I am First, my mother was First, her mother was First, her mother's mother was First

[cavelion_totem]

Without a change of seasons, Ayla had found that the days became a rhythmic progression of work and play. Her survival was not dependant upon her hunting and gathering, not now that she knew about the kitchen. She still worked her furs and made her bowls and baskets. She had found the metal knife and fork and spoon to be incredibly useful. Some

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[thedescent_into]

Sarah doesn't speak when she lowers herself down next to the weeping girl. Not because she doesn't want to. It is one of the few times her mind is screaming at her, Say something.

But she knows Ayla prefers silence and she's already so broken, sitting there alone with a broken bowl, Sarah doesn't want to do anymore damage.

[cavelion_totem]

With Sarah at her level and her own heart as broken as the bowl she held, Ayla leaned against her without thinking. She keened softly, unable and not entirely willing to explain what the shattered pieces meant. It was more than a bowl; it was a sacred object as well as a symbol of her family's destruction in a way.

No words. Just tears and ragged sobs and Sarah. Sarah whose silence was so often a comfort. Ayla leaned against her and let the tears fall. She could make the treatment for weak eyes later.

[thedescent_into]

Sarah shushes her wordlessly, a stream of murmured nonsense, her fingers gently smoothing through Ayla's hair. Worried, she wants to ask what's happened, the long dormant mothering instinct awakening in her, but Ayla still finds words difficult.

Really, all she needs to know is right here in front of her.

[cavelion_totem]

She leaned and drank in the contact. Human contact, she'd missed it so much. Things here were not the same and many of the things she labeled stupid were simply so forein. Touch was universal. Contact.

Ayla reached both arms around Sarah's waist and held on. The tears subsided and the sobs slowed to even breathing, and still she held on. Contact and a heartbeat, those alone were pure comfort.

[thedescent_into]

Before she knows it, Sarah is humming quietly, something she might've sung to Jessie when she was small, something from her own childhood, or a tune she might've heard on the radio that day in the car with Beth, over a year ago. There was a quiet, simple strength to Ayla. Primitive and basic, and even if she might have been very much an adult to her own people, to many, she was still just a child.

A child without a mother.

Sarah's arms tighten around Ayla's lithe frame, her own heartbeat calming along with the waning sobs.

[cavelion_totem]

Ayla listened to the tune and before long she joined in, matching it note for note. It was nothing she'd heard, but like copying bird song or an animal's call, it was not difficult.

[thedescent_into]

This was familiar, and Sarah wonders if its something unique to Ayla or to her people. She's never known anyone to mimic as readily and accurately, whether it be a human voice or an animal's. Smiling gently, Sarah brushes the tears from Ayla's face, the darkness of the caves looming at her back.