A/N: Many thanks to those of you reading this story and taking the time to review. I'm so pleased you're enjoying this re-crafting of the way the story should have gone. Much love! xx-Kitten.

The Lion Camp of the Zelandonii

By Kittenshift17

Chapter 4

It was late evening by the time everyone at the Landzadonii camp got set up and settled for the Summer Meeting. Many people – most of the Leaders on the Council especially – had been curious about the visitors. Dalanar and Jerika had left for a brief time to greet the leaders of the hosting Cave for the Summer Meeting before Dalanar had run some interference with the Leaders Council.

Ayla had spent the entire afternoon running after her children and instructing their guests about things. Everyone had insisted, once they were settled, upon the chance to bathe off the travel grime from their long journey and Ayla had led their friends along with Jondalar and their children up the river a little to gain some privacy.

"Mama?" Durc called quietly, a hint of concern in his voice suddenly as they were all enjoying the time in private away from the number of people who had been pestering them since their arrival.

Ayla looked towards Durc to find that Wolf had appeared – having been absent most of the day and he was most curious about the man of mixed spirits. Ayla felt a prickle of unease across the back of her neck as she recalled that Durc's totem was the Grey Wolf.

"WOLF!" Jonayla shouted excitedly, spotting her canine playmate of many years and dashing towards him. Wolf – for the first time in a long time without Ayla's express instruction – ignored Jonayla's call and approach.

Ayla began rapidly signing for Durc, explaining that Wolf was their beloved friend and that he would not hurt Durc unless provoked or unless Ayla, Jondalar or their children were threatened. Durc nodded his head in understanding before fearlessly reaching his hand out towards the enormous canine to be sniffed. She spotted the surprise on both the faces of man and animal at the effect when Wolf sniffed Durc's hand carefully.

She realised with a jolt why it was that Wolf had ignored Jonayla and why he was so intent on Durc. As a puppy, Ayla had made a nest for Wolf that included the carry-hide she had used to carry Durc when he'd been a baby. The scent of Durc would be familiar to the wolf. Walking swiftly across the clearing as everyone fell silent to watch the exchange between man and beast, Ayla witnessed the sight that she was sure she would never forget.

After licking for a moment at Durc's fingers, Wolf jumped up at Durc, placing his large paws on Durc's robust shoulders and doing to Durc what he so often did to Ayla. Leaning in carefully, Wolf took Durc's jaw and throat in his muzzle and bit lightly – not breaking the skin – before licking Durc's neck and letting go. Whether by instinct or some other reason, Durc returned the gesture of affection as Ayla had always done – as even Jondalar very rarely did.

"Mama, look," Jonayla whispered, turning to Ayla in wonder, "It's like Wolf recognises Durc is his brother as much as he is my brother."

"That's because he does, Jonayla," Ayla told her daughter softly.

The sound of Ayla's voice drew Wolf's attention and he yipped in greeting as he turned to her before bounding over to her and going up on his hind paws to return the affectionate and deferential display to the leader of his pack and his human surrogate mother. Ayla smiled as she grabbed Wolf's ruff and shook it, biting his affectionately. Beyond the canine, Ayla could tell that Durc was unnerved by what he had just witnessed and partaken in. That the Spirit World had just brushed over her son.

"He is my totem," Durc signed to her.

Ayla nodded, "He is also my wild wolf son. I rescued him as a puppy after killing his mother during the winter. She had whelped out of season. He recognised your scent because I swaddled him as a pup with the carry-blanket I used to carry you when you were still a baby."

Durc's brow furrowed in confusion and Ayla could tell he was confused about what she had still been doing with his carry blanket so many years after he'd been in need of carrying. After she'd been banished and cursed with death. Ayla's expression grew grave and serious as she conducted the conversation with her firstborn son entirely in the silent sign language of the Clan.

"I was banished. Cursed with Death. But I never let you go, Durc," she told him, "Through the long years I lived alone before I found my mate, Jondalar, I had no people. I had no one else. I turned to the only company I could as a grieving mother desperate for company and for the feel of being needed as you had needed me. I raised Whinney from a foal after killing her mother for meat and materials. I also raised a Cave Lion Cub that I called Baby. Racer was born just after I found Jondalar. It was four long years I lived alone with no people. With only my animal children for company. And I cried for you often. My heart ached with your loss and only your carry-blanket brought me comfort."

