I figured these ficlets were too short for their own chapters, no matter how many crimes I committed against the common comma to make them fit into three sentences.
Chapter Title: She Is Shaking Her Umbrella
Chapter Summary: It is only one turn of the moon, a short death - but that is long enough.
Written for the 3 sentence ficathon prompt any, any, moon spiral.
It does not do for one of the living to think of the dead - not when the dead person at issue is not at peace at any of the distant campfires that light the evening's dark expanse, when the person dead was cursed to be so despite the continuing movement of her body, and the spirit of the one cursed lingers as long and as close to the clan as it had.
But the curse is temporary, only one turning of the moon, and that itself is a mixed blessing - if Other's child had been a boy, Zoug and the clan would be mourning for a fine hunter - one who had save the life of child of the next leader's hearth - and Droog would also, he knows, mourn that she had been born female and thus could not use the dedication and skill she showed as his apprentice - but the chance of return means that the evil spirits also linger.
Mogur had all but stated as much, and if Mogur, acknowledged to be the greatest of spiritual mediators among all the clans is worried enough to outwardly reveal his unease - what refuge have they, save the vigilant protection of their totems and intercession of Ursus?
Chapter Title: like a flower, that falls, is breaking
Chapter Summary: His earlier memories are fading.
Written for the 3 sentence ficathon prompt any, any, regrets about a past relationship.
Mamut has lived a long, long life, longer than any ever Mamutoi recalled in winter tales by firelight - he has had children born to his hearth, and his children's children, and his children's children's children, all the way down to Tulie and Talut's offspring.
And he has lived, every year of it, every Summer Meeting and winter festival and they have lived, and they have died, as people do, from age and the Mother calling home, from hunt and illness, and he has accepted that that is the way of things. And yet there is a hearth that had no children in it, a hearth he had only shared for part of a summer before leaving the Clan to rejoin the Mamutoi - and it was, he is reminded even now, a good hearth, and a good woman, and if he had remained, perhaps it might have been - but that is not what the Mother willed.
Chapter Title: Hook to the Heart
Prompt: sight
Pairing: Ayla/Ranec
Chapter Summary: Ranec spots the newcomer sitting with Rydag.
This one is not, in fact, written for the 3 sentence ficathon but instead a senses challenge. It's still three sentences though.
Ranec watches as the newcomer sits at Mammoth Hearth with Rydag, her hands flowing gracefully through the air. His hands trace - he thinks the shapes are similar - and her smile lights the room, far outshining the dim glow of embers. This woman, he knows, this woman for his hearth is the greatest gift the Mother could ever give him.
Chapter Title: as they are kissing their hellos
Chapter Summary: A warm afternoon in the valley.
Written for the 3 sentence ficathon prompt any, any, brushing and/or braiding someone else's hair.
Ayla sits in the slow heat of the afternoon sun etching itself onto the stone ledge of her cave, with the heavy weight of Baby's body pressed beside her, his head in her lap and her fingers carding steady paths through his hair, and lets herself be, for a while.
The summer sun is warm and the wind blowing through the length of her valley is no more than a light relief - she is heavy of eye and her belly is full; Ayla is half asleep herself in the quiet, but her hands are unused to a lack of work and keep their steady movement through the young cave lion's developing mane even as her eyelids dip.
It is only when Whinney makes her way up from the river that she finishes the blink and sees that she has begun twisting instead of carding, twining the strands around each other like she does to her own hair and, for the first time in a long, lonely while, she laughs at the sight of it.