, she was almost out. Every so often she imagined never smoking again, imagining that her time out here would help her wean herself off these little sticks of cancer. But... then she lit up, took a long drag, and realised that chemical dependency was actually amazing. Only a problem when she ran out, really.

Kani looked envious.

Carza grinned around her cigarillo.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we can make a horn of the ancestors soon enough."

Kani looked irritated. Carza's grin widened.

"Oh, are we out of the right herbs? Shame. I'm sure we can find some more later, of course."

"...shut up."

"Sorry? Couldn't hear you around my cigarillo."

Ayat blinked.

"Your cigarillo isn't making any noise."

"...shut up, Ayat."

She regretted saying that. Guy looked like a kicked dog when told to shut up, wondering what he'd done wrong, whimpering in curious shame, tail between his legs... Founder, it felt awful telling him to shut up. He looked down at his horse, and said nothing. Carza smoked... and it didn't feel quite as good. Alright, note for later - don't tell Ayat to shut up, don't insult him all too much. Insult Kani instead, that felt more moral... yes, yes, insult the traumatised mutant deformed by monsters straight out of myth, banished from any sense of normality by random, cruel chance. That was definitely more moral than insulting the good-natured soldier who'd confessed to burning a city down using a fleet of burning pets.

Bickering was no longer easier than conversation.

She rode faster, smoking intensely, ignoring how a few stray wisps were making her neck-eye sting.

She was definitely not paying attention to that.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

* * *

They rode for a while. Days, really. Once the pressure to escape the Scabrous had vanished, there was... well, nothing else to do but ride, eat, sleep... they weren't even racing, really. In their heart of hearts, they all knew that the valley had been snowed over, and there was no chance of getting in to rejoin the family. But every once in a while a horse would step awkwardly, and they'd all hear the clunk of gold chunks impacting one another in a saddlebag. They'd raided an ancient temple for its treasure, and now they were going to, presumably, dump it at the entrance to the valley. No idea of the practicalities there, and Ayat had been made aware that none of them had any idea, so if he had any wonderful bits of common-sense advice to offer, now was the time. He offered nothing. Apparently he was equally baffled by how to deliver the gold to their family, but... he was confident that his two companions would think of something. Ayat seemed to be a born trudger, one of that species of individual who are adept at trudging after others, working repetitively, doing all the things which are otherwise unpleasant and boring... but as long as someone else was doing them, he was happy to keep on operating. He never complained about the riding, or the quality of the food, he just... did what was necessary to keep them all going with the same expression of mild contentment. But the second he was pressed to think of advice, he started to stutter and hum and haw and generally fail quietly. The second he was operating totally alone, he seemed uncertain and off-guard. He was... well, Carza remembered how she'd felt around Hull, and to an extent Kani, where her own thoughts were half-complete without a partner to share them with, to base them around...

Ayat seemed to be in that state perpetually. Born into it. Never needed to work to achieve the mindset of happy dependence, he was... well, if she was going to be pretentious, she'd say that he was perpetually in love with something. His thoughts were always incomplete unless he had someone else around, whether that was his sister, or Carza, or his old squad mates, or his commanders, or his family or... anything and anyone else. Even the damn cat had served the role, apparently. He was a half-person, and without someone else he wasn't much of anything. For lack of a better word, he loved unconditionally and unreservedly, because without such an impulse he would just linger in half-complete loneliness for the rest of his long, long life. She honestly wondered how he'd cope as an ancestor... those creatures seemed obligated to remain alone for long periods, and she wondered if Ayat could handle being alone for so long. Ayat without someone else was... one hand clapping.

The marshes vanished quickly, and Carza didn't mourn them. Let the sea swallow it whole...

