Star Hawk Burning

The day is hot and sunny, and a feeling of celebration permeates the air as last-minute chores are finished up around the campgrounds, one on each side of the unified Blackrush River, although the wide watercourse is shallow enough to ford at this stage. It is a sacred and symbolic place, as the more western River Rushy meets the equally vital and powerful Black Rain River in the confluence of two waterways to become one. Peace treaties are signed here. Weddings initially bonded here are strong and blessed. This is where the summer territories of two clans meet; in the spring, they follow the masses of traveling cattle north to their summer pastures, seemingly aimlessly, whereas in autumn, the Horse Clans return to their winter campgrounds where the largely self-sufficient crops which they plant before leaving are ready to be harvested. It has been an abundant season, and Star Hawk is pleased with the sights and smells meeting his senses, though the festivities are not for him, not this time.

The young man has just earned his third and shamanic name, Burning, for the honing of his single magical talent: a fiery passion which he controls with the focus and finesse of a solitary flame. He is the best hunter and the presumed next leader of his tribe, Sun Horse Clan. His people live in the northern central, grassy steppes of Visharvé: the All Land, a parallel version of Pangaea which has persisted and flourished. The migratory culture of the Tishatayo Clans revolves around their great horse herds and the undomesticated bovines that they hunt. Not that his prowess at bringing in game, alone, has granted Star Hawk Burning this position; it is more because, when he turns the intensity for which he is known towards a problem, obstacles tend to melt away like morning mist over the water. He sees his way through thorny puzzles of negotiation and delicate tangles of interpersonal relationships like a hawk flying beneath a starry sky.

As the paradoxical nature of his name would suggest, Hawks being diurnal birds, Star Hawk is a complex individual. Since fresh flowers are now decorating everything, although never too many for the plants to renew themselves, he cannot forget that there is a wedding in the offing, scheduled for that afternoon; hence, he’s preoccupied with thoughts of love, and his are pleasant musings. Yet currently Hawk is refusing to acknowledge the advances of the girl whom he secretly desires, because he considers her to be too young and something of a spoiled brat, both traits she should grow out of. Nevertheless, it is a good thing that he learned to stop nibbling at the ends of his ebony braids in frustration when he was a boy, because the woman is a trial to his patience.