Ashley stopped in her tracks. The chancellor cocked his head as she turned to face him, with a smirk of thinly veiled indignation plastered on his raggedy old face.

"As you were explaining to the Council..." The chancellor said, his voice booming through the large, empty hall of the Administration.

Ashley coughed and cleared her throat. Choked back all of the disgust she had for the man perched in the high stand in front of her. "The caribou are synonymous with this region," she said. A scoff from one of the Council members. "The tuktu herds have been grazing on the lichens and wild mushrooms since before our people settled these lands. They provide balance to our fragile territory, a balance we disrupted."

"They eat from my willows," said one of the Council members. A cross, snooty old woman in a ceremonial wig three sizes too big for her head. "They leave my poor willow trees patchy and half-bare. And all of the waste. Pests." She turned her head up in distaste at the thought of the horned beasts.

"Are you finished, my dear?" The chancellor said, his eyes locked on the gnarled walking stick in the fragile girl's arms. Ashley stood in silence. The taste in her mouth was a sour one. The Council was an immovable object, not like the caribou, who migrated and traveled the lands. Never staying in one spot for long. They understood that movement was survival, and the Council, a solitary crumbling wall of bullheadedness seemed to be decaying before her eyes.

"Motion denied," The chancellor said without even waiting for a vote. He slammed a twisted wooden gavel down on the flat surface of the stand. "The annual Reaping will proceed as usual, at the start of the coming week, the Winter Solstice before the migration period."

Ashley looked around at the faces of the council, scrambling to find any trace of sorrow among them. But the decision was final, and it was final in their faces. It was them against her. And the caribou haven't exactly a say in the matter.