Moonsong Glacier inugagulliq ⋒

He laughed, at this, and his smile warmed once more.

"Yes," he agreed. He had larger dreams. Things he thought about in the dead of the night. Stories he told himself about his future. Faces he had looked into while his heart skipped a beat. But  —

The panther stood. He moved toward Kukutux and then-sidestepped so that they were shoulder to shoulder, albeit with hers rather lower than his. Cheekily, he told her: "I am happy right here."

Here beside her, but here at the glacier, too. He felt more and more settled with these moonwolves, and with the idea that he might make this his place and these his people.

"My heart is for a man," he said to Kukutux, his voice very quiet. "I could love a wife. I have come close. But I want to know that someone else will care for her. I want to know that my children will have a father even if something happens to me. I could love her, but I would never sleep again. Not if I loved her alone."