Tory kept quiet, watching Eliza process things silently. She had gotten ahold of the rental agency and played dumb, feigning to have gotten her entire purse taken by pickpockets on their way to Volterra, spinning an entire tale about how she had no idea she had missed their previous apointment to look at three prealigned apartments and got the service to meet them just outside of the first option. It was nice, but a three floor walk up was a feat Eliza didn't want to deal with. The second was close to the school where she'd be working, something Tory wondered just how long would last. Mate bonds were...consuming to say the least and with a trinity bond, she couldn't even imagine. She had done her research, always a bit more of an analyst. Tory had considered going to school for history but she had not interest in teaching and wanted to stay on the Rez, so there weren't any opportunities she could see to use her degree, so she casually studied. She had read everything she could get her hands on regarding the history of her people, their legends. The Cold Ones didn't scare her anymore than Santa, they were both fake to her in a way. Seth was more than a wolf, so knowing shifters were real made knowing vampires were real as well made them not too scary either. Yet still, one part of their history had been sticking to her mind like gum on the roof of her mouth and she had to get it loose.
The woman from the property management company was nice and spoke a good amount of English, but their accents proved a bit too thick for her at times, so she spoke to them more than they spoke to her. She let the sisters walk from room to room by themselves, it was a nice two bedroom with a small bathroom tucked between that wound back around to a small living room, kitchen and balcony.
Eliza ran her hands along the walls, as if she were sensing if the place would welcome her and she, it. She looked out the large window and the sunlight stretching across the floors. "Might have to get some good curtains…." Eliza whispered, though Tory assumed it was more for herself than for her sister.
"Hey, Liza...I've been meaning to ask you…." She glanced around the way Eliza had, it was a good sized room, she could put her bed in the center and still have room for side tables and-
"You're doing that thing with your fingers again." Eliza interrupted her train of thought, dead stop. Tory looked down, her fingers were interlaced and she was tugging on her pinky ring, as she often did when nervous. She dropped her hands to her sides, they both smiled in a confidential way.
"Why didn't you tell the other half of the story? Of what happened to the kids?" She says their names in Quileute and Eliza's face scrunches softly on the second name, it was a lesser used word in the language, one only native speakers would usually know. "Love and Memory, Amare and Memoraie."
"Because I always fell asleep before it ended, I didn't want to spook them with half a tale." Eliza had put her walls up so quickly Tory could hear the click clack of the brick and mortar building.
"You're worried, you think it's them all over again." Tory prodded, "Amare reflected his father and-"
"And Memoraie her mother, and through the imprint bond, Fate smiled upon our tribe and brought forth an unending lineage, from mother to daughter until Time himself returns and brings with him the bounties of Death." Eliza finished with venom. She paced back and forth, her body vibrating with each movement. Tory didn't think she understood though, Eliza had been trying too hard to Quileute enough she had never really broken the surface of what it meant at all. Eliza had worked towards preserving the future of the Tribe, Tory had been preserving the past. She knew the history, she had traced their maternal line back hundreds of years, to a spoken tradition written down years later. She could still recite their names, almost in a trance like state, "Bayak, Margaret, Jane, Mary, Rose, Elizabeth, Ruth, Abey, Chimalis, Ciqala…." Sometimes, she wondered when she looked at the book made with deer hide with a list of names written in ancient, fading ink, if they felt shame the first time they put down a white mane, did Ruth weep when she wrote it, or did she do it purposely, a reminder she couldn't use her "Indian" name anymore.
The colonization of their people was a common rallying point for the sisters, yet standing in the empty apartment, the rays of autumn sun flooding between them, the tale that had bound them together might rip them apart. The story of Memoraie and her mate were well known, those who sought to protect her were given the gift of her father, Akil, the wolf. Her mate was Alpha and their tribe prospered, she had a daughter who had a daughter and so forth. They were said to have lived in peace for years until it came time for Memoraie to join her ancestors, her brother appeared, Amare who was said to have been taken by the spirits, baptised in their image.
He offered her eternal life, and she in turn asked to be carried to the trees by the river. They sat and watched the salmon climb up the stream and she said that her life was that of the salmon, she was meant to continue the cycle, to provide for years to come. His was that of the man who hunted the salmon, to live from her loss yet never to forget it. Tory clutched the charm that their mother had given Eliza in her palms, squeezed it tightly before tossing it back to Eliza.
"The salmons will swim for a while yet, just because you won't have a daughter doesn't mean I won't, and then she'll have a daughter and you can watch the cycle go on and on forever." Tory reassured, crossing the sunlight, smiling at her sister. "You should rent this place, get your own space and figure out your next move...and then call mom before she murders us."
Eliza smiled, eyes watery, "Alright." She reached out and squeezed Tory's shoulder and she felt like an ass for not realizing it before, for not seeing the weight of the legacy on both of their shoulders, the expectations for the future, laid out for them for years before their birth. To provide an avenue for future wolves, for future ravens, to provide a future for their tribe.