It was the shade of the Earth. Heat and fire on one side, stretched out like fingers over the hills, and lengths and gallows. The flicker of tiny embers dripped upward towards waiting fern. She had the blanket of night on one side of her face, flashing yellow, sunlit hair on the other. A tight, wispy braid twined over a shoulder. Brown fur wrapped pale shoulder over a ridged collarbone.
This young woman approached a camp-fire with something chalk-white over her fingers. She looked out into the distant sky and spoke unintelligible words beneath her breath. She lowered her eyes as, mushing her fingers together, the white substance lowered as rain into the flames and ashes. Her fingers rolled with tiny white bone, and such the bone fell over her open, upward palm slowly. Her lip bitten as the length tripped down the flesh, and finally plunging into the flames.
"Kom graun, oso na groun op." The young woman tipped her head back against the light of the dying sun. "Kom falau, oso na gyon op." The earth met with the drip of the tears, fallen for a brave man's loyalty.
"All they know when they're gone is they won't be back. I know you were a brave man. I was looking for you, but wherever the day opens my door the hand is always someone else. There is no justice for a fallen soldier, and no honor in a man killed by a friend army." She sniffed. "I hold you now. I hold my father."
The young woman pulled the knife from her waist, lifted it to her face, and placed the hilt on her forehead. Behind her the twined array of metallic objects hung in a wooden building. The shop needed tending.