Staring bemusedly at her back he wondered again at her aloofness. She was not displeased with his apparent lack of progress. No it was something else that held her shoulders stiff as a doe inspecting a copse. Their gazes met briefly and away as if pretending as if she had not seem the question in his eyes. They had danced together and apart for days and it was driving him crazy.
"So far they haven't gone any closer than conversation, but she is intrigued," he paused and studied the figure before him. Intrigued was only the beginning of his feelings for her. Swallowing quickly he continued, "but they'll probably winter here."
"Ah, that is a problem, then. Indoors with each other and they only have to glance across the lodge to..." Her voice trailed off as a blush crept up her neck. "But they love each other," she finished in a faint whisper.
"Sela, won't you..."
"And you did say that your brother was quite popular with women. Why wouldn't she want to stay with him?" She continued, ignoring Thonolan's interruptions, "they will go home together anyway, as the Mother has shown you."
"The Mother has not shown me everything," he replied not meaning his brother and Ayla. "We need to talk."
The sighed deeply then squared her shoulders. "Yes, I had hoped that we didn't have to but...yet, we must."
The two wandered outside heading in no particular direction. Their thoughts were not on comfort of place or safety for they had no need to worry of those things now. Distance and solitude drew them away.
"Look," she said suddenly in a hushed whisper. Large black beasts huddled against a lee in the riverbank against the chilly wind. Snow was flowing around and through them, but they paid it no mind.
Thonolan wondered briefly when he had accepted as fact the multitude of things that went through him. Not thoughts or emotions, but branches and leaves and always the unresting wind. Strange, he mused that his feet never sunk through the earth. He puzzled over this no longer than the wind that tarried through his presence. A greater puzzle took precedence in his mind - a woman.
At last she turned to him, golden hair floating with the breeze resisting its pull. Her luminous eyes searched his as if asking.
In answer, he spread his hands in supplication. "I don't understand it myself, what it is when I see you. Like a man who has had nothing but dried meat and berries all winter yearns for fresh and tender morsels, that is how I feel when I see you. And yet," he turned away slightly, "another face imposes itself on me and then the winter comes again." His face worked in restrained thought, "is it wrong?" he rasped, "Neither of us are bonded by human bonds, and I don't know yet what otherworldly codes we have before us. We are at a cross point of existence. Does it matter what we do?"
A question answered with a question is always hard to answer. "To the people we watch, to the Mother herself," she paused to look fixedly at him, "yes it matters what we do here. But as to catching a little enjoyment while we're here, I am not sure. But pleasures are a gift from the Mother and can't believe that she would forbid it." She smiled slightly, "if we were alive in human form I doubt we would think so much of it. We probably would have found a quiet place out of the way long ago." She ducked her head to hide another blush. "As it is now, everything has changed, but emotions still run deep."
Gently he touched her arm. "Sela, yes. I..."
A frantic calling cut him off. Whirling about, they watched as Malia raced toward them. "They are coming! Quickly, to beast!"
She dropped down beside them in an ungainly plop of hooves and heaving flesh. Sela quickly followed her mother and gave Thonolan raised eyebrows.
Slightly annoyed at the interruption, he also changed himself to mirror the beasts near them. Slowly the three sidled closer to the herd. A wiley cow narrowed her eyes at them but let them stay nearby. She kept a watchful gaze on them as she huddled the few beasts together for warmth.
The world seemed warm and much larger as he eyed the terrain with his large bull eyes. A faint sound of drums startled him slightly. The younger cow, Sela touched his nose to calm him. Instinct made him want to bolt, but he pulled the vestiges of himself together. Inside the skin of the large beast he felt the sheer muscular power and unconscious animal instincts. The two females near him eyed him warily.
"Zzzlloooow heeerrr." The eerie voice broke through the wind of the storm. A prickling of hairs at his back told him what he knew already. Mamut was on the move.
(TMH p. 183)