...though she wished she could've seen the sea. Seen the jagged lip of the coast... there was something satisfying about finding the limit of this place, the point where it all came to an end. But then again, she'd seen not a single person in the marsh, not a single damn person beyond herself and her companions and the Scabrous. Maybe she'd already seen the edge, and nothing really lived beyond it. Maybe the sea was non-existent out here, and all that lingered was a perpetual marsh stretching to the corners of creation... but nonetheless. They rode. Slept. Ate. Ayat hunted. Kani doted on the cat. Carza went through her notes, interrogated the two on some finer points of culture and language, filling in the corners of her knowledge. When 99% of something was perfect, that 1% of imperfection stood out like a glaring sun. The benefit of removing that 1% was vastly outsized compared to its actual scale. So she might as well. Her grammar was good, her vocabulary was expanding, and she'd reached that ideal point where her questions were baffling the people she asked them to - she was reaching the point of asking them genuinely difficult questions, not just clarifications.

The ethnography was ready for writing, if she so chose. Anything more was just... a digestif, a snifter of dessert wine to fill in the edges around the bulk of the work.

And with all that done... she could just stare out at the steppe, and watch the world go by. They didn't stay with other families, not much point in it. But she saw them, sometimes. Fires on the horizon, the scent of cauldrons carried over the wind, the sound of people talking quietly. No-one ran from them, they were too... well, limited in number. A fighter, a very large lady and a skinny scholar with a neutered gun did not make a very good raiding party, if she was being brutally honest. And Ayat had openly stated that his battle tactics were 'run away very quickly and let the enemy tire themselves out'. Been honing himself against conventional armies, not... well, little families who could ride just as well as he could. And Kani was mostly good for intimidation value, she was strong, but Carza had seen her fall flat on her face once after taking a slightly-too-long step with legs she was barely used to. Once you'd seen that...

Anyway.

Riding. Eating. Sleeping. Watching the mountains come closer and closer as they carved a smooth path across the steppe. They rode in silence most of the time, exhausted most of the conversation they wanted to hold. What else was there to say? They were going over the mountains, and until then, there was nothing to do but ride. No-one confronted them - a party of three on the boundless steppe was easy to miss, hard to catch. No raiders, no Scabrous, nothing. They were steering clear of Scabrous territory, huddling close to the mountains and watching for any flashes of red light. Only occasionally did they see them, shining like rogue nomadic stars which now wandered the earth like will-o-the-wisps. Distant, but even so, they rode immediately in the opposite direction until their horses whined for water and rest and refused to go on. The slopes of the mountains drew closer, dark and tremendous in size, and sometimes Carza could catch the scent of the ancestors. Kani was affected by that scent most of all, detecting all manner of subtleties... even if she knew what none of it meant. To Carza, it was a reminder of homecoming. She'd begun her time in the steppe with scented mountains, now she ended it with scented mountains.

"So... there's a passage which is clear even in winter, right?"

Ayat and Kani nodded in unison, but Kani spoke while her brother remained silent.

"There is. I think. In the old days, my father said, they used to... keep us up there."

"Keep...?"

"Juveniles. People like... my brother, I suppose. Not me. Not any more. The old country, the place where we all came from... the mountains way, way up north... it's dangerous, apparently. Very dangerous. Worse than anywhere else, worse than the desert. In the old days, the ancestors would keep us there, in big underground cities where we could stay warm. They'd protect us from the mutants and from each other, watch over us in our cradles until we were ready to join them. Over here... they tried, built some underground dwellings, but it never really went any further. The steppe was just so much nicer, we had to go down and live there."

Ayat nodded seriously.

"Yes, up there there's nothing but wolves and lichen. Not good for horses, not good for cats... good for ancestors."

