Chapter Text
The sky fills with stars while they bathe.
On either side of the stream, blinking like earth-born star-children, fireflies ride the waves of long grass. The herd is at rest, guarded by the fires of its herders. The warm wind is heavy with the fecund, sweet scent of summer on the grass plains.
When the cool water has washed away the sweat and grime of the day, they play by splashing each other until the one-year-old wolf jumps in with them, wanting to take part in the game. He yips and bites at the water, churning the clear black and silver liquid into a silty mess.
“Grey!” Yuri says, exasperated but not too unhappy. He hits the surface of the water, sending out an arc that Grey leaps after, eager to hunt and please. “It’s going to smell like wet wolf all night.”
They wade out of the stream, and the wolf streaks ahead like an arrow until Otabek’s whistle brings him short. Otabek holds out his hand and curls his fingers down towards his palm to beckon the wolf back before he reaches their bedding. The wolf skids to a halt and trots back obediently, shedding the water from his coat mid-step by shaking himself viciously.
“Good boy,” Otabek murmurs to Grey when they meet at the edge of the water. The wolf, released, bounces and barks with barely contained excitement, prodding his cold nose into their hands and between their legs.
“Tch!” Yuri hisses at the young wolf, pushing his head away. “That’s not for you.”
“Grey,” Otabek says, beckoning again. The wolf switches sides and follows at his heel, nose in his palm, but Otabek’s attention is on Yuri, aching with affection at the sight of the slender figure, wet and shining in the moonlight.
Yuri pulls his hair over his shoulder, squeezing water from it while they walk up the streambed. In the summer, even after a bath at night, there’s little need for towels or clothes. The warm wind will dry them soon. Their passage through the grass stirs up the fireflies, and they cascade up Yuri, glinting on him like jewels.
“You wear the night so well,” Otabek murmurs.
“I’m not wearing anything,” Yuri says, shooting Otabek a look before lowering himself onto their bed.
“That’s what I meant.” Otabek joins him, stroking the back of his hand along Yuri’s arm. Their campfire is small, only lit to burn herbs to drive away insects and to keep bigger wildlife at bay. The light is welcome, but the heat isn’t needed. The fireflies disperse in the red glow, aided by Grey bounding after them.
Otabek’s hazy, purposeless thoughts are interrupted by Burdock and Light making their presence known by tossing their heads and nickering. “They seem a little restless,” Otabek notes. Grey settles nearby, resting but alert.
“The horses?” Yuri takes apart his bundle of toiletries, spilling out his combs and a little metallic, enamelled jar.
“Yeah. The herd too.” They can no longer see the herd on the other side of the stream, but here and there the fires of the other outriders are still visible.
“I noticed.” Yuri hands his comb to Otabek. “Maybe it’s your wolf.”
Otabek sits behind Yuri and pulls him into his lap. Yuri’s pale, fine hair mats easily. Otabek rarely has to take his braid apart unless he’s about to wash his hair, but Yuri has to redo his hair almost every time it gets wet. Otabek finds it a pleasant task to comb Yuri’s hair until it’s dry and silken.
“Maybe,” he says, trying not to smile. The enthusiastic animal both helps and hinders controlling the herd, depending on the day. Otabek glances at Grey. The wolf’s tail wags when he sees Otabek looking. “Don’t you think he’s a good helper?”
“Maybe you have a strange idea of help,” Yuri mutters.
Otabek nuzzles at Yuri, then inspects the lobes of his ears, which are a little swollen with the new piercings, tiny golden rod keeping the holes from closing. “Do they still hurt?”
“If you touch them.” Yuri takes Otabek’s hand with the comb in it and places it on top of his head to indicate what he wants. “Pinar-daughter-of-Mehtap gave me an ointment for bruises and wounds.”
“Mm.” Otabek rests his chin on Yuri’s shoulder a little longer. Yuri’s use of such honorifics—borrowed from his native Muscovite tongue—has strangely endeared him to many in the family. “Shall I put it on you?”
Yuri looks at him over his shoulder. His top lip is shaped like the composite bow they use to hunt. There’s even the same kind of curl at the corner of his mouth. “Today was a good day,” he says. “The bruises don’t hurt.”
Although the stressed mare had shoved Yuri down before her foaling very early that morning, Yuri hadn’t suffered anything worse than a few patches of bruises on his hip and leg, now blooming reddish purple, and a scrape on his elbow. The foal had been born perfect in every way, growing Yuri’s herd from six to seven horses.
“A very good day,” Otabek agrees. The corner of Yuri’s lip curls even more. He picks up Otabek’s hand again and places it on his head. Otabek takes the hint and begins the task of pulling knots out of the soft hair. Yuri hums under his breath. Many of his melodies have become familiar to Otabek, and even more so, traces of the music already familiar to Otabek have begun to surface.
