In the morning, the pair donned their packs, and Daysha made sure the hut fire had been fully snuffed. The final thing Maisen took in hand was his spear.
Keti waited for them outside their hut. The morning air was cool and damp, but they remained confident that it would be a warm day before long.
They said little in their departure. Keti embraced Daysha and kissed her cheek, leaving a damp remnant of a tear on Daysha’s temple. Resisting the quiver in her own jaw, Daysha released her mother reluctantly. Keti lovingly squeezed Maisen’s forearm. He smiled at her.
Mercifully, Keti returned to her own hut as the pair left. Daysha couldn’t bear to have her mother stand there, watching them go. It seemed easier that they both departed voluntarily.
The dusty rim near the edge of their camp marked a boundary where the trampled brush gave way to tall, sharp grasses. Daysha swept her hands at waist height to let the sprouts of bright green tickle her palms. Having traveled this way in all seasons, Daysha knew that before long, they would beam gold and reach high enough to caress her shoulders.
A pathway, well-worn and flattened, marked a pleasant descent away from the encampment. Down river, opposite where the peach grove grew to the north of the encampment, an open field boasted few notable features aside from a cluster of towering red boulders.
As they passed the rocks and traversed the expansive grasslands, a surreal anticipation gripped Daysha’s core. It might have been enough to know that she had never traveled so far from home in her life. Even still, knowing how far they had yet to go sent similar chills down her spine. However, the measure of the moment was not distance, but weight. And Daysha, thinking that she should feel burdened, basked instead in the ease of her determination. There was ascension in her steps.
The journey was comfortable, calming. The river had grown so wide that its opposite embankment shone as a golden-sprouted slit past a watery horizon. Only patches of trees, dwarfed with distance, obstructed the skirt of a vast gray-blue sky. They crested an embankment with the shoreline to their right fenced off by thick, tall foliage between them and the water.
Crisp air puffed across Daysha’s chest and she occasionally informed Maisen of sycamore, cypress, and other aromas she identified. The trees granted shady relief and hid pleasant songbirds. The spring ground, relieved in this season between frost and flood, felt soft and welcoming to their footsteps.
The hours passed in pleasant conversation. Ignoring the events that had brought them here, Maisen and Daysha spent the time sharing stories about friends and goings-on in the camp.
Shadows shortened and the heat of the day stiffened the air. The terrain grew rocky and large, gray boulders began to spot the landscape. They had made their departure from the river, intending to cross the hills for a more direct route. Several times, Maisen would scale a cluster of stones for a better view to determine the best way forward. Each time he did, he reassured Daysha that they were on the right track.
Doing her best to encourage him in turn, she kept pace and followed without question. Daysha retained full confidence in Maisen’s abilities. His focus heightened and they said little.
Before long, there were no scattered boulders, only a mountain to climb. The incline showed a natural path upward and the pair settled back into their in-line stroll.
“Maisen?” Daysha puffed.
“Mhm,” he responded with a grunt, high-stepping over roots.
“Why did you never tell me about the dream? After all this time?” Her words were gentle, non-accusatory, released through broken draws of air. The climb was not all that difficult, but she needed every breath to keep it so.
Maisen spoke as casually as if he were seated, recollecting in a calm, distant tone,
"Shame,” he offered simply. “There was a part of me that felt I shouldn’t be hunting. But I did it anyway. The Chieftain made it clear that this is okay, noble even… I just never saw it that way.”
They walked one after the other with Maisen leading the way through waist-high scrub that grew sparse as he and Daysha ascended the cliffside.
“I always knew that those who refused to hunt were released to service roles under the Chieftain,” Maisen continued, “but I never knew why. I genuinely thought it was a choice. And I had made my choice not to stop hunting. In a strange way, you could say I chose a service role. Just to you, to the tribe.”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Maisen turned to assist Daysha. The way had grown steep and the fickle mountainside was giving way in flakes of stone crumbling beneath their steps. Placing her hand in Maisen's for assistance, Daysha scaled a crag in two large steps. Once over the ridge, she asked, “You made that decision that young?”
“In my twelfth course, yes.”
The cliffside they traversed rose steeply to their left. Desolate crags of gray stone poked their shoulders as they hugged the ridge. But the scrub brush beneath their feet sprouted easily in the soft red dirt that began to overtake the hillside. Before long, the pathway widened and even a tumble down the slope to their right would have been nothing but a stinging inconvenience being that its descent was mild but spotted with cacti.
