<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ffffff">"I am only telling you that, above all, I will protect my people, and that anyone who stands in my way, will fall. The people of this village take the Two-Spirit at face value for every word hat drops from his lips. I do not. If his aims set me at odds to my purpose and station," she paused knowing that her words carried no small amount of heresy with them. "I will act in the best interest of the people if he only acts for himself. You may find yourself in the same position. Choose carefully."<br/>
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With no further words, she stood and her guard joined her. She left no room for comment or further question as she left the lighted circle of the fire and disappeared into the darkness of the night. There was a rift in what the common village would have seen as the perfect marriage of rulership and spirit and the Chieftain had laid it out plainly to Arjan. He was squarely caught in the middle now with the stranger acting as some kind of random roll of the dice. It was the will of the village leader that the man was no good thing and the will of the Two-spirit that the stranger was marked for some greater thing that Arjan was somehow part of. It was a crossroads that granted little luxury of thought.<br/>
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Orri patted the hunter on the arm and made his way to the ritual fire he had made for his purposes. He spread out a cougar pelt and his many trinkets and treasures; all seemed to have their specific places and purposes. He sat down on the pelt, naked, save for the ashen paint he made and colored his pale skin with. He hummed along with his work and after a bit of time, he once again resembled a skeletal figure of stark white bones against dark ash. He fixed the big cat claws to the back of his hands again and tested their sureness with a few scratches to the soft ground. They were his weapons in the otherworld and the paint was his armor. Sure as Rhiak carried bow, blade, and leather; he carried bone and claw. <br/>
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When he'd finished adorning his spiritual armor and weapons, he laid back on the pelt, drawing it around him like a little nest as he closed his eyes and began to chant. The phrases were undiscernible but they repeated over and over in a loop; sing songy and hypnotic and it wasn't a very long time before he seem to slip under some spell, his voice dropping off slowly until his lips moved through the chant soundlessly.<br/>
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For a long time he was still, looking almost like he was sleeping, or dead, and from the way across from the ritual fire Rhiak caught a glimpse of amber animal eyes glinting in the orange glow of the fire. They drew closer until Rhiak could make out the form of the old huntress Sansura as she crept from the treeline to the fire; laying across from it to stare as the Two-Spirit softly chanted. As the painted man drifted, so did she, and when the words fell away, the pair jolted hard in sync with each other. Then there was silence and stillness again. Neither figure moved for a long, long moment until Rhiak saw the slightest twitch of the shaman's hand.<br/>
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