No wonder the ancestors were so testy, then. They'd been more than important symbolic leaders and advisors, they were kings of the entire people back in the day. Kings, undisputed masters, with underground kingdoms where everyone could be corralled... and then the steppe had beckoned, an easier way of life, and people had just... drifted there naturally. Drifted to the path of least resistance. It was odd, she'd read about old god-kings in some dusty history books, and... the idea of those god-kings living to see their own irrelevance, living to see their empires crumble, living to see their descendants moving on to do something else with their lives... there was something indescribably funny about it, and undeniably fascinating. Though... hm. A sudden memory occurred to her, with this talk of strange constructions in the mountains. The first sign that the mountains were not uninhabited, that things had once dwelled there, perhaps still dwelled there, and might dwell again in times to come. A memory of a black statue with an enormous weapon. A woman, with a curled lip and sharp cheekbones, with armour made from metal bands forming a cage around her immaculately sculpted torso. A statue she'd never heard explained.

"Did they build that statue?"

Kani blinked.

"What statue?"

"...the enormous statue of a woman with a sword, it's in the northern pass, where you found me."

Ayat shivered, and made a small gesture which flicked outwards, then curled inwards. Flicking away the bad luck, gathering up the good. Didn't even need to ask, she just knew. Kani looked uncomfortable with the question.

"...we don't know."

"What?"

"We don't know. No-one knows. It's older than us, was around before the ancestors came to the mountains."

"So... the nomads built it?"

"Not them either, they don't know how, don't know who... she wears armour, I hear. And the nomads don't wear armour, too heavy, too expensive, pointless when you run away from all your problems, no? Sword is too big, too. No point using a sword like that, not good when you're riding a horse."

Made... sense, but still.

"So who did make it?"

"I said. I don't know. No-one knows. It's as old as the mountains. Ancestors will never scent it. Mutants don't like it either. No-one does. Some say it's a giant woman who turned to stone so she could wait for the end of the world, and a proper fight with... whatever decides to end the world, I suppose. Some say she's an old hero of the nomads. The ancestors came here, why not the nomads? Why would their ancestors look like them, we don't look or live like our ancestors, maybe those first nomads looked like that, with armour and big swords. I've... thought about it, but there's nothing to go on besides hearsay and rumour. Does... your people have no mention of it?"

"The only group which lives out there is scattered, and they don't write much down. Last empire out there was the Yasa, and they... didn't build that thing, I'm fairly sure. Doesn't look like their handiwork. Doesn't look like anyone's."

She remembered the harshly sculpted face, the enormous weapon, the absolutely perfect dimensions. The way it smelled of absolutely nothing, and had clearly been carved by many generations, yet all of them worked with flawless precision. The original architect mustn't have lived to see it completed, and yet his plans had been followed religiously. Nothing seemed half-finished or out of place, nothing had been abandoned or revised, not that she could see. The terror of the ancestors had banished her thoughts of that thing, and she'd steered clear of remembering it because of all it was associated with. The world was too strange a place to dwell on a single statue, but now... now it was a known unknown. It was known to be unknown, and the limits of her ignorance and the world's ignorance were laid out. And she wondered... who had built it? Who had built that statue? It was an enigma, and she saw no way of investigating it...

Krodaw. Krodaw would be burning right about now, she could feel it. The Sleepless had had months to finish their job, and unless killing Kralat had set off a chain of catastrophes for their entire movement... it seemed likely that Krodaw was gone. And with it, maybe the only written records which could talk about this sort of thing. A few years of neglect would rot any book into nothingness in that part of the world. Maybe once there'd been a chance to research that statue properly, to find out where it came from, what it was meant to do, who it depicted - a real woman or some savage goddess - but now... now nothing. Lost knowledge. The kind of wound where one could feel the ragged edges with their fingers, not the kind which faded away and the idea of there not being a wound was completely forgotten. Older than the ancestors... older than the ancestors. Maybe connected to that temple. Maybe the Scabrous.

They wandered onwards.

And a day or so later... they found the valley.

