New Year's Night by Elleth

Chapter 2

A continuation of the first chapter, picking up shortly after in the same night. Linguistic notes are below.

The whooping calls of a wedge of singing swans outside the cave woke Lomi-nai. The fire had burned down into a comfortable glow, and Ká-nai's arm was slung around her middle, tight even in sleep. Before finally drifting into dreams she had claimed to be unwilling to let her slip away in the night a third time, and true to her word, her fingers were clawed into Lomi-nai's furs even though Lomi-nai had gone to fetch her after her sister's decision.

She tapped Ká-nai's shoulder lightly. That already was enough to wake her up, and for a moment, sleepy and incomprehensive, her eyes flickered around the cave, over the mortals who had made their beds in the back of the cave, Kíta-'in curled in the middle between the two children with them, and then back to Lomi-nai.

Ká-nai's face lit into a sleep-addled smile. "And here I thought you were gone again. I had a dream of that, you know."

"Not now that I have both of you with me, and staying with me." Lomi-nai laughed softly. "But I think someone else is looking for us - for you most of all."

"How would…" before Ká-nai could finish the question, Lomi-nai put a hand over her mouth and pointed outside the cave-mouth. Ká-nai's eyes widened. The swans had resumed their singing, and now Ká-nai could hear it herself, at once releasing her hold and climbing to her feet. She was wrapped in her furs and outside in the snow fast as she could be, with a muffled shout of "Mother?"

Lomi-nai hung back by the cave mouth, unwilling to intrude. Ká-nai's and Aí-'in's mother had vanished several years past in a deep winter much like their present one when a snow-storm had scattered the hunters on their homeward road, and she had not been found until the snow-melt in spring, lying as though asleep by the edge of a pond, near a fire that had never kindled.

And ever since they had found Alak-nai, singing swans had come to that pond, had followed the clan, had followed, most of all, Ká-nai and Aí-'in. None of the clan, at least not those with their hearts and minds alive, believed it to be by chance - not the birds of her name. Remembering it made Lomi-nai wince about her thoughtlessness, about what had to her become a sad certainty of life. She should have thought of it, should have considered what it might have meant to Ká-nai to find her, too, gone while the snows lay thick, and what effort the comfort she'd struggled to provide after Kíta-'in had been taken must have cost her.

But for the moment, all of it seemed forgotten. Outside the cave, Ká-nai was laughing. She was sitting in the snow, and one of the swans had buried its yellow-and-black bill in her hair, tugging through it as she might do with her own feathers. Ká-nai's arms were around the swan, while the rest of the bevy stayed nearby with watchful eyes on them, white specks against the stain of soot on the ground.

Lomi-nai smiled. If that was not Alak-nai, it must be a great and unlikely chance indeed - she had always been fussing over Ká-nai's unruly hair in life, and it was strange for swans to remain in winter - they would not be doing so if they had no good reason.

The night was icy, and Lomi-nai could feel her cheeks beginning to sting in the wind, her thighs and her fingers, so that she retreated into the cave before long and busied herself in stoking the fire back into flame.

A while after, there was the rush of great wings up into the night, and Ká-nai, stomping snow from her boots, came back inside. Her cheeks were red with cold, and her eyes were bright and full of tears, but she was smiling. She kissed Lomi-nai quickly, and then burrowed against her, seeking warmth, and Lomi-nai was glad to grant it, rubbing her hands over her shoulders and down the cool skin of her back under the furs.

Ká-nai leaned into her touch. "Thank you for waking me when they came. Tonight is a miracle indeed, and my mother bids us not to go to sleep, for reasons she did not want to tell me yet." She twined a large white feather between her fingers and smiled. "A surprise."

"What do you think it might be?"

Ká-nai rolled her shoulders, using the movement to nestle closer against Lomi-nai as if by accident. "I do not know - she told me that we are to stay south of this faultline on our way west, and no ills will come to us. We else she meant - we shall see soon enough. She would not trick us."

"No, she would not. She never was unkind." Although Lomi-nai was curious what they had spoken about, and what tidings Alak-nai had brought, she did not wish to pry. Ká-nai would share it with her if she wanted to, but for the moment seemed content to simply sit and let her mind form memories to last her until their next meeting, and holding the feather to her lips.

They drifted into silence at last, sitting close together. Lomi-nai felt she should be keeping her hands busy, but even with her fingers feeling strangely empty, she was content. Every now and then, Ká-nai would rise and wander to the cave-mouth to look out into the night, coming back when nothing showed other than the snow, the clear stars, and the silence.

Although it was still dark, Lomi-nai thought it must be drawing on toward morning, and perhaps Ká-nai had misunderstood her mother - when a glow on the sky that was neither the sun nor moon drew the attention of both of them, and they looked at each other in amazement.

"Is that -?" Lomi-nai could not finish the question, her throat tight with wonder.

"Ikkuí-nin," Ká-nai breathed. "Bring your sister, she should see them."

With Kíta-'in in her arms, Lomi-nai followed her outside, hoping she had not missed it. There had been stories she had heard, most of all told by the hunters who might at times see it on a late hunt, but she herself had never been blessed with the sight of the Ikkuí-nin, the lost Waters of Awakening that the Balla-lai had placed into the sky in atonement for their destruction.

She had never been blessed with the sight - until now.

When she stepped out of the case with Kíta-'in sleepy in her arms and enthralled into silence by the sight, the sky blossomed into light above her. Blue whorls and green lit up in waves, moving outward from a center like ripples of water over the dark surface of the sky and the stars beyond. Her breath caught at the dancing radiance, and more than that, Ká-nai's upturned face rapt with wonder and alive with the blue and green glow on the sky. She had taken up a handful of clean snow and held it, melting, in her cupped hands like an offering, a reminder, a pledge - the morning blessing.

Lomi-nai moved over to Ká-nai, and both bent to breathe on the water in her palm. Lifting her head again, their faces were close, still, and she dipped her fingertips into the water, brushing them gently over Ká-nai's eyes, and her lips.

Ká-nai clasped her hand and held it here, pressing her lips to Lomi-nai's palm and smiling, and for that moment, even the Waters dancing above them and painting the snow unthinkably bright - the third miracle in a night of them - dimmed in favour of Kíta-'in's weight in her arms and Ká-nai's warm breath against her hand.

Chapter End Notes

Alak-nai: Swan-woman, from the root ÁLAK.
Ikkuí-nin: Waters of Awakening, from PE et-kuiwê, awakening, and nên, water. Of course referencing Cuiviénen.

Additional chapters may occasionally be added if I get an idea to contiue this story.