While Otabek undoes the snarls in Yuri’s hair, Yuri pares his nails with a knife, making sure they’re clean. Afterwards they trade positions, and Yuri kneels behind Otabek, combing his hair. Not because it’s needed, but because it’s enjoyable. Yuri pulls his fingers through Otabek’s hair and coos appreciatively, which, Otabek has learned, is a sound he also makes when an animal impresses him.
Otabek catches one of Yuri’s hands and presses his lips into the palm. “Let me put the ointment on you,” he says. “It might not hurt now, but it will later.”
“It hurts a little bit,” Yuri admits with laughter. He drops the jar into Otabek’s hands and shoves his long leg across his lap. “Rub it into me, Бека,” he invites, reminding Otabek of their nudity. Grey lifts his head and whuffs softly at them, sensing the playful mood, but Otabek had taught him to stay off their beds after the puppy had tried to join too many intimate moments.
Yuri leans on his hands, looking up at the river of stars above them, which follows the same north-south line as the stream by which they’re camped. “What is it called? Bird road?” he says, recalling one of their many talks about the heavenly bodies.
“The Birds’ Causeway,” Otabek corrects. The unguent is quite liquid and not oily at all, leaving a brief sheen on Yuri’s skin as Otabek gently dabs it onto the bruises. It smells vaguely of the herbs it’s made of, like broken leaves.
“Because it looks like a tree and birds follow it south.”
“The only road in the steppes,” Otabek murmurs, stroking the scar on Yuri’s thigh. The stars are constant companions and the compass of anyone on the steppes, Otabek finds it a rewarding task to fill Yuri in on the cosmology his family lives by. “Just not under our feet.”
“Why do birds go south in the winter?” Yuri asks, full of earnest curiosity. His eyes are lit by the fire, glowing almost as green as the luminous fireflies around them.
“Why do we?” Otabek counters. “Their home is there.”
“Bird home,” Yuri says seriously. “Big tree.”
Otabek grabs Yuri’s ankle and tickles the bottom of his foot until Yuri cries out with laughter, startling their animals. Grey whines and crawls over to nose at Yuri’s face, trying to detect if the noise means he’s hurt. The nearby call of an owl means they’ve also disrupted someone’s nightly hunt.
“Give me your arm,” Otabek says when Yuri is suitably out of breath, chest heaving with the remnants of his laughter, and Grey has settled back down. Yuri wiggles closer to let Otabek spread the ointment on the scrapes on his elbow. This time Yuri grimaces, and Otabek feels sorry for hurting him, no matter how unintended. He soothes Yuri by nuzzling into his hand and wrist and the inside of his elbow.
“Бека.” Yuri curls his fingers around the rim of Otabek’s ear, then tangles them in his loose hair. “I will call my foal Star Bird.”
“A horse named Bird?” Otabek pulls Yuri into his lap and buries his smile in his neck.
“да-а.” Yuri yes-noises him with conviction. He takes Otabek’s hand and places it on his head again. “Finish it.”
While Otabek braids Yuri’s hair, Yuri puts on the little jadeite droplet earrings that had prompted him to get his ears pierced. The transparent but vibrant green colour of the precious stone fits him so well, and the earrings stand out especially well when his hair is braided back. The jadeite earrings had been expensive, but Otabek doesn’t regret trading for them. They draw attention to Yuri’s slender, white neck. To Otabek, almost indecently so.
Yuri moves his head to make the dangling earrings chime, and his lips curl into a very smug smile when he sees the way Otabek’s body is reacting. Otabek has no need or desire to hide his reaction, only acknowledge it with some ruefulness. Although both the men and women of his family wear a variety of ornaments and jewellery they find pleasing, Otabek has never found any as becoming as the earrings which now adorn Yuri.
“Бека,” Yuri says, pursing his lips to keep from laughing again. “Put it away.” He moves around Otabek to sit behind him again, to finish braiding his hair as well.
Otabek’s happiness has soft edges. The intimacy brings contentment. He tries his best to ‘put it away’ while Yuri’s heat warms his back better than the fire. “Let’s go visit mother soon,” he says. The summer is midway through, and the grasses are turning to hay. The current pasture has hosted both the herd and the family for a few weeks, but as the weather and land both turn towards later summer dryness, it will soon be time to go. The family has already departed, heading across the grasslands to find the next waterway.
One of the many advantages of having married Yuri is never having to be separated from him. Other men often go days or weeks without seeing their wives while tending to the herd, which is considered men’s work when on the move. Women, once married, end up having to choose between their horses and children, and usually become less actively involved with their livestock. With Yuri and Otabek both being men, they have no such choice to make.
