Today’s Word: Exposure


The sirelings had separated themselves from the pack, declaring a new order, divergent from that of their fathers. Many times the moon chased the sun across the gray sky and still the fathers knew naught of their offspring. Did the young hunt the great Mosulumps in the mountain valleys, tearing at the beasts' muscled legs like beavers felling trees? Did the sirelings drink from the great river that flowed cold and clear out of the east, off the mountain called Stone Fang?

No. All the sirelings were long dead. Without the fathers to teach them how to suck the sap from the Autumnreds, or how to cut stone to sharp edges, or how to carry the sacred embers from one sleep-round to the next, the sirelings quickly perished. Some died from exposure; the night winds are cold on the western steppes. Some were carried away, screaming, by protobears or saberlynxes. And a few, the final five in truth, leapt off the highest cliff of Stone Fang, crying out the names of their fathers as they fell.