A solid wall of white met them. The pass was snowed over. Completely and utterly. It emerged with abrupt curtness, and Kani seemed to visibly relax. She didn't need to go back and face her family like she was now, some awkwardly adolescent state between juvenile and ancestor. Didn't need to face her fiance. It was... odd, but there was no build-up. Maybe if Carza had been incredibly deluded, convinced people that the pass might've been open... but no. No, the world didn't work like that. Sometimes it did, but not today. They'd known the pass would be sealed up, it was pure coincidence that the pass was near the place they actually wanted to use. This was just... confirmation, really. They'd already known, and now they knew, in italics. The valley looked nice, admittedly. The snow was piled up high, and fat flakes rained down all around them, tickling their cheeks and making their horses snort irritably. The mountains were covered in the stuff, some of it so deep that Carza would still find her head submerged if she rode through on her horse - Kani would be submerged if she tried to ride through. The Scabrous might be submerged while riding on those barn-sized things. The cold gnawed at her fingertips, and she shoved her hands underneath her armpits, warming them up slowly. Stared out morosely at the field of white, beyond which lay a warm, sheltered valley, where snow didn't fall and the rivers didn't freeze. A good place to stay and recover the numbers of their herd, to put together their lives after losing both of their children. Good spot to last the winter and emerge into the spring with something resembling a fresh start.

...a pity. They wouldn't know that Kani and Ayat were alive and well until... well...

Carza dismounted, her boots crunching the snow underfoot. The others followed, and the three of them stood around uncomfortably, waiting for inspiration to strike. Carza coughed. Kani shuffled. And Ayat blinked innocently... before his eyes widened.

"Oh! I know!"

The others looked over. He self-consciously took a step back, and only an agitated gesture from his sister drove him onwards - didn't like scrutiny, then.

"...well, I mean, it's alright if one of you wants to go fi-"

Carza growled.

"Just say what you thought. I'm freezing out here."

"...why don't we call an ancestor? They won't mind the snow, they quite like it. We could send our parents a message, give them gold... ancestors don't care for the stuff, I think. Right?"

Kani groaned reluctantly.

"Do we have to?"

"...well, no. I'm sure you have ideas. Just to... get things started."

He smiled uncomfortably.

"Just an idea."

Carza grimaced. Calling an ancestor... felt unpleasant. Not that she hated them... no, wait, she did. Ancestors had killed her best friend and a loyal travelling companion. Had been unnecessarily rude to her hosts. Were just... generally pretty dickish. Even Kani looked disinclined to meet them again. Probably because they might kill her on sight for being an abomination against the natural order... or because the herbs used to call them were the same herbs used in a horn of the ancestors, and she didn't want to waste the plant life on something significantly less fun than a horn of the ancestors. Which, Carza had to admit, was a pretty amazing invention. Not as effortlessly sexy as a cigarillo, of course. Not in her personal, unbiased opinion. But... it was serviceable when tobacco was unavailable, in the same way that shoe leather was acceptable when food was unavailable. Though... come to think of it, surely those scent glands would work, so long as Kani didn't, say, insult every ancestor in smelling range. Which was entirely possible, if she was going to be brutally honest. Kani took a deep breath, hummed, shuffled awkwardly, patted her horse, patted her cat, chewed a strip of jerky, and...

"I'm doing it."

Ayat grimaced.

"...now?"

"Been doing it for a moment. You're both standing in the wrong place."

Oh, so that was why the cat was gagging. Ah. Poor thing. Served it right for ditching them in the temple and providing emotional support for Ayat and Kani despite not being able to speak. And - oh Founder. Yes, she was definitely calling her ancestors through scent, gah. Awful. Just... it felt like someone had upended a bucket of perfume over her head, it was all the usual spices but this close, this intense, anything became deeply and profoundly unpleasant and Carza was just going to cover her nose as surreptitiously as possible. Kani's eyes narrowed - not surreptitious enough, apparently. Founder, that stuff was potent. Definitely hoped it didn't mean a string of offensive pejoratives or some awful bit of blasphemy which would get them all killed. Though maybe this was the equivalent of a baby shrieking senselessly, and someone would come along to either see what was wrong or shut the damn baby up with a rock if necessary. Seemed to be how the ancestors were generally called - making an absolute racket until a grown-up came to shut up this damn irritating who was spoiling the night with their pointless yammering. Carza and Ayat politely stepped out of the wind, but the scent was definitely being spilled into the mountains for anyone to feel. Maybe even Kani's parents would be able to feel it, even if they couldn't get any meaning. Maybe...

