The scar appeared on the Eye at the time of Rain-Catcher's birthing.
"Does the Eye fight?" Rain-Catcher asked her first mate.
"How could that be?" Den-Builder said. "Who could reach the Eye?"
Rain-Catcher and her first mate curled together in the ternary's den under Middle Hill, arm to arm and leg to leg, waiting for the Eye to close and the breath of darkness to cool Here.
"The youngling within slows your thought, Rain-Catcher." He patted her swollen belly. "Mine," he added.
Rain-Catcher thought her mate slow to understand but she said nothing. Nictitating membranes slid across her round eyes as she squinted through the narrow entrance. The Eye was too brilliant to look at for more than a blink. Slowly closing now, it still flooded the rocky plains with dazzling light, and Here wavered in the heat. A dark smear was plainly visible on its upper half. Nothing had ever marked the Eye before. She felt the stab of fear.
"Are there spirits that harm the Eye?" she asked.
"If that were so, Those-Who-Have-Gone-Over would have spoken of it."
His words gave her no comfort. Here was good to the Folk, and the Eye the source of their life. If anything harmed it, how would they live?
"I wish Night-Singer would return," Rain-Catcher said. She put both hands on her belly, all eight brown fingers splayed to keep the youngling inside until her second mate returned.
Den-Builder lifted the hollow catch-stone and dripped water on her lips. "When Night-Singer comes, he will give us the meaning."
Her tongue flickered, tasting her first mate. She released one hand from her belly and stroked him, running her fingers in and out of the brown folds of his fat and over his small ears. Almost the end of the hot season, and water and food both hard to find, yet Den-Builder was still plump as a half-grown.
The youngling kicked against her belly, anxious to be born, and Rain-Catcher gasped.
"It will not be well for the youngling to be born before Night-Singer returns," Den-Builder said in distress.
They waited for this youngling with great joy, for Rain-Catcher had been barren many seasons. Younglings were as precious as rain to the Folk and came as sparingly.
As the Eye closed, a shadow filled the den's entrance. Night-Singer, third of their ternary, was growing taller than both, and although he had only just gone over, his skin had whitened and now folded over his bones as if it belonged to some much larger being. She thought her second mate beautiful, his ears longer than her fingers, his taste like rock warmed by the Eye.
"Quick," Den-Builder said. "You have been too long gone. Sing to Rain-Catcher, for her time is near."
Night-Singer said, "I have been far beyond these hills."
"You are not wise, Night-Singer, to walk in the heat of the Eye," Den-Builder scolded.
"I fear Rain-Catcher has picked a time of bad omen. I have seen strange ones," Night-Singer said. "Not-Folk."
Rain-Catcher's heart thumped at that, and the youngling jumped in her belly. The fear she had felt at the sight of the scar on the Eye returned.
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