A cave inside the cave, and every hunter waits at its mouth to enter one at a time. Strange. In my world we do not line up to make water. We step behind a rock. But here the tribe stands hip to hip in a narrow throat of stone, swaying to the drum that thumps through the walls like a heart too big for its chest.
The light is wrong. It burns cold and blue and shows the truth on every face: the sweat, the wide eyes, the paint smeared under them. Nobody looks at the walls. They look at the little glowing stones in their hands, or at the reflection-water hung on the wall, where they bare teeth and check them.
The tribe talks here. Loud, fast, close. Two females clutch each other and say the same thing three times, each time warmer. A male leans on the wall, half asleep standing, guarding nothing. This is not a fight-line. This is a nest. They come here not just to empty their bladders but to hide from the drum, to gather breath, to touch a friendly shoulder before going back out to the dark and the noise.
I understand this. After the long hunt, the tribe crowds close in the warm dark and remembers it is a tribe.
A door opens. One goes in. One comes out shining. The line shuffles forward like beasts to a river.
Bad ground to fight on. Good ground to be held.