Durc blinked at her and while to everyone else he looked stoic and even a little unfeeling in the face of the tears blurring his mother's vision, Ayla knew better. She could see the tension across his shoulders and the tightness in his jaw to know that even when they had been forced apart, his mother has missed him. That she had still loved him, though she couldn't be with him.

"How did you survive, Mama?" Durc wanted to know, signing in return.

Ayla smiled gently.

"Did Uba tell you tales of my behaviour before I was cursed?" she asked in return.

Durc nodded.

"To learn how to use the sling – to learn to be The Woman Who Hunts – I spent many long years listening to and learning from the men of Brun's clan in secret. When I was banished I was able to hunt small game with my sling in order to feed myself. I travelled for many days before I found my valley where I lived after that until I found Jondalar. Eventually, when I decided to settle there, I realised I would need materials I could only get from hunting prey too large for my sling. And so I recalled all I had listened to and learned. It took much practice and several failed attempts, but I taught myself to hunt large game."

Durc looked puzzled and Ayla realised that wasn't what he had meant. He had spent a year, possibly longer, travelling with her companions from the journey with Jondalar. He might've known those types of things already. Ayla realised with a jolt that Durc meant to inquire how she had survived being alone for all that time. How she hadn't wasted away as so many cursed with death tended to do.

"I promised my mother, Iza, that I would go to the Others and find my mate," Ayla shrugged, "I vowed I would not let Broud defeat me and condemn me to death. He took everything from me. He took my Clan. He took my home. He took my sister, Uba… He even took you, my son. But I could not let him defeat me. Brun would not have allowed it. When I was banished, Brun promised me he would protect you and teach you. That you would be safe, even while Broud was leader. I could not let Iza and Creb down. I could not let you down."

Durc looked away for a moment, clearly unsure of how to express his feelings on the matter.

"Why didn't you take me with you, Mama?" he signed carefully, glancing at her furtively and Ayla's eyes overflowed with the grief as though it were as fresh as the day she'd been driven from the Clan and left him behind, restrained by Uba.

"I could not take you with me, Durc," Ayla signalled, "I was cursed with Death. I could not have survived so well when it was just the two of us. The men of the clan would have speared me had I tried to snatch you away and take you with me."

"Was it… because I am of mixed spirits?" Durc signed carefully.

"You are of mixed spirits, Durc, but not in the way you think," Ayla signalled, going to him and taking his hands for a moment, squeezing them reassuringly and letting him see the open honesty and love she bore for him in her heart and upon her face.

"The Others believe that the Great Mother creates life inside a woman and chooses the spirit of a man to be mixed with the woman's to create that life. The Clan believes it is the totems that battle and that a man's totem overpowers a woman's and that is why she becomes pregnant," Ayla explained to him, "I believe that is only half right. I believe that when a man and a woman share Pleasures, when they mate, the essence of the man is mixed with that of the woman inside the place where babies grow. I believe that the man who shares Pleasures with or mates with a woman in that place – when he leaves his essence behind – is the man the Spirits or the Great Mother choose to mix with the spirit of the woman."

Durc looked mildly confused and rather startled by her assertions.

"For example, Jondalar is my mate. I only share Pleasures with him. His is the essence the Spirits used to make me pregnant with Jonayla, Thonnolan and Jetamalie. That is why they have his blue eyes. Because Jondalar is a man of the Others and I am a woman of the Others, they look like Others," Ayla explained to him, "But when I lived with the Clan the only man I mated with was Broud. That means, based on my belief, that when he mated with me and left his essence behind, it was Broud's essence that the Spirits mingled with mine to make me pregnant with you. But because I am of the Others and Broud was a man of the Clan, when our essences, our spirits, mixed together we made you. A man of mixed spirits."

"The Clan think I am an abomination," Durc signed carefully.

"You are not an abomination Durc!" Ayla signed fiercely, "You are my son and I love you. I did not leave you behind because you are of mixed spirits. I left you behind because I believed I might die and I did not wish for that to also be your fate. I have ached, every day, in my heart with missing you and wishing I could see you again."

