“Guilt eats away a person’s insides, rarely feasting on the right person.”
Rebecca words at Sha’daru
He didn’t look up when he heard her. Rebecca never made much noise, but he’d come to know the way she moved: sure-footed and quick, never hurried, never unsure but balanced. Still, she brought a weight with her. Not sorrow, exactly; something heavier than joy, lighter than dread.
She walked into the cave, fur brushed to a shimmer, streaked faintly with ochre dust. Across one shoulder she carried a bundle wrapped in soft green cloth, bound with cord dyed in blues and greys. She held it close but not reverently, like something both important and ordinary.
"Don’t blame yourself, without the training we’d have lost more," she said, breaking the quiet. “It was put to the test, and they passed.”
"Yeh, they passed with colours," Davy replied wondering how she knew what he had been thinking, guilting himself. He set the half-shaped shaft aside and leaned back against the cave wall. "Storm’s thinkin’ about comin’ but don’t seem to have the nerve yet."
He’d changed the subject, Rebecca smiled faintly, and crouched beside him, placed the bundle between them.
"It’s Sha’daru tonight," she said. “It’ll help us move forward after…” her voice trailed off.
He nodded. "Yeh, you said."
She hesitated, but carried on, excitement creeping into her voice. "We wear paint and garb for it. For the stories and their memory. For balance. The young dress as old ones, the old dress as the lost. Everyone gives something. Wears something they’re not."
He glanced at the bundle. "And what’s this make me?"
Rebecca’s ears flicked. "No one in particular. And… someone. It’s tradition. You live among us now. Even if only for now. So, you should come."
He thought on that then lifted the cloth. Inside lay a garment like nothing he’d worn before: a tunic of layered grey fabric that shifted like mist in the light, stitched with curling symbols in blue. A sash of deep green, like forest shadow, accompanied it. Feathers; some grey, some dyed with crushed berry ink; had been bound together with beads and twine to form a circlet. No shoes.
"You’ll want your feet on the ground," she said, quietly.
Davy touched the fabric, then looked up at her. "I ain’t never been one for dressin’ up."
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"It’s not dress-up. It’s… old. And it’s not for show."
"More serious than a harvest dance?"
"Much more," then she added, “and not.”
He let the cloth fall back into place. "You mentioned that yesterday, what’s it mean, Sha’daru? The name, I mean."
Rebecca’s eyes grew distant, reflective. "It means when the shadow stands still. When light and void hold each other equally, for just a moment. When the Duu’ra walked between."
"You don’t think…" he started, then stopped.
She tilted her head.
"You don’t think I’m him. The Duu’ra."
Her smile was faint and unreadable. "Doesn’t matter what I think. The Duu’ra is a story. So are we. Tonight, all stories walk among us. Even ones we don’t believe."
He nodded slowly. "Alright. I’ll wear it. But don’t expect me to dance, not again."
"No one expects you to. Not yet."
By the time the sun had dipped low, the entire valley shimmered with a glow that wasn’t quite day and wasn’t yet night. Ringtails poured into the clearing in slow-moving spirals, each dressed in hues of ash and dusk. Fires were already burning in the shape of a great coil, flickering like a living sigil drawn across the earth.
Two moons hung high; one pale as bone, the other dark as slate; and they had begun their drift toward one another. The eclipse would come soon. Already the air felt thinner, charged.
Davy stood at the edge of the gathering, feet bare, the costume clinging light and strange against his skin. He felt like a ghost made solid, neither part of the fire nor fully beyond it. Rebecca had marked his forehead with a touch of golden ochre, no ceremony, no fuss. Just a look, a fingerprint with just a nod.
They hadn’t called him anything.
But the kits stared at him with wide eyes as they passed. Elders glanced his way, some with curiosity, others with a kind of guarded hope. No one said the word. Duu’ra. But he could feel it, breathing beneath their silence. He put the decoder in his pocket.
Drums began; low and slow, a heartbeat of the valley. The dancers stepped into the ring of firelight, bodies painted in patterns of brown and deep orange. They moved in pairs at first, then alone, then in loose chaotic flurries, until the rhythm broke down entirely.
Then silence.
Then song.
Not words. Just sound. Long, winding tones that rose and fell like wind over canyon stone. The kind of sound that didn’t go through the ears but through the chest.
Rebecca sat beside him, legs crossed, eyes closed. He watched her for a while, then looked to the moons. Their outlines touching now. The light of the sky dimmed, and for a breathless moment, all shadows disappeared.
And he felt it.
Not a call. Not a vision.
But a quiet clarity, like when he’d once stood on a high cliff at the edge of the world and felt no fear of the fall.
He breathed in.
Stood.
And walked slowly into the firelight.
No one stopped him. The dancers moved around him. One, younger than the rest, brushed past and offered him a handful of smokeweed. He took it without a word.
At the centre of the spiral, he paused.
He didn’t say anything but could feel the memories and truth of what they did.
He placed the smokeweed on the stones and stepped back, then bowed his head.
The oldest of the ringtails; white-furred and near-blind; murmured something then: "Even the One Who Walks Alone must stop to breathe."
It wasn’t a declaration. Just a thought.
But it rippled through the watching crowd like a whisper made of truth.
Rebecca met his gaze across the fire, and her eyes held something gentle and dangerous.
He nodded. Then returned to the edge of the light.
He hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t claimed anything.
But on that night, in that moment, he had walked the spiral, gained insight, knowledge, even wisdom.
And no one had doubted him.
