The hillside offered Mogushal an entire reflection of itself.
From the summit, Mokessa contemplated the refuge as one observes something not yet finished being born. The rocky columns raised by her volition stood like irregular teeth embedded in the earth's flesh.
They possessed no beauty. Nor did they require it. They grew encircling the sanctuary like an incomplete vow, a defense still learning its own designation.
She lowered her gaze toward her own limb. The stone ascended from her shoulder beyond her forearm, rigid and rough, marked by "trails" of earth like almost frozen-stone transformation.
Mokessa traced her free fingers across the petrified section.
No warmth dwelt there. Merely heaviness.
She pressed her palm against the stone and felt it as one touches an animal's dorsal surface. She attempted to summon the elemental force she knew and the willpower that made earth shift beneath her feet, that same imposition which tore twisted columns from the ground.
The hillside trembled faintly.
Diminutive grains of soil detached from her petrified limb and descended upon the rock below her. Then several more. Minute fragments slid from the hardened exterior and disintegrated into the breeze. For an instant, Mokessa experienced hope—not substantial enough to constitute confidence, merely a possibility.
Yet the stone would not yield. She pressed with greater intensity.
Her jaw contracted. The musculature of her neck stiffened. Her free appendage resumed rubbing the limb with persistence, as though tenacity could forge a passage where nature had sealed one shut.
More soil descended.
This occasion, somewhat larger, as though the crust of her limb attempted response yet lacked sufficient vigor to break free. The exterior crumbled partially, revealing beneath it a relief still denser, more compact, almost animate in its resistance. Mokessa remained there, concentrated, observing the transformation fail before her perception.
She felt neither disappointment nor elation. This represented merely another measurement of her own limitations.
Mokessa touched the hardened exterior once more. Then she closed her digits upon it forcefully, as though she might extract an answer through sheer obstinacy. The endeavor produced only a minimal shower of parched soil, which trickled down her limb's lateral surface and descended upon the hillside.
She inhaled through her nasal passages, brief and controlled, and redirected her gaze toward the sanctuary below.
Therein, a contingent of primates displaced themselves between two platforms. The elevation permitted observation of nearly everything: the configuration of the loftiest arboreal specimens, the interweaving of vines, the irregular perimeters of the refuge, the columns that proliferated around it like undisciplined sentinels. The ensemble possessed the semblance of a creature still undergoing construction—vulnerable, yet conscious.
It was then that a voice elevated itself above her.
— Perhaps you should first endeavor to command the stone residing in your limb, Mokessa.
The Matriarch did not rotate immediately. She recognized the inflection before acknowledging the corporeal form.
Huyn occupied the apex of a proximate arboreal specimen, nestled between two boughs with the facility of one seemingly born to discourse with the canopy. His posture remained relaxed, yet his gaze monitored everything with attentiveness.
Mokessa inclined her visage in his direction.
— If you arrived to observe me, you selected an advantageous vantage point — she articulated.
Huyn emitted a sound approximating laughter.
— And you selected an excessively elevation for interrogating your own limb.
She redirected her attention once more toward the petrified stone.
— I am attempting.
— I perceived that.
Irony inhabited the response, though not malevolence. Huyn communicated as one prods a wound to ascertain if it still ached. Mokessa recognized this category of gesture. The youth rarely approached matters directly; he preferred circulating around them until discovering an aperture.
She resumed pressuring her limb, this instance with diminished anticipation and heightened irritation. Another handful of soil descended.
Huyn observed the fragments disintegrating into the atmosphere.
— At minimum, you are dislodging something — he remarked. — It does not constitute losing a confrontation.
Mokessa directed a brief glance toward him.
— I require no solace.
— I comprehend. — Huyn elevated one of his appendages in capitulation. — I merely believed it preferable to remaining fixated upon your own stone as though you might extract an explanation from it.
She sustained the quietude for several moments.
Below, the sanctuary persisted in vitality. The distant resonance of footfalls upon timber, of foliage being dragged, of abbreviated vocalizations amongst the collective's constituents ascended toward the elevation in fragmented form. The realm seemed integral that morning. Integral and, simultaneously, upon the precipice of something.
Mokessa elevated her petrified limb several centimeters one final instance and scrutinized it against the luminescence.
— I do not desire solace — she articulated, ultimately. — I desire for this to vanish.
Huyn tilted his cranium.
— Maybe it vanishes when you cease attempting to wrench it away.
Mokessa furrowed her brow marginally.
— And what do you propose?
Huyn directed his attention toward the hillside, subsequently toward her limb.
— The stone does not fracture merely because we extract it with fury. I harbor the impression that it requires comprehension beforehand.
Mokessa nearly articulated something in opposition, yet lacked temporal opportunity.
Two primates emerged via the lateral pathway ascending from the hillside's periphery. They progressed with urgency, their corporeal forms flexed forward, respiring with exertion. One bore mud markings upon his lower extremities; the other carried foliage adhered to his integument, as though he had traversed the undergrowth without any precaution.
Both remained tense, their ocular apertures dilated as those bearing something disagreeable beyond calm articulation.
They halted proximate to the elevation and genuflected before Mokessa.
— Matriarch! — the initial one declared, nearly breathless. — We discovered something within the watercourse!
Mokessa descended her limb gradually.
— In the river?
The secondary primate deglutitioned before proceeding.
— A corporeal form. One of our own. It remained buoyant proximate to the embankment.
The breeze seemed to diminish.
Huyn repositioned himself upon the bough, his concentration immediately directed toward the two newly-arrived individuals. Mokessa did not alter her visage, yet the quietude encircling her intensified.
— Was it wounded? — she interrogated.
The initial primate hesitated.
— Not sufficiently for our comprehension. Yet indicators manifested... markings. And its positioning... — He directed his attention toward his associate, seeking corroboration. — We do not believe it resulted from mere descent.
Mokessa narrowed her optical organs.
— Continue.
The secondary individual inhaled profoundly.
— We suspect it resulted from a hairless one.