my blood is a flood of rubies

precious stones

sariel didn’t exactly expect anyone to join her. she was so used to being on her own that the thought of company was like a foreign film. it was usually good but ultimately you could never really understand what was happening unless you’d gone through years of studying the language. well, sariel had never studied the language. she didn’t have any friends in this land and only one or two in her old home - her parents had kept her close during her first year for her safety and she had stayed with them as a nurse for the second litter they’d had out of the familiarity it had offered. she’d left when the second litter had reached their year mark -- there was no reason for her to stay any longer. her third year hadn’t allotted her much in the way of company seeing as few wolves wanted to travel with a blind girl who’d never left her parents’ den. she could help a single mother passing through with her pups for a few days or travel with a yearling for a few days, but ultimately a mother would realize that a blind girl and pups could only work out for so long and a yearling would never want that much responsibility for too long and sariel would be on her own again.

but sariel absolutely craved company. and it wasn’t from lack of it when she was young, it was an instinct. wolves are social creatures and eventually, if you keep something that was vital to something’s life for too long, that thing would shrivel and die. it was a torture of sorts - a slow death. sariel didn’t think she could keep living on brief scraps of conversation with wolves passing through. that being said, the heavy bounding pawsteps on the sand drew her attention instantly. it was a female and she bore the smell of salt on her skin. sariel expected her to move past without a second thought and so when the stranger spoke, sariel was surprised. ”It’s strange, isn’t it?” sariel’s mind drew a blank at the stranger’s question - she didn’t know what on earth the girl was talking about. the girl moved a few steps and sariel thought she could have been talking about the water she could heard swishing again the sand. that idea was pushed out the window when the stranger spoke again. ”I always wondered where this sand came from. Nobody’s ever been here to tell me. That’s strange, don’t you think?”

sariel had never really had to wonder about anything. most of her questions were straightforward and easily answered. but that was never something she had ever thought of asking. before she could answer, another voice broke in. she’d been too caught up listening to the girl, who smelled like salt and spoke with tones that made her sound happy, that she hadn’t been paying attention a male had joined them. he smelled a little like she did - like freedom and that he hadn’t been here long enough for his scent to be altered by the wind and rain and everything that came with this land. ”Hello. Do you have theories of where the sand comes from? It caught my attention, those words, and I am curious about it too.” his voice is very intriguing to sariel, a tone she’s heard from wolves only a few times before. she’s heard wolves who speak like the girl and wolves who speak like the entire world is balanced on their shoulders but this boy speaks in flat tones and sounds like he’s practiced that polite way of speaking and it’s interesting. she wants him to say more so that she can keep dissecting the way he speaks but he falls silent and she belatedly realizes that it’s her turn to speak.

she thinks for a moment before she begins to speak. ”in my land, we believe in the goddess tor and her husband, fenris. in some stories, tor is the moon goddess and fenris is the sun god. in others, tor is the goddess of the earth and heavens and fenris is the god of the oceans and the underworld. i’ve heard both, but usually you pick which version you like better. i like them both. anyway -,” sariel paused and chuckled a little at her own rambling. ”the legend goes like this. in the beginning, before the wolves were made, the two were in the sky, always dodging from each other. fenris was very in love with tor, as she was very beautiful, but he was very ugly. so, in order to woo her, he created the earth and brought it to her as way of proposing to her. she was so in love with his gift that she accepted his proposal and she then created the moon to wed them. when they were married, they went to the world. tor thought that it was a strange place, just rock and heat and so she created forests and mountains for them to live on. they were so in love with each other and as lovers do, they soon bore children. they loved these children very much but the moon was so lonely in the sky without tor and fenris that she requested all of them to join her in keeping the sky alight. the couple did send their children to join the moon, thus creating the stars, but tor wept and created the rivers.”

”they were soon expecting more children when the moon explained to them how exhausting she and the stars were, keeping the sky alight forever. fenris vowed to give the sky their son when he was born. and when this son was born, the sky took him up and used his golden skin to light up the sky so that the moon and stars could sleep - creating the sun. tor wept again, creating lakes. it was then that tor would bear fenris the last of their children. however, the world shook and crumbled and fenris was sucked down. he was very afraid of the darkness and created the underworld to home himself and what others might come. tor wept for three days after his disappearance, creating the oceans. she then birthed the last of their children - the wolves. her sadness was too much for her to bear, and she then traveled to create a land far above the world for those who would later join her - the heavens. the wolves would call to her when they required something of her, like the sand or a food supply, and when she wept it would rain on the earth.”

sariel gave another chuckle, this one sheepish. ”uh, so that’s where i was taught everything came from. sorry if i’ve bored you to death.”

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