Her feet fell woodenly against the ground, leaving holes in the drifts as she crossed the clearing to the elders’ cabin. Light flurries swirled around her, leaving a dusting of white in her near-black hair, giving her the grizzled look of one twice her age. More crystals clung to her furs as a wind whipped between the trees, becoming lost and wandering haphazardly between the trees and low houses that the tribe called home. Her hand fell three times against the heavy wooden doorjamb, but her fingers felt nothing, still stiff and numb from cold.

With a rough scrape, the tanned hide slid aside from the entrance, revealing Telikai’s leathered face. His eyes matched the clouds, grey and brooding, as if at any minute hail and sleet could fall from them and run in rivers down the channels of his aged face. At the sight of his Speaker, though, they lit up like pools reflecting the sun for a brief moment.

“Hail, Naka, Speaker of the Wild,” he said in his rough-hewn voice, nodding to her, breaking eye contact as a sign of respect; to gaze into another’s eyes while bowing a greeting would be to show distrust. He could not afford not to listen to her words, and she knew it.

“Hail Telikai, Speaker of Men,” she replied, matching his motions gracefully. ”The hunts have not gone well.” Hers was a statement, not a question.

Telikai, leader of the tribe in matters physical, blinked. Her words broke ritual, in a surprising way. He would have offered her a place at his hutfire, supplies from his stores, but she had bypassed the formal ways and gone to the meat of the matter quickly. He fumbled for a few moments, then shook his head. “No, they have not.” His head quirked sideways, one eye narrowed. ”How had you heard? The men have said nothing to the others yet.”

Naka smiled. “I have not been Speaker without learning to listen as well; the snows have come early, and strong. The deer have all but silenced. The wolves cry at night. Even the squirrels call out to the trees, begging for food, and the trees have entered their sleep and are dreaming of Father Sun, heeding no-one’s call. I know.”

The Speaker of Men grimaced, then sighed. “You are right, of course. Three parties have gone into the forest in search of game. Two deer have been trapped, their spirits thanked, their bones returned to the earth, and a rabbit as well, but this will not feed enough, or for long.”

The Speaker of the Wild nodded in response. “How are your stores, Telikai?”

The gnarled man turned his back and lowered his gaze. “Three days. Perhaps four. Then….”

The pair left the thought unfinished; they knew what came next. Naka shook her head. “As I thought, then.”

Both stood then, silent for a time, each lost in thought. Telikai broke the silence first. “You have made all the requests you could?”

Naka turned away from the older man, looking back across the clearing. When she spoke, her voice carried an odd low rumble to it. “No, there is one last request to be made.”

“One last?” Telikai sounded indignant. “How long had you intented to—”

The Speaker of the Wild turned then, her eyes carrying a gleam that Telikai had never seen before, a hint of something feral, wide, brown and cold, like amber. “I waited until the time was right, Telikai; I know my duties, as you know yours.” She faced the clearing once more, looking about the various huts and houses. “Tonight, you will feast. Tomorrow, you will know your tasks. Have Yani brought to my hut; she will understand.” With that, she left, leaving Telikai to stand with his hut open to the winds, staring after her in surprise.

Naka’s preparations went quickly, far more so than she had thought they would. Though she had rehearsed the rite more times than a tree has leaves, she had never performed it, nor, after today, would she again, if all went as it should. Relighting the fire in her hut took longer than she wanted, but once started, the bundles of leaves and hair that she wound burst alight, filling her longhouse with pungent smoke. Painstakingly, she held each limb in the air over the fire as if bathing in the smoke, washing in the heat, all the while reciting the litany of her life and her role as Speaker of the Wild, translator for human ears of the voices they could not understand. Then, when she finished, she snuffed the flame with a fur pulled from her bed, which she then wrapped around herself while still warm.

Once outside, the air seemed warm to her, though she knew it was all part of her ritual, and yet a part of her mind was enthralled. The ground was pleasantly cool, a far cry from the icy trudge it had been before. Her steps carried her quickly beyond the domain of humans, into the forests themselves. The trees, sleeping and dreaming of green and of warm and of sun, seemed eerily quiet to her ears, and her nose caught naught but ice and snow and her own scent. A distant corner of her mind worried that her ritual had been in vain, but she told herself with quiet determination that her call would take time.

Her senses drifted then, mind losing itself easily to the eternal now as was her wont when isolated from the world of people. How long she walked, breathing and sensing and living in the world of spirits without knowledge of when or where or why, was immaterial. Time was meaningless. The trees were here, the sky was here, the earth was here. All else was distant, unimportant. Her summons was answered; the scent of bear approached.

She was tall, her fur more white and grey than brown or black, her eyes clouded. She smelled barren; no cubs had come from her in several years, a fact she did not enjoy but could not regret; she knew her place in the web of existence, and not to be called upon to fulfill her duty was disappointing, but she had birthed cubs in the past and came knowing that her time was nigh.

Naka knelt, bowing her head and kissing the earth before the sow, prostrating herself and venerating the lifegiver. The shebear nodded her response, and the Speaker of the Wild lifted her gaze to meet the other’s. The exchange from there was brief, Naka apologizing for her presumption, pleading the life of her village, and offering the standard trade. The old one reared onto her hinds, seemingly in defiance, then dropped to the ground again and nodded; it had been a long and hard life for her as well, though a rewarding one.

The rock came to Naka’s hands even as the shebear lay against the earth, and a single blow was enough to dim the light in her eyes. A second split her skull, her still-warm brains a tasty treat for the Speaker of the Wild. Then Naka lay atop the sow, placing her arms and legs along those of the cooling body. She felt the heat from the lifegiver seeping into her bones, washing through her.

Soon she felt too hot even as new snow began to fall and a wind picked up in the air. She tossed aside her furs, layer by layer until she stood naked over the prone form of her mother-sister. Her mind swam in heat, sweating as fur began to pierce through her skin in a grey-brown coat, fingers growing fat and stubby, claws ripping through their tips. Her face distended, body swelling as she became one with those whose voices she had represented. Almost as an afterthought, the short stubby tail popped itself into place, and Naka shook, rearing onto her own hinds and roaring out her acceptance of the gift, even as she knew Yani would be finding herself with child in a few days.

Finding game enough to feed the village would take time, but she would have far more success than any of the others could, and tonight, at least, her village would feast on the body of the lifegiver. They would sing her praises, as they sang Naka’s. Then, when every last one had had their fill, they would take her bones and, as they would with any sacred elder, they would return her to the earth.