In the aftermath of their hunt, Aja is spent. After several moons worth of tireless roving, tracking, and hauling their spoils, they again are home. Sleek as the deer are, she hadn't known the true burden of their weight until she'd settled onto her haunches and felt her muscles sigh.
Little has changed in their dwelling but the taller grass underfoot. A new family of owls, settled in a tree just outside her sleeping area, are a small piece. They watch her from afar, bright eyes unblinking, while she waxes her bowstring near the water.
"You did well today." Her mentor's voice breaks through the quiet hum of cicadas, drawing her gaze from her lap. A compliment on its own is a simple rarity. A slow smile tugs tentatively at her mouth - then she remembers. And then she waits. Waits for the 'but,' or a redirection of her technique, or chiding her enthusiasm, something, anything but the silence that follows.
"Thank you." Aja says, careful and small. Enough that she glimpses the slightest sliver of her mentor's cheek, a sideways glance.
They sit in silence for some time at the mouth of the cave, her mentor's back to her. A silver and bone-handled knife rests in one hand, a whetstone in her opposite. Aja watches the tension and release in her shoulders, her forearms, as she hones the knife's edge with the stone. Her eyes settle on the old black work tattoos and latticework of scars that scrawl a tale along her dark skin, along her shoulders and the right side of her torso.
Hands slowing, Aja's eyebrows draw together in thought. She watches the steady rhythm of her hand, her arm, the knife. Her bow goes slack in her grasp.
"You had best finish that," Her teacher says, quickening Aja's fingers upon the bowstring, "It will rain soon."
"When will you tell me your name?"
There is a hiccup in her mentor's rhythm. "I am of the Wood." Her teacher says simply before she resumes, as if this should resolve the matter.
Aja exhales a sharp puff. "Then what should I call you? I cannot give proper reverence, or thanks."
"I have no need of reverence, nor thanks." The scrape of metal against stone again fills the space between them. "You may simply call me what you like."
A quiet, dry laugh. Aja takes in a slow breath, frowning at her hands. Her teacher's hand goes still, and the only sound is the hum of cicadas for some moments. She is still enough that Aja takes up her bowstring in anticipation of some reprimand, of her eyes, cold and flint-like in the dark.
It does not come. For some time, they are quiet, and Aja sighs beneath her breath and again takes up her bow when her teacher speaks.
"You may call me Sigrun," Her voice comes, soft and low. The scraping resumes, with smoother, slower passes, "If you'd like."
Aja lifts her head, just enough to see her silhouette against the shallow slants of sunrise.
"Thank you," she says, and a moment later her name is softer, sure. "Sigrun."
Queer is an accepted academic term because it is reclaimed, just like gay is an acceptable term despite its use as a slur because people in the queer community use it to describe themselves, and it's useful in theory and history to be able to say this person was queer instead of having to assign them 21st century labels I do not f-ing get why people hate the term so much on here.
I was gonna comment on this but like, you're not wrong, it's a good useful term and the thing I was gonna comment would have exceeded my energy levels to get through.