Durc's bottom lip trembled then and Ayla knew that were he able to cry as she did, he would do so. When it trembled again and he had to bring his hand up to cover the quivering show of emotion, Ayla stepped into him, wrapping her arms around his barrel chest tightly and burying her face against his chest.

Everyone else in the clearing had been looking on, murmuring to each other. Jondalar knew many of them had forgotten how powerful and how mesmerizing the full language of the Clan could be. Watching Ayla communicate silently with Durc had stirred something in his heart. Jondalar realised as he watched the young man wrap his arms around his mother and squeeze her tightly – much more tightly, he imagined, than even Jondalar himself had ever held the woman, even at his most fearful for her safety – that he loved the young man.

He didn't know him. He didn't know what his life had been like or what he had experienced. He didn't know how he had grown up once Ayla had been forced to leave him with the Clan, but the sight of mother and son reunited, of them sharing such a personal discussion that even Jondalar did not fully understand – though he understood most of it – made Jondalar realise that he had no choice nor inclination to do anything other than love his mate's son. Jondalar was not his father – not in the sense that he was father to Jonayla, Thonnolan and Jetamalie – nor in the sense that he had raised the boy. But as he watched the young man hold Jondalar's mate so tightly, Jondalar loved him as any father loved a son.

"Are they alright?" Danug asked, coming up beside Jondalar and looking concerned.

Jondalar glanced sideways at the red-haired young man.

"She hasn't seen him in more than ten years," Jondalar said quietly to Danug, "It has been a long and emotional journey for Ayla. Every year around the time Durc was born Ayla sits quietly in the sunshine and thinks of him. Sometimes at night she cries herself to sleep with how much she still misses him. She has just explained to him that she did no leave him by choice and that she has missed him every day since then. That she left him behind to protect him and not because his is of mixed spirits, as I think he feared."

Danug nodded his head.

"It has been a long and emotional journey for Durc too, since she left him," Danug told him softly in return, "I do not know the whole story. Men of the Clan, it seems, do not share deep feelings well. But his story is no less tragic than Ayla's since they were parted."

Jondalar looked at the young man at his side seriously then, frowning slightly in wonder. Danug had been growing into a fine young man before Jondalar and Ayla had left the Mamutoi. It seemed since then that age, maturity and a long journey had turned him not only into that fine man, but also into one as protective and bear-like at Talut. Jondalar could tell at a glance that Danug genuinely cared for Durc's wellbeing and happiness. That he would fight to the death to defend the other man if it came to it.

"Tell me the truth, Jondalar," Danug said then, "How will your people react to Durc? Will it be worse than it was the Summer Meeting when everyone was so against the burial ceremony for Rydag?"

Jondalar sighed heavily.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully, "There was some of the same dissent among our people when my sister, Joplaya, mated with Echozar. As a man of mixed spirits he was not well received among my people. In the years since then, however, everyone has had a chance to get used to the idea of mixed spirit people but he still isn't very well liked but by those who know him. The trading Willamar does with the Clan has improved things further and many among the Zelandonii recognise the Clan to be a different kind of people and recognise that mixed spirit people are not abominations. But as there was with the Mamutoi there are still an unpleasant few who will be vocal and against Durc's presence here, as they still are against Echozar and against trading with the Clan."

"That man who came by earlier, the one you and Ayla spoke to, he was your brother, Joharran?" Danug asked.

"Yes," Jondalar said, "He is the leader of the Ninth Cave. My mother, Marthona was leader before him. And my father, Dalanar is leader of the Lanzadonii. The Zelandonia are also still led by a close friend of ours, the First. Among them, combined with Ayla and I, we hold a great deal of sway with the other members. Generally people also adore Ayla. You have seen her in action. You know what a force she is when she sets her mind to something."

"He will not be turned away?" Danug asked worriedly, "Durc is strong, but I do not believe he would survive being turned away by his mother's people."

Jondalar nodded gravely.

"When it really boils down to it, Danug, his mother's people are those of us here in this clearing and many among the Landzadonii and the Ninth Cave. They are not any one people. As she was made a part of the Clan who took her in as a girl, and as she was taken in and adopted by the Mamutoi, everywhere she goes, people are willing to accept Ayla. No matter how different and how unusual or unorthodox her ideas might be. She will not turn Durc away. And if it goes so far that the Zelandonii people refuse to accept Durc, she will leave."

