Eedahn repeated slowly after him, the foreign words feeling awkward in her mouth. She'd never even considered the existence of a foreign language before, and she didn't like it. But if she was going to teach the mountain giant her language, it would be easier if she knew a little bit of his. After all, there was only so far gesturing and pictures would get them. When he pointed at her belly and suggested that his baby was in there, she shrugged.
"Lo Reyun," she said, "lo Atan, lo Mekesh." She pointed to two other men around the fire, one from her own tribe and one from the one that was to overwinter with them. They were both busy with other women. "Etaka kan," she said lightly with another shrug and a tone of "we'll see." "Mivurna khale no." She pointed to the moon, then to the mountain, then gestured to her own stomach. She wasn't sure whether she had made it clear that it was in the hands of the gods now. When he'd first told her that he was from the mountains she'd thought perhaps he might be a god, but then remembered that gods don't bleed. Maybe, then, he was the child of a god?
With a sudden idea Eedahn leaned forward and sat on her knees, then beckoned him to also lean forward so he could see by the firelight what she was drawing in the dirt. She drew the mountain with smoke coming from it, and over it the sun and the moon. Off to the side she drew a tree. She would get to that later. She leaned lightly against Dayfed as they leaned close together so she could be heard over the drumming and singing.
"Kahn earstan," she began in the same familiar tone that would be used in the future with 'once upon a time,' "enu etin av lenaiko shen ou nehetna." She pointed to the sun and the moon and made a motion of "together." "Minet koaban." She pointed to the sky, then drew stars around the sun and moon in the dirt. "Koab," she pointed to the stars, "jehel--baybee--lenaiko ou nehetna." She labeled the sun lenaiko and the moon nehetna. The sun and moon had mated and together created the stars. "Aben lenaiko waren kasho. Shah nehetna menken." She drew an angry face on the sun and made an exaggerated scowl, crossing her arms across her breasts in a possessive gesture, hoping to convey that the sun was a jealous lover. "Ou nehetna shah darub." She pointed to the moon, then to the mountain, then pat her hand over her heart in the tempo of a heartbeat to show that the moon loved the mountain.
"Nehetna ou darub minet fank." She pointed to the tree and the groundline. "Fank jehel darub ou nehetna. Na?" Eedahn made sure Dayfed understood that the moon and the mountain had conceived the earth before continuing her well-known retelling of her peoples' creation myth. Of course, they didn't believe it to be myth but fact and she thought it important a giant from the mountains know how important that mountain was. "Aben lenaiko sen," she tapped her temple to indicate knowing, "ou fekash nehetna!" She smeared out the moon and redrew it far away from the sun to indicate that he had banished her to the nighttime along with the stars. "Darub venet." She traced her fingers down her cheeks to indicate crying. In the dirt she drew a river from the top of the mountain down across the land to the tree. "Vento," she called it, pointing at it, "zencunda nar." She pointed at the fire, hoping to indicate that the river had once been fire before it cooled into water. "Ou darub venet shen." She emphasized the smoke coming from the mountain then, making sound effects with her mouth, indicated the ash exploding from the mountain flying far and wide as she drew it in the dirt. They were living in the shadow of a volcano.
"Min shen marun." She drew the path of volcano ash from the top of the mountain to the ground. Where it landed, she drew a stick figure. "Marun," she touched herself, "marun," she laid her palm flat against Dayfed's chest. Marun was a person. "Marun jehel darub ou fank. Marun sinjehel nehetna." She pointed to the moon. Her people believed themselves to be the children of the mountain and the earth, and the grandchildren of the moon. "Marun shah darub ou fank ou nehetna." She patted her hand over her heart again before indicating first the people gathered, then the mountain, the earth, and the moon.
"Nehetna shah marun ou tinten jehel." She pointed to the moon, patted her hand over her heart, then indicated pregnancy; the moon loved them so much she gave them children. While the fertility rite only lasted during the full moon they of course mated at other times of the month, but never during the new moon. There was no point in having sex during the new moon, as no children could be conceived when the moon was out of sight, and most likely to be conceived when she was at her fullest. She had no idea how to convey this to Dayfed other than to show him over the course of the coming month.
"Darub shah marun ou tinten quarz, ou nar." She pointed to the actual mountain, patted her hand over her heart, then next to the dirt mountain drew a cloud with rain. The mountain loved them so much he gave them rain to drink and bathe when the river was low, and fire from his tears. They hadn't discovered agriculture yet, and so didn't use it to water plants, and were far enough from the mountain that the lightning from storms and heat from lava flow was mostly just useful for starting fires if they couldn't find materials themselves.
"Fank shah marun ou tinten kelkul." She indicated the earth, patted her hand over her heart again, then made an eating motion. The earth loved them so much she gave them food to eat. She drew a mammoth in the dirt and fruit on the tree, then mimed eating again. "Aben lenaiko nenshah marun. Kasho." She pointed to the sun with its angry face and herself scowled, crossing her arms to indicate anger and jealousy, that the sun didn't love humans the way the other three did. "En vekash," she mimed wiping sweat from her brow, "ou meket." She rolled her eyes back and stuck out her tongue, pretending to be dead. "Na?"
In her native tongue the story was much longer and linguistically complicated, but she had simplified it as much as she could for Dayfed. "Annen vosh tenetna--pregnant--annen nehetna." When a woman was pregnant they called her the moon, but Eedahn was unsure whether that was very clear to him considering it was rather more abstract. "Dayfed jehel nehetna ou darub?" The idea was suddenly very attractive to her, the thought of carrying the grandchild of the moon herself, and hadn't occurred to her before. Eedahn straddled Dayfed's lap in her nakedness and leaned forward, pressing a tender kiss to his throat where his soul lived. While it might have been something erotic from his time, for her people it was surprisingly intimate. "Bentuhani jehel," she murmured against his throat, her breasts pressed against his chest. She knew she was fertile enough that any hole he spilled his seed in would have a chance of becoming a child, but playing the odds--taking his seed more often than others--would increase the chances of the child being his. Eedahn wanted to be truly the daughter of the moon, to give her a grandson.