Less than an hour passed before one of the ancestors came.

A dark shape, moving swiftly amidst the peaks, clambering down using the snow as a way of breaking its fall. Sliding, slipping, swinging... all manner of violent motions that came across as completely effortless. Carza watched, and waited for the panic to rise. For her to feel like she wanted to run and hide and bury herself away for the rest of time and... and it never came. She stared at the dark shape, and felt nothing at all. What could it do? Rip her apart? Oh, goodness, how terrifically awful. She'd felt her mind slowly being consumed by contamination winding up into her brain, and was still a bit burned out by that experience. Found it hard to really be worried about violent physical death when she'd seen that concept elaborated in much more unpleasant ways. Being eaten alive by worms, being tortured and mutated into a guard dog for the Scabrous, losing everything and then dying a pointless death, or becoming a raving savage crawling blindly around the salt marshes with no thought but hunger, no memory but of scents and tastes and tactics. The ancestor descended like an ape from the mountains, swinging from long arms and only using its legs to slow its descent... and Carza felt nothing but mild concern. No fear. No panic. No terror.

And when all of that was gone... what really remained but mute appreciation for something larger and stronger than herself, that was nonetheless reasonable and sensible.

The creature crashed down in front of Kani, towering above her even now she'd become her transformation. In the shadow of the mountain range, there was very little in the way of visible features. Just... glittering skin, four shining black eyes, four enormous arms, and an air of menace which practically hung like a cloak from its enormous shoulders. Its tusks were low, carving up small grooves on the ground as it stalked closer, sniffing bestially. Its hair twitched in agitation, like they were antennae being overloaded. Kani squeaked in alarm, and the scent abruptly stopped, though it took time for the air to clear it away. The ancestor stalked closer... and quietly sniffed at Kani's face. Another sniff. A final, even more curious sniff. And then it poked her.

Kani reacted poorly.

Her head jerked forward, and the ancestor reeled back, a small, thin gash opened on its arm from the tusk. No, not it, she. A female, like the one that had killed Hull. How... appropriate. The ancestor sniffed a few more times, not seeming hugely put out by the injury, which bled slowly with blood that was far thicker than that of a human. It carelessly circled around Kani, who was shivering like a leaf. Uncertain in the face of something she'd been raised from birth to call a god, and now... now she was on the verge of becoming. It didn't poke her again, just... watched. No scents emerged from it, but it did study her very carefully, from every angle it could muster. Only a derisive glance for Carza and Ayat. And finally, finally, the creature...

Spoke.

"You are strange."

The female had a voice which Carza might call melodious, if it wasn't so deep, so rumbling, so strangled by sharp teeth and weighty tusks. It wasn't a language an ancestor was designed to speak, there wasn't remotely enough growling in it. But still... speech. In a language Carza actually understood, no less. It was surreal hearing something that wasn't their own incomprehensible language spilling from those glassy lips. And yet... here she was. And Carza gripped her rifle tightly. Not ideal, as weapons went... she only had a little ammunition for it, left behind by the Scabrous when they altered it. Breech-loading, easy enough to work with, she knew the basic technique... and, well, reloading was basically pointless if she only had time for a singular shot. Kani gulped.

"...y-yes. I am. Honoured ancestor, I must beg a-"

"Don't beg. I can't stand the begging. You're too strange, there's no place in tradition for you, no slot. Half-grown. Not sure where you stand. Speak."

"...I need you to go into the valley to take a message. I'd do it myself, but the pass is snowed up, and I can't wait until the spring thaw comes."

