your eyes • atwow

T W E N T Y- T W O

FROM A distance anyone in the clan could tell that Aiä and Eleying had a special bond.

Everyone expects them to mate each other. Even Eleying sees himself mating with Aiä.

Though Aiä hasn't really put that much thought into mating. She is still young and wants to be able to do as she pleases without having to worry about a mate or children to help. Not that she wouldn't want a family, she just doesn't want one so soon.

She wants to be able to battle, train, and fight. Though she would be lying if she said she hasn't thought about it ever.

It is true, it was right before eclipse. Eleying and her were outside the cave riding taikas, just for fun. They were young maybe 11 years old.

When they stopped in their tracks, making a U turn to make their way back to the cave. They were going slow, not running anymore when he spoke up.

"Aiä?" He turned his head to look at her

"Yes Eleying?" She looked at him. His breath hitched.

"D-Do you know who your mate will be when you're older?"

"Hmm I haven't thought about it? Why?"

"Well you know since your olekytans daughter and all."

"What if i don't wanna mate?"
She asked and looked up at him curiously. Despite being the same age Eleying managed to always get taller in such little time.

"Well...w-would you ever wanna mate with me?"

"..what do you mean?" Even though Aiä clearly knew what he meant

"Let's say....by the time we're 18 and we don't have mates we could mate with each other..?"
His voice pitched at the end

"Hm okay! But what about 25? 18 is too young still!" She said with a smile on her face

"25?!? That's too old what about 23?"

"Okay then, if neither of us have a mate by 23 we'll mate each other." Aiä responded with a smile on her face with a slight soft laugh

" Hey man, you good?" A voice pulled Eleying out of his flashback. He looked over his shoulder to see Loak.

He mentally groaned, not because he didn't like Loak but because of the disrespect his father has been showing Aiä.

"Yea..i'm good?" He said it like a question

"Oh well what were you thinking about?"

"Aiä." He said before he could even think

His eyes widened

"Wait, no not like that just thinking about uh..this meeting I had with her and her dad."

For some reason Loaks face fell when he said he was thinking about Aiä, but then again Eleying had admitted to liking her. Well kind of?

"Oh uh what was the meeting about?" Loak spoke before he could think about how that question was invading the privacy of the meeting.

"Nothing you have to worry about newbie."

"So I overheard some guys talking about this event? When's that?"

"Oh Airukys event, yeah we have this "competition" as you would call it every year basically to just see who's the best and you know just have fun, winner gets special privileges."

"Who's been the winner?"

"Well for a long time it was Akxä and our friend Rikumo, but then I took the title, then Aiä took it from me and she's been the winner every time since. I was 12 first game I won, then second game I won I was 13. Then Aiä took the title of winner at 14 and has won every game since then."

"What do the games consist of?"

"Well they change every year, some games stay the same but not always. Last year our first game we had to just do something simple, see who could hunt the most food. Then things like first one to teach a baby canost to kill."

"Does everyone participate?"

"Those who wish to can, there is age limits though, got to be older than 11 and younger than 25."

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