“...when you have found that, perhaps then we will meet again.”
Streams of Silver woke up sore, tired and strained despite the lateness of the morning and the relative idleness of days past. She hadn't ached like this in years, but her limbs, shoulders and back were tight and knotted like she'd been pushing them to their limits for days.Just another reminder that the dream she'd been visited in was more important and real than the usual dreams, she supposed... which was quite the discomforting thought. The taste of what she'd eaten in that dream was faint on her tongue, but still there, still real, a clear mark of her failure to notice of some sort of test set out for her. But why? Why that test? What had it said of her that she would elect to improve herself, ostensibly to help others? Would she do any differently in the future? Was it wrong, for any reason, to wish for power?
She shook her head, moving to stand, and walking tiredly over to the nearest patch of good grass, leaning down to graze despite her body's protestations. Food could only do her good, right now.
She had failed. And she had been told why, if only in riddles. Leadership would be to lead, not to be followed? She had thought she had been leading. She'd been guiding and helping and protecting her children, her family, her wards, for years now, and being told that what she'd thought she had been doing was nothing more than going through the motions....
The doe shook her head again, after several minutes of staring into nothing, just the emptiness of the clearing before her. She needed to clear her mind– she was just circling around the same questions as she'd woken up with, with no clearer answer of how to handle them. Insight does not come in repetition, she recited to herself. She couldn't let this stick her in a holding pattern... not if she was going to prove to herself what she could be. Her family looked up to her, and she wasn't about to let that duty to them lapse, uncertainty or no uncertainty of what the future held.
Streams of Silver turned, letting out a coughing bark for her muskies to follow. She'd planned to use this day for hunting, before any of this had happened. There was no reason to change that now– not when hungry bellies would benefit from the meat. She could consider this later. For now, she would act, without doubt, in one of the places she felt most confident.And later, once her responsibilities were covered, she'd confront the beasts lurking in her mind and spirit. Because now, she didn't just have her family to prove herself to. If her dreams were anything to go by, the Motherfather was watching her, and she refused to back away from a challenge.
With a handful of new goals and adages to reflect upon and consider, the doe set off to finish the day's task.