The ancestor snorted. Said nothing, just kept circling Kani, tusks coming close enough to graze her clothes, pushing them slightly but never tearing. It knew strength, yes, but it knew delicacy as well. Carza could clearly see where Kani was still awkward and under-grown here, how she was still off in terms of proportions. This creature was cohesive, had a genuine purpose and was adapted perfectly to serving it. Nothing wasted. No excess, and no scarcity. Kani, by contrast, was a gangly teenager who was still struggling to find a place for herself, and no part of her really looked harmonious. The ancestor paused its circling, and snarled quietly.

"To whom shall the message be taken."

"My father and mother. Tobok and... she is unnamed for the sake of taboo. My father is older, he is on the verge of ascension. Perhaps they have a young man with them, who may be mourning the death of his promised. All three will likely reek of grief. I need you to carry a message, and-"

"Poor luck for an ancestor to remember the living. Best to move on. Finish your growth. And join us in the snow, do not obsess yourself with-"

Kani snapped.

"I'm not an ancestor. Not yet. Just... halfway there. And please, I need you to deliver this message, and... and some gold for them. Please."

The female stared at her for a second. Snorted again. Growled softly, clicked its fingers... and it suddenly seemed to soften. Stance relaxing, muscles unwinding, tusks lowering out of the right angle for goring, lower eyes shutting. Almost looked human.

"Silly juvenile. Very silly. Go on then, grow up and become something. And when your time is come, then know there will be a vast family in the mountains. We will treasure you, as we treasure all who come to us."

She turned away, and stared at Ayat.

"I know your sash. I know your shame."

She stalked closer.

"And know that regardless of where you go, you will always be our child, and we will always adore our children."

A final glance for Carza.

"...and... I imagine you're not an awful person. I think."

The ancestor, towering above everyone here, shuffled awkwardly, and... reached into a pouch at her waist. She was wearing furs, much like the ancestors in the northern pass, but ornamented with all sorts of charms and pieces of treasure, forming patterns similar to those on the nomads' tents. Huh. That was... almost funny, actually. The nomads weren't going to have styles of clothing for enormous creatures, so their primary experience with large-scale tailoring would be... well, tents. Tent fabric was large, thick, warm, durable... come to think of it, it looked like she was wearing an ornamented tent covering, awkwardly stitched until it could fit around her frame. Still trailed in some areas, and the stitching was very obvious indeed. Almost funny, really. Almost. Certainly made her seem more... normal, Carza supposed. Harder to be afraid of her. She rummaged in the pouch (apparently made from an old oiled cloak stitched into a bag), and withdrew... some small dried purple fruits, shrivelled up like raisins but much juicier, much more appealing to the eye and the nose. Ayat was frozen stiff as the ancestor pressed a few into his hands, and Carza almost fainted when the creature came closer, hunched awkwardly to come down to her level.

"Go on, then. Have some mountain-fruit. Good for your digestion."

Founder, it was like meeting her father. 'Hello, Carza. Good to see you, Carza. Not unfond of you, Carza. Have some cake, have some rotten tea, now leave before I faint from sheer discomfort'. Carza took the small fruit - well, small for the ancestor. For Carza they were each the size of an apple. Smelled pretty good, honestly. And Kani received a very healthy amount of the things... and almost shrieked when the ancestor reached out with one enormous arm to pinch her cheek.

"Oh, you'll be a great beauty when you ascend. The others will adore you, I'm sure of it."

Kani whimpered.

"...thank you?"

"You're very welcome, dear. Now, the message, the package..."

She sniffed.

"There's some bears up there. I want to see if I can wrestle them before they go into hibernation, very fun to wrestle them three at a time when they're about to hibernate. So incredibly fat, and when roused to fury... oh, wonderful opponents. You'll understand, one day."