Yuri doesn’t agree like Otabek expects, but instead grunts without making it into a reply one way or the other. “All мама talks about is how her feet are big,” he says, fingers pausing in Otabek’s hair.
“She is with child.” Otabek leans back and noses at Yuri’s jaw.
Many in the family had been surprised when Evgeniya had agreed to marry Otyrau, Otabek among them. Upon asking Yuri about it, he’d shrugged and said: She is lonely. Yuri’s attitude had only shifted when her pregnancy had become obvious, and the reason for that is still something Yuri refuses to divulge.
“You go see her,” Yuri mutters.
“Children are a sign of prosperity,” Otabek says, reaching up to touch Yuri’s new earrings, only to have his hand pushed away. His interest in this particular child is maybe slightly out of bounds of propriety, but it’s the closest he’ll get to a child that is a mix of him and Yuri. “We could gift her the foal. It’d be fitting.”
“My foal?” Yuri asks, enraged. He gets up and finds his clothes for sleeping in. A summer morning will still chill a body. His clothes, although the same in shape and material as everyone else’s—wool, leather, and linen—bear embroidery by his mother, marking them uniquely his. “Нет. No. It’s my foal. She can get her own.”
Otyrau had married Evgeniya even without a dowry of horses. He’d been adamant she would bring him more sons, and nobody could convince him that this child wouldn’t be one as well. And although this marriage has technically made Yuri Otabek’s cousin, there are no blood ties between them, and to Otabek, the ties of family that have been created are both important and delightful. There’s a place for Yuri with his family that’s independent of him, and it makes Otabek happy to know Yuri will be safe even if something were to happen to him.
Grey huffs and gets up, pacing back and forth before settling down again, but not placing his head on his paws. Yuri is tense too, huddling on his bed and poking at the fire to build it up. Otabek runs his hand over his hair, feeling the bumps of the braid with his fingers. He’s gotten used to the way Yuri does it, placing the strands under each other rather than over. And he’s become accustomed to the way Yuri turns his back to him when angry.
Otabek puts on his sleeping clothes as well, then makes one final check of the animals. Burdock uses her hoof to dig at the ground and headbutts him gently, then tosses her head. Otabek rubs her ears and presses his face to her soft nose, sharing breath. Grey comes up to him and the horses, whining for attention. It makes Light whinny and move aside, and Otabek has to placate both animals with affection. He only needs to click his tongue to bring Grey back to the beds, where Yuri has already lain down.
Yuri is staring up at the sky, restless like the animals. “Why is the north sky so dark?” he asks, and Otabek pauses in the middle of slipping into his bedroll to look towards the northern horizon.
“I don’t know,” he says. A darkness covers the stars at the edge of the sky.
“Is it clouds? Is it rain?” Yuri continues. “It doesn’t smell like rain. It smells bitter.”
“You’re right,” Otabek agrees. “You have good senses, Yura.” But there’s few things it could be, clouds being most likely. “Do you know what locusts are?”
“No.”
“Some years grasshoppers go through a change and become locusts,” Otabek says, lying down on his side to face Yuri. “They’re much bigger and eat much more. They move in swarms, eating everything in their way.”
“Everything?” Yuri turns to look at him. The fire behind him causes his face to go into shadow but gives his hair a warm, golden shine.
“Everything,” Otabek repeats. “But if it was locusts, I think we would’ve heard of it from others.”
Despite his earlier anger, Yuri still curls up against Otabek to go to sleep. Otabek stays up a little longer to watch over him and to soothe Grey, who’s crawled up to his other side. In the end, rather than true restfulness, it’s the effort and excitement of the day that put Otabek to sleep. The responsibility for the welfare of Yuri’s horses and Yuri himself is heavy. Enjoyable, but heavy.
The long silence of Otabek’s dreamless sleep is interrupted by a single, distressed nicker from Burdock. He opens his eyes to a cloud-covered sky. The air smells bitter. The clouds have a strange, ruddy glow. Not rain clouds. Smoke.
Fire.
Otabek sits up, the thought of a wildfire burning away what remains of his sleep. Much of the grass has gone to seed, to hay, to dry, dead chaff. A fire travelling through that would be quick and hot and smoky. A hot enough fire can spread through the intertwined root systems of the steppe grasses and erupt almost anywhere.
“Yura.” Otabek keeps his voice down, grasping Yuri’s shoulder. “Get up.” He doesn’t stay to wait for Yuri to respond, but pulls on his boots and rolls up his bedroll with his outer clothes in it.