The long-awaited mitigation of their climb came not a moment too soon. A golden landscape stretched out before them, painted in low light. The crisp wind clung to their damp skin and Daysha felt her hairs prickle.
Over the cliff's edge and past dense foliage, the river could not be seen, but it could be heard. A droning thunder, it reminded them continuously of their bearings. Daysha had no idea how they would stay on track once they departed from it entirely. She swelled with pride to think that Maisen had no qualms about such a thing.
They plodded along in silence until Maisen voiced a small, “Hmm.”
“What is it?” Daysha asked, looking around a little, wondering if he'd seen something.
“Well, I've been thinking,” Maisen started slowly, “The more I look back at everything, knowing what I know now, the more different my life looks.”
“Imagining how different it would be as an attendant, you mean?”
“No. Not that exactly. See, I thought that at some point, before ever going on a hunt, there might be a young man that went to the Chieftain and said, ‘I don't want to be a hunter.’ And then they assumed these service roles. Or that the Chieftain appointed them personally.”
The cliff's edge forced their descent. Daysha basked in the view that opened up before them. She could see now that the plains to the east were aridly sparse.
Maisen stared ever forward, already familiar with the view, “I never thought about it because there was never anyone my age that didn't become a hunter. And now I see that I was the one my age that should have joined the Chieftain. I would have been the one standing between Nile and Tyrum.”
They breached the tree line where towering foliage, round with age, spread thick roots across their path. Nettles and leaves had fallen so thickly over the roots that the ground rose and fell as gently as a grassy hillside. The light around them dampened in the shadow of the trunks, and Daysha's skin prickled in the cool shade. Under the sprouting blossoms, the forest was not as dark as it would grow to be. Unfamiliar birdsongs reminded Daysha how far away from home they were.
Maisen walked beside Daysha as he spoke. “I think I knew I felt even more guilt and shame over the dream because I still wanted to hunt. But the dream was always different from any hunt I've ever actually been on. I've always killed for food, for protection. Never just because I could. And that's how the dream was different. Hunting is different.”
Daysha turned her head occasionally to look at Maisen, reading his expression. “Maisen? I know you're good at it, but is hunting really worth all that?”
Maisen dropped his gaze a little and smiled. “No. But you are.”
Daysha felt her face flush and she laughed. “What?”
“‘She's the first one,” Maisen mimicked his father's words to him. “The first one you tell when something good happens. She's the first one you want to talk to when life gets hard. When you think about any reason to try harder, to be better, she's the first one.”
Maisen reached for Daysha's hand and gave it a squeeze, “That's what my father said to me the first time I asked him what a mate was.”
“And I was the first one you thought of…” Daysha added in her favorite detail of a story she knew well.
“You were.” Maisen laughed. “Even though it was just that you were the first one I wanted to show what I'd found while foraging, or that if Volan made me angry, you were the first one I wanted to tell. I told my father then and there that I'd made my decision. Which I don't think he expected.”
They both laughed.
“Not that I don't love hearing it, but Maisen, I do already know this story.” Daysha fiddled with his fingers playfully.
“Mhm,” Maisen affirmed. “And how old was I?”
“Seven.”
“Five years, Day. I had five years to be sure I wanted you. And, ugh, I know I was wrong not to tell you all this time but, it's because when I have that dream, you are the first one I think of. You were the first thing on my mind when I even considered not participating in the hunt.”
“Because you wouldn't be able to have a mate at all…” Daysha breathed in recognition.
“That, I knew. I didn't know much about the Chieftain's attendants, but that, I knew.”
Daysha puttered a shocked laugh. She hugged Maisen's arm lovingly for a few steps, and kissed his shoulder before releasing him to walk comfortably once again.
“I –” Daysha stuttered, “I can't believe you endured all that for me…
Maisen laughed sweetly. “Many endure far more guilt and shame even without such a wonderful consolation.” He squeezed her hand. “It's not so bad.”
Daysha smiled, but felt a twinge in her gut. She'd empathized with Maisen’s dreams on account of her own. And while a part of her felt that Maisen was brushing off a bit of his own experience with forced airiness, it was true that she had not yet known any consolation.
Yes, it probably would be easier, Daysha thought, to endure the dreams if they were worth the pain.
They continued on in silence.