Kani nodded jerkily, and began to explain the message. They were all alive. They were going over the mountains. One day Kani would return to complete her ascension, and she'd meet her father and her mother both. So they had an obligation to stay alive, now. To stay safe. And... an apology for Dog, that he'd wasted so much time courting her. Kani's face was utterly flat when she said that 'if it helps, I'd probably crush your pelvis if we wed in my current state'. Which was unnecessarily vulgar. The ancestor's face was likewise flat as she nodded thoughtfully, taking it all to heart. No idea if she knew it was a joke. Was it a joke? Was Carza capable of recognising jokes from these people? Eh. Anyway. That was the gist of it, really. The gold was carried in a single pouch, clanking softly as it went. Only a single piece for them - Kani and Ayat were insistent on that, and Carza wasn't going to go against them. They had no children with them now, which meant no bride-price, no plunder, nothing. They were to grow old and ascend alone, most likely. They needed the wealth, put bluntly. And they needed it badly, to support them in their old age with so few people to help them. A single piece for the trio, just in case they needed some quick cash on the other side. The ancestor nodded through all of this, and when Kani was finished... she patted her affectionately on the shoulder.

"You remind me of my own daughter. Good of you, to be so loyal. Do you intend to use the underground villages?"

"If we can, yes."

"Hm. Now, if you're going to the mountains, you must leave a trail for yourself. To warn ancestors that you're coming through, and you will be hunting. Your glands are developed - let me show you how to modulate them. Nothing complex, but you need to be able to leave a unique trail."

Kani flinched... and nodded.

Carza stared.

And a second later, she was frantically scribbling the advice down. How to squeeze the glands, how to change the scent, how to adjust the potency. For ancestors, living alone in the mountains, a trail was vital. It told other ancestors who'd come through recently, how healthy they were, if they were interested in a mate or some company, if they were caring for juveniles, if they were hungry... all manner of things. It meant that, apparently, they could form a web of communication over the slopes, and the peaks, always aware of where the others had been and how they'd felt at the time of their message. If they were alive or dead. By tailoring the scent, they could make it fade away over time... it was odd. To think that Carza had been in that pass, surrounded by the scent of the ancestors, and in reality... it hadn't been territorial, it'd been a messaging system. She'd been strolling through an enormous library formed entirely of journal entries, charting the thoughts and deeds of thousands in that valley alone. The ancestor even explained that some chose to debate philosophy that way, made it easier than doing it face-to-face, when fights were liable to occur. But for Kani... just a simple message. 'With companions. No interest in company. Travelling. Hungry/Not Hungry. Lost/Not Lost'. And that was all.

The ancestor patted her again.

"Good luck, child."

"...thank you, noble ancestor."

"I have a bloody name. And don't keep calling me ancestor, how'd you like it if I called you 'old lady' constantly, hm? My name's Ayga."

Kani blinked.

"...I understand, honoured, uh, Ayga. Thank you for your help."

"Hmph. Now move it, the light's dying. You'll eat that fruit, won't you? It's very good for the digestion."

"I will, noble Ayga."

"There's a good girl. I like your cat, by the by. I used to own some lynxes of my own, finest creatures you'd ever seen, and so effortlessly calm... but they died last winter, poor things, and..."

Ayga kept rambling to herself as she stalked away, hopping up to grasp rocks above, hauling herself higher and higher while rambling all the while about cats and food and digestion and tracking and cities and all manner of pointless stories. Carza got the feeling that Ayga wasn't the type to converse very often, and she was getting some out of the way now before she annoyed her fellow ancestors by being a chatterbox.

Kani blinked.

Carza blinked.

Ayat chewed some of his fruit, murmuring approvingly at the taste.

The three glanced at one another. And Kani nodded.

"I want a horn of the ancestors. To celebrate."

"Agreed. And alcohol."

"You should really try this fruit, it's fantastic. I can feel my bowels churning already."

"Be quiet, Ayat."

"...alright, Kani. Sorry."

"Make it up by finding some herbs. I want to feel good."