It was a beautiful, crisp fall day as Nohgor left the tent he shared with his son and his family. Looking back over his shoulder, he took a moment to admire the old thing...that which he had brought with him from the old place, patched and cared for...so old and so repaired that the only original hide left was the piece on the very top.

The last piece from the old place, like him. With a small grunt, the old man walked into the small settlement, narrowly avoiding being run over by the small group of youngsters running amok, as they often did early in the morning before they had to help with the daily chores.

A small settlement...22 people, but slowly growing. Founded by him, his son and his son's wife, the son of his brother and his wife and their two children. Memories washed over him as he resumed walking, heading towards the small fresh reservoir of water that was fed by the lake for his morning drink.

It had been a long and arduous journey to reach this place...the land he had heard tantalizing tales about in his youth in the old place. A place of plenty, to the south, where people could flourish...warm, welcoming...and oh so very tempting. Life in the old place was hard, wretched, and most times cold. The tribes argued and warred frequently, wars Nohgor himself had fought in in his youth, over the few resources and food the old place offered.

As he got older, as he watched his son mature into a man, the temptation to go south had grown...and then when his own beloved, Olgna, had passed during a particularly harsh winter...the decision had seemed so easy where once it had been hard. Naturally, most of those living in the old place hadn't wanted to leave. In fact, he had only been able to persuade a handful to travel with him. The seven of them...hardly seemed like enough...but with food becoming more and more scarce over the years, it would have to do.

And so for months, they walked...foraging as they went, hunting when the opportunity came...carrying the materials for the hide tents that would be their homes on sledges. Trepidation had set in after they seemed to be making no progress...bit by bit their sledges were falling apart, and they didn't have the tools to make repairs.

It had been the day after both sledges broke, a sign from the ancestors surely that they had made the wrong choice and angered them said his nephew, at the foot of a hill...one that Nohgor walked to the top to try to see what he could, only to feel the despair slowly eating into his spirit alleviate instantly. His eyes beheld a small valley between the high hills, with a beautiful clear lake in its center...berry bushes, fruit trees, wild game...and many things he did not recognize.

The ancestors weren't angry with them...they were telling them that they had arrived. He'd said as much, after he'd run back down the hill (almost tripping and rolling three times on the way down in his excitement), and they had gathered materials and found a beautiful clearing by the lake.

After that...after that everything seemed so simple.

Nohgor was an intelligent man...and although he held vast knowledge of the ways of his people, and how to better themselves quickly, he felt that they needed to proceed with caution. He would only share his knowledge when he believed that it should be, so that they did not exhaust the bounty of their new home too swiftly and have their descendants fall into the same trap as the old place.

Bit by bit, other people who had left other tribes joined...the first had be Agn, a wily old woman who had stalked them for days, until Nohgor had had enough and called her into what had been a mere encampment at the time.

He had been worried that Agn would be another mouth to feed...but the cantankerous, crass, and kind-hearted old woman was a sly huntress and skilled at taking down even the largest game. Nohgor had never asked her where she had learned, and she never volunteered...whatever had separated her from her tribe had obviously been painful.

The one thing he had gleaned, however, was that she had never hunted a mammoth before, something she dearly wished to do but stuck to pursuing smaller, easier taken game to keep the settlement in meat, hide, and bone...often leading the younger adults on their hunting raids. So, in what ended up being Agn's last winter, Nohgor scouted and found one of the big hairy beasts across the lake from the settlement.

When he returned, he had everyone drop the tasks they were working on, informing them of the mammoth, its size, and how much of what they needed he felt they could get from it...and with everyone in agreement, turned the planning of the hunt over to Agn, who was practically vibrating from excitement...although she did spare him a somewhat dirty, if greatful look, for what he had done.

There was a great cheer when the great beast at finally fallen, and singing and laughter as the village began to butcher the mammoth, thanking its spirit for providing for them, and Agn couldn't stop smiling. The smile was still on her face when they found her, collapsed, in one of the storage tents...still on her face when they bore her to the burial mound.

That had been a sad day, but also bittersweet, Nohgor reflected.

As he passed by Marlah, a woman he had seen grow from a young child into a true beauty, he nodded politely as she smiled warmly at him. Yes...she had been the hardest hit when Agn had succumbed to her age last winter, the old woman having taken her under her wing and taught her many of the tricks she knew.

He, too, could feel his time coming to an end. As he shuffled towards the drinking pond, he could feel the dull aches in his bones...he knew his sight wasn't as sharp as it used to be, although he could still fish...and every now and then, he could hear his long deceased parents and his wife whispering to him...early in the morning as he rose, late at night as he laid down.

Reaching the pond, he knelt down...and started, for in the reflection of the pond was his wife, smiling upon him. Looking up, he saw her...light radiant around her, hide of the purest and cleanest white he had ever seen adorning her. All else was silent around him...the sound of the village waking up behind him muffled and gone.

"It's time, my love, you have worked hard enough for them," Olgna said, her voice that which he remembered from their youth.

"I can't go...there is still so much more I must teach them, I have to help protect them so they can prosper," he replied, eerily calm.

"You must...there comes a time when the old must make way for the young, and let them find their own way."

"Not yet, it's not-"

He was silenced by a sharp pain in the back of his head, as if someone had smacked him, almost sending him forward into the water. Looking back over his shoulder, there was Ang, a scowl on her face and a single finger wagging at him.

"You ran out of things to teach them last summer and you know it. Don't think I didn't know! I was older than you, you know! Your wife is way too soft on you."

Nohgor's mouth opened and closed a few times, before he quirked an eyebrow and a ran a hand through his long, snowy-white beard. There were many things confusing him at the moment, many questions, but the first one that came to mind when he saw her was,"Why are you still old?"

Ang scowled again,"Because I -like- being old. Old was when I found you and your family, old was when I made real friends...old was the first time I'd felt good in my entire life," she sighed, staring at him,"Old was when I was adopted by the young ones as a grandmother, and got to teach one as if she were my daughter. Old was also knowing when it was time to go."

Mirthful laughter came from his wife, who had been watching the exchange,"I wish I'd met you in life, we would have had a lot of fun together, Agn."

There was silence for a moment, before Nohgor stood. As he did, he could feel all the old aches disappear...and with restored eyesight, turned to look back at the village that bathed in the glow of the rising sun,"You're right...I've done all I can for them. It's up to them, now."

Stepping out across the water to stand with his wife, he looked back again and smiled,"Goodbye, my people, for now...grow, and be strong."

There was much mourning in the village when his mortal body was found...but many remarked how peaceful he looked. Always, he had seemed burdened, always planning, always toiling...but now, finally, at rest.

A short story for one of the first people in my first game of Dawn of Man. Nohgor was old when the game started, and lived a long time. I'd almost thought he was going to live forever. Just felt like sharing.