"And you, my friend?" Danug asked, looking at Jondalar.

"I brought her home with me from my journey because I missed my family and wanted to share all I had learned with my people. Because I needed to tell my mother what had become of my brother, Thonnolan. But if Ayla were to come to me today and say that she would prefer to trek all the way back to the Mamutoi, I would do it. I would try to talk her out of it. But if she could not be swayed, I would go with her. I will follow that woman anywhere. If she chooses to leave my people to be with Durc, I will follow. One thing I learned upon my journey, my friend, is that while the Zelandonii are the people I was born to and many whom I care for are among them, the real 'people' a man belongs to are his mate, his children and his family."

"His children?" Danug asked, "You mean the children of your hearth? Do you have another word for that in Zelanondii?"

Jondalar smiled, "Ah Danug, it has been too long since we saw each other. Ayla has convinced me that the way a woman becomes pregnant is not simply by the mingling of spirits done by Mut. She believes that when a man and woman share Pleasures; when a man leaves his essence inside a woman, the mother chooses to mingle their spirits that way."

"But not every woman becomes pregnant every time I share Pleasures," Danug frowning in confusion.

"Mut still plays a role," Jondalar nodded, "But have you ever noticed that it is only a woman with whom you have shared Pleasures that you might see have a baby believed to be born of your essence?"

"Like the way those three have your eyes?" Danug asked, nodding at Jondalar's children.

Jondalar nodded, "A woman I have not pleasured would not – could not - bear a child of my spirit. Ayla believes it is the Pleasures, the leaving of essence, that encourages Mut to mix the spirits of the two who have shared Pleasures."

"It is true that those who share pleasures more often are more frequently blessed," Danug nodded, "What word did you used to describe that? The idea of you being the man of their hearth and them being of your spirit?"

"It is a word Ayla invented," Jondalar told him, "She calls me her children's father."

"Father," Danug rolled the word around in his mouth, looking thoughtful, "But Jonayala called you something else."

"Daddy," Jondalar smiled, "I think Ayla invented that one too. Only my children refer to me as 'Daddy'. It is a shortened title. Much the way one might shorten the word Mother to be different things. Ayla's children all call her 'Mama'."

"Even Durc," Danug nodded, "For a long time I had no idea what it meant. He simply said there was a woman called Ayla who was his mother and he referred to her when he would talk of her as Mama."

"Ayla explained it to me when she was teaching Jonayla to talk. When Durc was born, she didn't know if he would be able to speak as we do. Many of the Clan are unable to make more than grunting sounds, as Rydag did. They do not have the full vocal range we of the Others do," Jondalar told him, "She told me that when Durc was a baby she would play word games with him, finding out how much vocal range he had. She told me his favourite was to say 'ma'. Over and over again. She said that when she lost her milk while she was raising him, Durc was fed by all the women of her Clan who had milk. He also used the sign for 'mother' to address most of them. Ayla told me his distinguishing way of addressing her as being special to him as the woman who birthed him was to call her 'Mama' because of the game they played. She wanted to recreate it with her other children."

Danug smiled slowly at that explanation, nodding his head carefully and watching as across the clearly Durc and Ayla finally released each other, both appearing rather emotional.

"I should go and see if she is alright," Jondalar told the younger man, clapping him on the shoulder, "And I'm looking forward to hearing about your journey, Danug. It's very good to see you again."

"I'm just pleased we finally found you and that we made it all the way here," Danug said, "It's a relief to see you again. You and Ayla both. And together."

Jondalar smiled widely at him before he strode across the clearing. He kept a weather eye upon his children, noting that Thonnolan and Jonayla were still swimming with Shamio and Tarnego. Tholie was bouncing Jetamalie on her knee as she chatted with Latie and Madenia.

"Ayla?" Jondalar asked his mate quietly.

"Yes Jondalar?" Ayla said, turning a watery smile on her mate.

"Is everything alright?" he asked her softly, brushing his hand over her hair and down her tear-streaked cheek.

"I have him back, Jondalar," Ayala whispered to him, "I finally have my son back."

She pressed her face into his chest, hiding her emotional outpour over her joy at being reunited with her son and her sorrow to have been parted from him so long. Jondalar smiled when even though she pressed into his chest, she didn't let go of Durc's hand.