Dusk approached and brought exhaustion with it. Cutting beams of light from The Chased split every item in the landscape with a band of dark shadow on one side and shimmering yellow on the other. The impending darkness laid a boundary line for them and they both knew intuitively to prepare for it rather than tempt it.
The forest had become sparse and they could see the water once more. As had been Maisen’s intention, there were plenty of banks along the river for lodging. It had grown wide and shallow, drawing long peninsulas from the shore. Daysha reasoned that they had reached the Southern Embankment. The region lay littered with gulfs of pooled, mossy water. Fishing in this area had become a bountiful option for the tribe in years past, though more often near the Harvest Season. Daysha remembered her brothers experiencing their first nights away from home, returning with heaps of fish and insisting the long trip wasn’t nearly as hard as it sounded.
As a child, Daysha had been so sure that they were bluffing, trying to seem tough. But having just completed the trek herself, she admitted that the distance was more fearsome than the hike. It amused her to think what a tactic had been deployed on the young tribesmen. She knew now the dread of confronting one’s first night so far away. A journey into the unknown, desperate to return successful. She chuckled at the relief, finding it all much easier than expected. Taking note of the bubbling schools of biting fish in those stagnant inlets, she thought dragging a net through the teeming water was almost unfair to the catch.
The bank they had passed before was likely no more suitable to their needs than the one they would encounter if they were to continue. And breaking their silence, Maisen simply offered, “What about here?”
It wasn’t until Maisen helped to remove her pack that Daysha realized just how heavy it was. Furrows remained in the skin of her shoulders. A floating feeling entered her feet and legs as they seemed to hold on to the memory of the weight. As the items were removed from their packs one by one, the evening began to feel much like any other. Daysha arranged a straw mat for the bedskins while Maisen went to the water's edge with his spear to fish.
It didn’t take long for Daysha to clear the camp, amassing a collection of stones as she did. Kneeling, she used one of them to carve out a coal bed in the ground. Just as the fire pit was laid, Maisen returned with four fish skewered on his spear. On his approach, he stopped intermittently to collect fallen branches into a bundle he was holding under his left arm. Dropping his parcel of sticks near the fire bed, he then sat with his knife to clean the fish.
Daysha ripped up patches of dry brush for kindling and began digging in the bag for Maisen's flintstones. She placed them beside her brush pile and started searching out larger logs and fallen tree limbs that would help to feed the fire through the night. The trees surrounding their camp were still young and green, which discouraged her. Nettles and cones littered across the forest floor were sufficient for a nice, hot cookfire. But without decent sustaining logs, it was likely that they were in for a cold night.
Maisen had just finished laying out the fish on the cookstone when Daysha heard him chuckle to himself.
“What is it?” Daysha asked, seating herself next to him beside the fire.
“I don’t know what to do with the waste,” Maisen answered, waving his hand toward the pile of scales and bones.
Daysha also let out a laugh. Normally, she would collect the waste and turn it over to the fishermen or the Elder women. But at this moment, without need for healing concoctions, bait, or crafting material, she too was at a loss.
“We don’t want that to attract beasts to us, do we?” Daysha said jovially.
“No, we don’t,” Maisen responded. “So I suppose the best thing to do would be to return it to the water.”
“I can do that,” Daysha offered.
“No, no. I need to go back to the water’s edge anyway. There’s still enough light to collect several of the logs I saw down there. I just didn’t have the space to carry them before.”
Daysha accepted this offer with great relief.
Finishing her fish, Daysha asked, "Are you still hungry? I'll come with you and maybe I can find some mushrooms."
Maisen welcomed her suggestion with a smile and a nod.
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The air by the river was biting, causing Daysha to regret her decision to leave the fire. But the yield was fruitful. The virginal embankments sprouted more edible treasures than Daysha could hope to bring back. And the logs that Mason had had his eye on would be sufficient for warmth and to keep prowlers at bay.
When they settled again by the fire with full bellies, Daysha slowly took action to transition it from a cookfire to a heatsource. Avoiding the flames, she laid down a thick log, careful not to snuff the existing coals. Hairs on her knuckles singed and curled, but Daysha had no trouble in bearing the heat.
