Pins and Needles

"Life could be a dream .. sweetheart"

I added the fur inserts to my leather boots .. the white larl fur spilling out over the tops and my pant legs now tucked within the cocoon. My jacket was well worn but still in excellent condition. The same fur rimmed the collar and cuffs to protect my neck and wrists from the ice and cold.

What had started out as cool kisses against the cheek began to slowly increase until instead of disappearing and melting into the soupy mud ... that river of plains began to coagulate and the little kisses started sticking to form a winter wonderland of light frost. It lit the night like some colorless evening lit only by blues and grays. It crunched beneath the heavy paws of the kaiila and each strike of hoof on frozen ground. The wagons screamed as their soaked fibers froze solid .. but we were moving. And that is all that counted. We were moving so when the ground did freeze we were on top of it. What had seemed a curse turned out to save us from getting mired too deep in the thick sucking mud. But at what cost? Could we thank the Sky for the snow? For the cold? Was the snow not a kiss of death to the Tuchuk? We were only days away from the Northern grazing grounds. This proximity would save us. We would push on until it was reached .. there would be no rest .. no stopping. We must move to grass for the bosk and now the nearest safety for them .. was the culmination of our journey.

Days were gray. Nights were eery. The world wore earmuffs and all sound was subdued and muffled. As if the clouds themselves had come down to live among us .. our neighbors. There was a peace .. a lack of anything else I suppose. People talked in whispers even though they did not need to. The land was sleepy .. like death. Peaceful .. like death. Quiet .. like death.

The next few days were like a dream. I do not remember much of them. They just passed like moments of sleepy recollection. Misty and soft. I think we could have wandered for years in that state and never even realized it. I wonder if it were only days. Perhaps it was years we lost .. it could have been.

It was the morning of the third day.. I think ... when the Central Fire broke across the land like a beacon and the frost and snow melted away as it climbed higher into the Sky. Pins and needles prickled across my shoulders and arms as the cold was chased away by the nearness of the equator. I have heard of rituals and prayers to call upon the Central Fire .. to bring it back to warm the land ... to bring the grass to life. I do not know if there were rituals done among us .. I do not know if anyone lifted their weapons and voice in prayer. I only know that the Central Fire has indeed returned and the bosk are once more safe.