When the Kivvni crossed paths with the Allunga, the Kivvni sent many of their youths and children over to the other clan. It was a bleak thing. They accepted no one in return; the flow of people from clan to clan was unidirectional. “This clan is dying,” Halaavi said. A glance at the Kivvni camp showed it was true: the yurts were threadbare and paltry. There were no chickens, and the goats were thin. They had more yaks than they could herd effectively, and the lactating yaks cried mournfully when the Kivvni could not manage to milk them all. The Kivvni themselves were gaunt and underfed. A dark knot of mistrust was woven deep in them, each and every one, to the point that scarcity and stress and bad luck made them mistrust each other. They knew the Kivvni were done for. They passed off the children to better clans and resigned themselves to hard, bitter lives. This was a clan pushed to the frayed edges of the Droma world. But they were going south. It was not by choice: every turning of the seasons they lost more livestock to the desolate southern stretches near the coast. They went south because they had to. The other clans shoved them out, shoved them down, until at last only the southern stretches were left. When I asked if they were going south, a Kivvni person leaned on vis walking stick and laughed. Ve was a herder, but then again, all the Kivvni were herders. There were not enough people in the clan to differentiate the work. Ve laughed a hard laugh and nodded. “Yes, Allunga settler, we go south.”

“Far south?” asked Halaavi.

“We go so far south the rivers turn brackish.” Halaavi frowned at that. The Kivvni person’s chin jutted up. “We go so far south I can speak patois. And I am no echo.”

Halaavi and I were not offered a place to sleep at the Kivvni camp, and we didn’t ask for one. We trudged back to the Allunga camp, which was only there that far south, that far into the turning, for me. That night, neither of us got any sleep. Laavi lit a fire in the firestone and sat next to me. I draped an arm around vis naked waist, and ve leaned vis cheek against my shoulder. We watched the dancing flames together. We sat in silence for a very long time. I felt hollowed out, like half a man. Finally, Laavi spoke. “I can’t. I can’t join the Kivvni.”