Packing for A'ts'inna

 As I am prepping to go to A'ts'inna, Silver walks up from the bottom of the canyon, to our cave home.  "So you head to A'ts'inna, this Bini’anit’aats'osi, Time of Lean Harvest?"
"Yes, Silver, I am heading to A'ts'inna in the Time of the Lean Harvest.  If I remember right, the older timers called this month August."
Just then, Bleska, my beloved friend and Desert Tiger raises her head.  
Murk looks at me, "What is a Desert Tiger? When did they come to America, sissy Wryn?"  Murk never triers of asking me this over and over, but as he does have ongoing memory issues, I tell him again.
"Well, Murk, before the Great Plague, they did not exist  and where and when exactly they came about no one is really sure.  It is though that the Great Plague morphed the Vegas White Tiger genes to where they could breed with both the effected Mountain Lions and effected Black Jaguars, thus creating a new breed totally fit for the desert southwest."
Luna asks, "Wryn, how did Bleska become part of our clan of Orphans?"
I smile, "Bleska befriend me when she was just a wee tiger.  Her mother would watch us play together.  When Bleska came of age, she had bonded with me, and I became a tiger rider."  A good thing, since after Soren's death, I will not touch a land speeder.

I throw my ridding blanket onto Bleska, something we use only for longer trips.  Then I throw on the saddle bags.   First Silver comes, "Here you are, Wryn, the last 6 months worth of my silversmithing, both jewelry and stirrups and two rebuilt travel sized solar panels."
Next Clove walks over to the saddle bags, "One Navajo Rug that took me six months to weave. Be sure Lillian Avery trades with you for it.  Her father is not fair with his prices"
Luna comes skipping up. "Here are the translations of old Anasazi pictographs from the First Chacoian Age (pre-1492)."   
Murk comes running up, "Turkey feathers." He runs back off, lost in his own little world.
Personally, I  made several tiger harnesses, and  a detailed leather tiger saddle.  I also packed the remainder of last winters furs, which I had saved for an emergency, including a rare white coyote fur.  
"Silver, as eldest you are in charge while I am away.  Clove, make sure Murk eats and gets at least one bath while I am away.  Luna, don"t you or Murk go to far from the safety of the Caves of Yetim.  The other orphan clans will keep an eye on things for us while I am away."  with that I climb up on Bleska back.  "Let's be off, Bleska!"
She bounds down the canyon wall, follows the stream, and then up the narrow trail out of the Caves of Yetim.  After we are out of Yetim, it is open desert most of the way to A'ts'inna.

~ Wryn Kasa