She selected several small branches from the woodpile, but waited to add them. Daysha used the same digging rock as before to push the outer coals toward the center log that hesitated to catch.
"Daysha?” Maisen spoke slowly.
“Mhm?” She acknowledged casually. One by one, she buried one end of the short, thick branches in the coal bed and leaned them against the core log, causing flames to lick up its sides.
Facing the fire glow with the twilight at his back, Daysha could see he was stern.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your dream?”
Daysha felt her stomach lurch. The fire cackled and spat, mocking the silence as Daysha stewed in embarrassment.
She could only manage the words, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the dream sooner.”
Maisen sighed. He sat up on his knees and carefully reached to hold Daysha’s hand in his.
"Have I –," Maisen coughed to cover the break in his voice, "Have I done enough? Or done anything to keep you from coming to me?”
Daysha fought to smile behind welling tears. Orbs of golden fire light overtook her view of Maisen. She reached to cup his stubbled cheek in her hands.
"No. It’s just that I felt there was little to tell. I see now that we could have learned all these things long ago if we’d sought the Chieftain sooner, but I couldn’t have known that.”
Maisen straightened and continued in a formidable tone that Daysha admired when it was directed at anyone but her, “But it wasn’t just the dream, was it? You said yourself that you feel this is connected to our childlessness. If you felt that,” he softened his tone, “if it plagued you for so long, why did you wait to tell me?”
Daysha sat back, cross-legged. She watched the moss on the logs ignite with crawling orange streaks.
“We waited together for a long time. Remember? You used to visit the Elder women with me to check for signs of a child. And on those long, empty walks back to our hut, what did we talk about? Anything else, right? So even when we stopped going, we didn't stop talking. We just spoke of other things.
"One Harvest after another after another… I wasn't hiding anything from you. There was just nothing to say. And when I started having dreams… it took me three cycles to recognize they were the same."
A cool wind blew across the water and Daysha shivered.
“When I started going to the river, I didn’t know what to say to the Life-Giver, let alone what I might say to you. And my mother, well, she saw the heaviness in me.”
"I suppose I could have done that too," Maisen offered guiltily.
“And I could have just told you…”
Daysha felt unsettled and foolish. Unable to look Maisen in the face, she added more wood and prodded coals with the dig-stone, fussing distractedly. Her better judgment and honed skills at the hearth prompted her to stop before her meddling disrupted her careful work.
When she ceased, she paused and said quietly, "I suppose I should tell you… this never leaves me. This sorrow I feel,” Daysha closed her eyes, catching her breath. Two gentle streams of tears leaked from each eye. “It comes so easily, Maisen, I can hardly stand it. And I'm sorry, I don't know if you feel the same, but for me, it's like… like heating water. Some occasionally bubbles over the side before it's really at a boil. If I were to watch, to wait, to call out every time it threatened to spill over, I would drive us both mad."
"Is… is the dream the water?"
"I'm the water! Maisen, even on our walk today by the river, when we talked about Brin and Bosha’s boys, a moment of longing overwhelmed me. I silently shed a few tears, and it passed. If I'm hiding anything from you it's that. How often that happens. Some days, like the day I told my mother, I was boiling over. But it wasn't the first time. It won't be the last. I've accepted that. But there is something about telling you every time that makes me believe I would make this harder. What good is it to announce the problem again and again with nothing to do about it?"
After a long pause Maisen spoke quietly, "Then let's not talk about it that way anymore. Not about how hard it is for you or for me. We can't fix this for each other. We can't even really carry it for one another. So no more doing this for you or for me. With you. With me. As best we can… yes?"
Daysha nodded, fighting the tears. Maisen kissed her wet cheek gently. She chuckled as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. He then lifted his fingers to gently remove the droplets from her cheeks.
They held each other by the fire until the cold at their backs beckoned them to retreat to their bedding. Each nestled into the other's warmth, listening to the wind and soft cracks of the fire, they slept.