Yuri’s soft what-noise is drowned out by the neighing of the herd on the other side of the stream. Otabek whistles as hard as he can. Alarm. Grey whines.
“Pack everything,” Otabek says. “We need to go. Fire travels fast.”
The whistles repeat, one after another, in the dark. Yuri doesn’t argue beyond a grunt. Otabek leaves him to pack their little campsite while he gets the horses saddled. He doesn’t need to be able to see to do it in a hurry, but by the time he’s done, the glow of the false northern dawn is brighter. The smoke smells acrid.
“Бека,” Yuri says, coming up to him with their packed camp gear. “My foal.”
“I know,” Otabek says, moving fast to load their supplies on the horses. “We’re going get your foal. We’ll get them to safety. I’ll get you to safety.” Otabek leans in to nuzzle Yuri, comforting himself with the touch and the huff of warm breath. “Mount up, Yura.”
It’s the season for wildfires. The prickly thistle has entered its mobile stage, and the winds on the steppe make the woody, brittle remains of the weeds tumble around uncontrollably. Otabek has seen them spread fires before, just as he’s seen the wind itself carry cinders across vast distances. The floodplain they’re on is still damp, and the grass there is still green. A few bigger shrubs hang on to the stream’s edges, but the space is small and the dry hay encroaches deep into the pasture. They’re going to have to move; if not for the fire, then for the smoke.
The water is black and cold in the night, splashing up as they ford the river on horseback. The herd is packed together and greets them with unhappy whinnying and pacing. Guided by the torch held up by Otyrau, Otabek and Yuri meet up with the rest of the herders. Otyrau, who’s been in charge of the herd while they’ve been at this pasture is already joined by his two eldest sons, Temirau and Azyrau, as well as Kireybek.
“It’s not good,” Otyrau says, squinting towards north. “It’s close, but we can make it if we run now.”
“In the dark?” Temirau questions. He’s Otyrau’s oldest, a few years older than Otabek and now a family man himself, and always straightforward.
“Tell that to the fire,” Otyrau rumbles. “We’ll go south first, follow the water. You ride ahead of the herd.” Otyrau squeezes his son’s arm.
Coordinated with whistles, they get the herd moving downriver, but keep it to a brisk walk because of the dark. Yuri chooses to ride by his newly delivered foal and its dam, while Otabek stays on the outside of the herd to guide them. Grey is both a help and a hindrance. He obeys, but the horses are still unhappy with his predator scent.
By dawn, the massive clouds of smoke on the northern horizon are obvious and alarming. The ceaseless wind brings them ash and a bitter smell, proving it’s not on their side. Under the ruddy sky, the exhausted horses and riders stop to rest and assess the situation.
This time of year, beyond the riverway, vegetation is sparse. The long stalks of drying grasses and small shrubs used to the arid land cling to the sandy, rugged earth. Outside of the floodplain, the stream is narrow and fast, squeezed between rising walls of bedrock. An angular piece of that bedrock juts out into the water, forcing it to change direction abruptly. The cool spray it creates is a refreshing change from the inevitable dust of the steppe.
Otabek scales the slippery rock at Otyrau’s behest, but the view offers no comfort. The wind blows from the north, hot and smelling of fire. The horizon is blocked by a sifting of fine grit and ash, and the sky is low with dark clouds. With the sun rising, even the air itself seems to have been set on fire, warping and distorting the landscape. Despite the haze in the air, Otabek can still see the bright line of the advancing fire on the ground. Seeing it means it’s too close.
Halfway down the rock, his mind preoccupied with how to outrun a fire, Otabek feels a vibration in the air and becomes aware of a low thrum. He isn’t the only one, as a shout from Otyrau confirms what’s wrong.
“Stampede!”
The horses, already nervous, react with high-pitched whinnies and by rearing up. The ground, when Otabek lands on it, is shaking.
“Aurochs!” Kireybek calls, controlling his mount with effort. The untethered herd is already breaking, their spirit contaminated by the fear from the oncoming wild cattle. The aurochs are sturdy and heavy and carry a pair of massive, forwards-facing horns on their heads. The horns aren’t sharp, but with enough impact force behind them, they will easily gore a horse or break a human.
Otabek spots Yuri’s pale head amidst the milling chaos and keeps him in view as long as possible. Once back on low ground, there’s little he can see over the horses and the dust their hooves are striking up. Otabek whistles for Burdock, the sound getting lost in the confusion. He spots Yuri between the legs of the horses, crouching to protect the foal, and Grey in front of him, teeth bared.
The commotion gives off a smell. A deep, unpleasant smell of panicking animals, their waste, and burning. It comes over them like a wave when the first aurochs collide with the herd. The animals scream. The noise becomes a wall; the sun is blocked.