(no subject)
Written as I go.
The wolf had not taken well to the long canoes of the Ikika. The sway of the hide vessel with its ribs of weathered birch had made the wolf uneasy, and she had paced back and forth for all the world like a trapped cat. Her pacing had only made the hide canoe--which smelled like an animal although it was not--rock against the lapping Tuurrapa waves; her low, anxious whines had drawn the slim and moonlit shapes of Pojokeppa level with the canoe as the Ikika had paddled still harder and murmured their watch-song still more fiercely to escape the roused liar-fish.
The Pojokeppa smelled that the boat was animal, too, but they did not feel swallowed alive within its skin. The Pojokeppa breached the cold, darkly reflective Tuurrapa lakewater with their slender, smooth-scaled backs because they wanted to swallow this little canoe-beast and all of the precarious life aboard.
The wolf had not taken well to the long canoes of the Ikika, and the warriors of Ikikonnen had known that their daughter Inakka and her brothers would never be able to hunt the Pojokeppa by moonlight as the Ikika always had. With their paddles quiet against the rippled water of the river, Inakka Haapari and her three brothers had taken all that they owned and all that they knew and all that they were.
They had taken themselves down the river to the angry, busy docks of Deit, where their hide canoes had sold and their kind had been cursed and the Haaparis had been hated without any of these sharp-nosed beggars knowing that the Haaparis were the "lice-ridden werewolves" of whom they spoke.
The lice-eggs in their newly-bought Deitish clothing had hatched before the next full moon. The rutabagas that they had saved from the farms of Ikikonnen, though, had grown and gone to seed in their newly-leased little farm at the edge of the wood, and the cows that their rutabagas bought gave rich, creamy milk even if the cows meant leasing more land for grazing pasture, and the rye fields had grown around their croft like hair on the head of a newborn.
Sometimes, when the last of the night's chores had been finished and the thin gruel that Inakka's brother Uri had made rested uneasily on their stomachs, the Haaparis would pace their croft at the edge of the wood until they had talked themselves enough courage to pull away their plain linen clothes and pull away their plain, human skin to reveal the wolves underneath.
They would hunt, and no matter how many times they talked of taking human form upon the culmination of the kill to save and salt the meat and to tan the hide, the wolves knew that to kill was to eat and to eat was to be, and to be was to kill. Not Inakka's iron will nor Uri's love of his human shape, not Takka's frugality with their finances nor Riiri's terror of lifelong debt could stay that cycle of be-kill-eat-be, and so they starved slowly as they hid from the fear of werewolves that Deit knew.
In Ikikonnen, werewolves had been impractical. In Deit, being a werewolf was impractical.
And, Inakka knew just as she knew the reflection of the moon on the backs of the Pojokeppa and the tense rock of the hide canoe under her paws, the Haaparis would have starved to death for their fear of being discovered if they had not, in fact, been discovered.
If Kargoth had not come to their door with the tanned pelt of one of their kills and a pouch of coins the size of her fist--if the old alpha wolf had not come to them with the offer of a place in a pack--
The boat had rocked.
It had tipped them out onto the shore at last.
The wolf had not taken well to the long canoes of the Ikika. The sway of the hide vessel with its ribs of weathered birch had made the wolf uneasy, and she had paced back and forth for all the world like a trapped cat. Her pacing had only made the hide canoe--which smelled like an animal although it was not--rock against the lapping Tuurrapa waves; her low, anxious whines had drawn the slim and moonlit shapes of Pojokeppa level with the canoe as the Ikika had paddled still harder and murmured their watch-song still more fiercely to escape the roused liar-fish.
The Pojokeppa smelled that the boat was animal, too, but they did not feel swallowed alive within its skin. The Pojokeppa breached the cold, darkly reflective Tuurrapa lakewater with their slender, smooth-scaled backs because they wanted to swallow this little canoe-beast and all of the precarious life aboard.
The wolf had not taken well to the long canoes of the Ikika, and the warriors of Ikikonnen had known that their daughter Inakka and her brothers would never be able to hunt the Pojokeppa by moonlight as the Ikika always had. With their paddles quiet against the rippled water of the river, Inakka Haapari and her three brothers had taken all that they owned and all that they knew and all that they were.
They had taken themselves down the river to the angry, busy docks of Deit, where their hide canoes had sold and their kind had been cursed and the Haaparis had been hated without any of these sharp-nosed beggars knowing that the Haaparis were the "lice-ridden werewolves" of whom they spoke.
The lice-eggs in their newly-bought Deitish clothing had hatched before the next full moon. The rutabagas that they had saved from the farms of Ikikonnen, though, had grown and gone to seed in their newly-leased little farm at the edge of the wood, and the cows that their rutabagas bought gave rich, creamy milk even if the cows meant leasing more land for grazing pasture, and the rye fields had grown around their croft like hair on the head of a newborn.
Sometimes, when the last of the night's chores had been finished and the thin gruel that Inakka's brother Uri had made rested uneasily on their stomachs, the Haaparis would pace their croft at the edge of the wood until they had talked themselves enough courage to pull away their plain linen clothes and pull away their plain, human skin to reveal the wolves underneath.
They would hunt, and no matter how many times they talked of taking human form upon the culmination of the kill to save and salt the meat and to tan the hide, the wolves knew that to kill was to eat and to eat was to be, and to be was to kill. Not Inakka's iron will nor Uri's love of his human shape, not Takka's frugality with their finances nor Riiri's terror of lifelong debt could stay that cycle of be-kill-eat-be, and so they starved slowly as they hid from the fear of werewolves that Deit knew.
In Ikikonnen, werewolves had been impractical. In Deit, being a werewolf was impractical.
And, Inakka knew just as she knew the reflection of the moon on the backs of the Pojokeppa and the tense rock of the hide canoe under her paws, the Haaparis would have starved to death for their fear of being discovered if they had not, in fact, been discovered.
If Kargoth had not come to their door with the tanned pelt of one of their kills and a pouch of coins the size of her fist--if the old alpha wolf had not come to them with the offer of a place in a pack--
The boat had rocked.
It had tipped them out onto the shore at last.