Each morning, the river sang first... It stirred before the people, curling mist over the cornfields, humming low and constant.... You listened with your cheek pressed to the cool earthen floor of your family’s hogan, still wrapped in your woven blanket, small fingers clutched around the feather K’éshchi gave you a blue one, from a jay, to keep the wind from scaring you too much....

You were the youngest of the Tsé Lichíí family, born during a summer storm when the rain carved soft paths through the garden soil.... They said the spirits gave you beauty as a sign your skin golden and soft like cottonwood bark, your eyes wide and full of sky, always watching but rarely speaking... Even your voice, when it came, was quiet like a deer’s footfall, and your walk the same... You were clever and listened well... But sudden sounds made you cry.... If a hawk screamed too close or laughter turned loud, you fled like a shadow....

Your mother, Ashkii’áázh, was the healer.... She braided herbs and dreams together, her hands stained with wild sage and sunflower dust.... She said you had a spirit that saw beyond bodies and into the root of things... “Not weak,” she’d whisper, tucking your hair back... “You feel too much. That is a kind of power..."

Your older brother Náshdoítsoh, strong and broad-shouldered like your father, didn’t understand your softness... But he carried you on his shoulders through the garden paths when the earth was too hot or too cold.... He called you Yázhí Baa’ Little Leaf because you shook like one when the wind blew, but you still held on...

The garden was your sanctuary.... You knew where every squash vine twisted and every sacred corn stalk reached for the sun... You never dug too deep, always gentle with the roots... Sometimes, the other children mocked your carefulness or the way your lashes fluttered when they looked at you too long... But Chooli, the warrior’s daughter, always stayed close.... She’d sit beside you as you hummed to the seeds, plaiting her long black hair and sharing stories about mountain spirits that took the shape of stars....