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The sky is dusted pink, snowflakes glimmering as they float down across the Embrace, the trees whispering under the blanket of white. The air is cool but calm, tinged with woodsmoke and silent but for the low chatter of the early morning birds and the whisper-quiet scuffle of the mice and moles as they scamper below the powder snow.
Mesna huffs a breath, turning as the door creaks open and Rost takes in the world as she did, if not with the same detail. Her tail twitches, “it’s a good day. She is smiling on us, I think.”
Rost hums softly in agreement.
The little ones begin to grow restless, as Rost tucks the girl into the carrier with Mesna assisting with the little Daemon, tucking him into his own little carry-space as he snuffles and twitches his rabbit-nose, still half-asleep.
“Here… wear this,” Rost murmurs, “it belonged to my daughter.”
Mesna snaps her attention up to the girl, Alana’s necklace now hanging around her neck, grasped in the girl’s small hands. Her ears flatten and she nuzzles the little Daemon further, wondering if she will get to see this little one grow up and settle as she never got to see Tairn. To this day, she wonders what little Tairn would have settled upon- but never for too long, lest the quiet ache in her chest become a storm.
“Ready?”
Mesna steps back, glancing over the carrier with sharp eyes. She nods.
“Good,” He swings the carrier up onto his back, the girl patting curiously at the coarse boar fur draped over his shoulders, “today I speak your name, girl, as Mesna will speak your Daemon’s. But- will the Goddess speak it back?”
The girl makes a noise of curiosity and the Daemon makes a chirping reply, now in bird-form.
Mesna smiles, trotting alongside Rost as they make their way out of their homestead and into the Embrace.
The walk from their homestead to the Naming Cliff is a long one, the route differing from the one they had taken so many years ago, Yela carrying their little ones in this very same carrier with Bram curled around her shoulders, keeping an eye on them.
Mesna’s heart aches with every step, one eye set on the path before her, the other on the path back then.
It had been summer, she recalls, with Bram in his brown coat and Yela’s hair dotted with flowering twigs Rost had picked for her while hunting. The village had walked with them, Yela’s mother walking a step behind, cooing over her granddaughter while her husband beamed through eyes glistening with proud tears. Mesna and Rost had lost their parents long before, but Yela’s family had always made them feel welcome. Mesna’s heart had pounded with every step, beating to the drum of a new family member, official and named, a little one to guide and watch over and roll her eyes at, love sparking and brimming over within her. The first little ones of many, Yela and Rost had smiled when she had been born, shrieking for all of the village to hear at midday, her little soul shimmering and taking form, curling beside her as she howled.
The girl’s eyes are alight as she takes in the machines, the foliage awash with blue light as they pass by, staying low.
“It is one thing to hunt a beast, another to hunt a machine. You must be humble, and respect their power. I will teach you this, one day…”
The little Daemon is more awake now, coiled around the wrist of the child, tongue flicking as they both reach out for the metal beasts. Mesna knows immediately that these two will be a handful, and knows with all her heart that she will soak up every second of it.
She knows how quickly they can be taken from her and Rost.
She will not take a single moment for granted.
She will give them all she has.
The air is biting at the top of the cliffs, the Sacred Lands shrouded in the morning haze, but the sun is still rising brightly, her warmth piercing through the spring chill and basking the cliffs in pinks and reds.
Mesna trots ahead, letting Rost show the little ones the view but halts immediately, hackles steadily rising. “Rost.”
High Matriarch Teersa and her Daemon stand at the Naming Platform, watching. Vas’ horns are adorned in ritual rope braids, his mantle beaded, just as Teersa’s headdress is.
“High Matriarch Teersa? What is she doing here?”
“Rost,” Mesna turns back to look at him, ears flattening, eyes alighting on the little ones, “does she mean to forbid the ritual?”
Rost’s face falls but they walk forward all the same, she says nothing as they approach, but beckons them onwards.
Rost clutches the little ones close and they bow before the High Matriarch and Daemon.
“No, no, no, off your knees!” She commands.
“It is nearly time,” the goat blinks by her side, gesturing upward, the beads strewn through his horns and across his mantle clacking.
Mesna feels her heart flutter, Rost rising beside her.
“And yes, you may speak to us.”
Mesna doesn’t know if the whoosh of air that leaves her is a sigh of relief or a hysterical laugh. “You came to bless the naming?”
“Have not six months passed since we entrusted them to you?” Vas murmurs.
“But we are outcasts.”
“You, by choice,” Teersa admits, “and them, well…”
She dabs her fingers in the ceremonial paint, marking the girl as Vas bows his head over the Daemon. “I am a High Matriarch, Rost. I bless whom I choose.”
“And we will hear no more about it.” Vas adds.
“Then… you honour us.”
“Yes, yes. Now, go! And both of you be ready to declare! Go!”
The little ones are swaddled in Rost’s arms as they walk up the steps to the lip of the platform, the Sacred Lands stretching out below them, softly glowing and looking much the same as they had so many years ago in summer when Mesna and Rost had stood here with Yela and Bram.
“All-Mother,” Teersa and Vas speak as one behind them, “this child and this Daemon need names by which to know them, that your love may warm their lives as the rising sun warms all the earth!”
The little ones reach out with hand and paw at the steadily rising sun, now painting the sky in brilliant golds and yellows, turning the clouds dusky purples.
“Speak their names!”
Rost holds them aloft and together, he and Mesna declare:
“Aloy!”
“Arn!”
There is no pause, the names are spoken back immediately, All-Mother taking her and Rost’s voices and singing the names to the sky, and Mesna feels the tears in her eyes as she knows regardless of their status as outcasts, Aloy and Arn shall always be loved and treasured.
“And so their names are blessed!”
Aloy gurgles in Rost’s arms, Arn mewling from his place draped across her, and all is peaceful.
“Stop this! At once!” Lansra’s voice cuts through the air like a hunter’s arrow, sure and deadly. She marches towards the platform, several Braves at her back, Tos flapping by her head. “What have you done?”
“We’ve blessed the naming of a child,” Teersa retorts, by her side, Vas jerks his head, flashing his horns.
“Stubborn woman,” Lansra’s cuckoo Daemon curses from her shoulder, “you call that curse a child?”
Rost and Mesna avert their eyes as Lansra towers over them, voice sharp and cutting. “What did they tell you about its birth, outcast? Answer!”
Mesna swallows back a growl and allows Rost to take the diplomatic approach.
“We have done only what you asked.”
Aloy and Arn have begun to cry and Mesna must bite down on her tongue to stop from lashing out. She hates that she must allow this, but tribal law is law, and to attack a High Matriarch would only wound the little ones further.
“To raise it, yes.” Tos screeches atop Lansra’s shoulder, “we said nothing of love.”
“Enough,” Vas commands, barging past Lansra to bodily put himself between her and the outcasts, forcing the High Matriarch to step back, else break taboo and touch him.
Lansra and Tos’ ire turns to their fellow High Matriarch and Daemon, the former spitting her words, “and you. Blessing its name, like it was one of the Nora, one of the tribe!”
The High Matriarchs argue above them, but the outcasts pay them no heed.
Mesna nuzzles at the baby-down of Arn, changed now to a fluffball of a baby bird.
“I know my duty to them,” Rost murmurs, “and to you.”
“We are here for you, little ones,” Mesna continues.
“And wherever you go, we will follow.”