prompt by Bottan: pre-historic tribe leaders
It was snowing when Fai called the tribe to the bonfire at the heart of the village, and he regretted it even though he had no choice. He was their chief, and he towered over them in his white fox furs and amber jewelry, feathers braided into his hair and his flint knives at his waist. Yuui kneeled beside him in a matching cloak, although his jewelry was of cobalt, as was fitting for the shaman.
"Sit," he said, and the tribe settled itself in a loose circle around the fire, all eyes and ears on him, and he removed his cloak and stood before them in his hunting leathers, his eyes roaming over their faces. Fewer than he had hoped, much fewer. The winter had punished them harder than the one before it, which itself had been harder than any the tribe could remember. Yuui said it would get worse.
"We have lived in this valley for a long time," Fai said, choosing his words with care. He kept his tone light and a pretend smile on his face, and his people responded to it with relaxed postures, open faces. "But the day is approaching when we must move on."
He paused for the hubbub to die down, although there hadn't been much of one to start with. His people were frightened. Too few babies had survived the winter, although he suspected more would appear later on, with all the blanket sharing 'for warmth' the people had gotten up to.
"Where shall we go?" was their main question, and for this he held out a hand. His twin took it, his fingers graceful and slender and exactly like Fai's own, and he came to his feet in a fluid motion that set the tribe to murmuring. For the chief to defer to the shaman for an answer boded poorly.
Fai stepped back, leaving Yuui standing before their people, and Yuui shed his furs and stood naked before the bonfire. His pale skin seemed to glow in the darkness; he wore nothing, not even a simple clout, except the strip of cured reindeer hide holding back his fall of blond hair and the copper bracelets around his ankles and wrists, assembled of discs designed to click and chime when he danced. His skin remained smooth and unpebbeled despite the cold, and despite himself Fai felt a flush of want coursing through his body.
"The spirits will tell us," said Yuui calmly as his apprentices took up their small drums and wands. Fai knelt and bowed his head toward the ground; Yuui bent over him and pulled one of his own knives from his waist as one of his students handed him a clay bowl, and Fai didn't flinch when his twin slashed it across his palm and bled him.
His apprentices started drumming, and the tribesmen held out their hands, knowing their part in this. Yuui didn't bleed them all, only the healthy, the ones who would not suffer too much, and the cuts were shallow. When he was finished he knelt before the fire and cut his own palm, mixing his own blood with that of his people, and added herbs from a sachet his apprentice handed him. He mixed them together with his fingers and then painted the blood over his face; a line across the bridge of his nose, his forehead, finger-trails of red curling down his cheeks and under his jaw.
Fai watched him through narrowed eyes as he then held the bowl out toward the fire, cupped gently between both hands turned coppery with the tribe's blood. There was great power in blood, he knew that much. He loved and trusted Yuui, and knew beyond doubt that it was mutual, but there were so many things about his twin's shamanism that he found a mystery.
"Bless this blood," he said, and the tribe echoed the words after him. "Allow me to be the conduit for your message. Allow me to be the vessel of my people."
A purple flame ignited within the bowl, to a torrent of fresh whispers from the gathered tribe, and Yuui placed the bowl on the ground between his knees, leaning forward and holding his long hair out of his red-streaked face to inhale the tinted smoke. He moved in a strange half-dance as he did so, sinuous and flowing, his copper bracelets singing in the wind audible over the sound of the fire; his eyelashes fluttered, and then drifted closed as he stopped moving.
For a long time he stood still, face turned up toward the towering heat of the flames, and when they opened again they were amber and cold. The tribe gasped and began muttering, but Fai merely nodded. Yuui stood up, naked and confident, and Fai rose too to meet him. Yuui cupped his face in his hands and his fingers were as ice.
"South," said Yuui, in a voice that grated and rumbled. "Bring your people south. The journey will take many, many days and nights, but there is a cold coming that you cannot escape."
"How will I know when I have gone far enough?" Fai asked, and the spirit possessing Yuui leaned forward and kissed him. His mouth was as wintry as his fingers, his tongue like snow. Fai did not kiss back, and the creature withdrew.
"When you find a warrior with eyes of scarlet," he said. "When the mountains fall behind you. When the animals change and the snows stop falling. When you admit to yourself what you wish, Fai, son of Fai and brother of Yuui, and only then."
This close he smelled like Yuui, too, all sleep and iron, although he lacked the heat that sometimes awoke Fai in the night. They were too old to share sleeping furs now, but Fai never seemed to move Yuui out and into his own tent.
"It won't change as much as you think," the spirit whispered in his ear, and then it was gone, leaving Yuui in its place, warm and dazed. Fai caught him before he could fall, abruptly aware of Yuui's soft skin under his palms, the pink buds of his nipples, the shining fall of the pale hair same as his own.
"We start moving in the morning," he said, and his tribe murmured their agreement, scattering to begin the task of packing. Yuui's apprentices moved toward him and Fai instinctively moved a step back before shaking his head, declining their offer. Yuui's breath was heavy on his throat, and he looked so peaceful Fai wanted... to touch, just to touch...
Instead, he looked away.