He woke in the night, a fever in his bones. His hip burned; his mind tumbled. For a moment, he did not know who he was, nor whose body it was pressed against his own.
"Chak," he croaked, and then his dry throat clicked and he pulled in a sharp breath. The world came slowly into focus.
"Shadow girl," he said into her fur, nudging her awake if he hadn't woken her already.
He did not want to be alone.
she dreamed of the white noise of a blizzard. not silence, and nothing loud. empty, except her hazy awareness.
then a sound - a sharp breath inhaled; then, her name, and when she felt a nudge the snowsleep ended. eyes open.
sulukinak shifts and gets comfortable again, but now that she is awake she knows she won't see the snowsleep for a while.
she noses at dutch, to let him know she was awake.
His heartbeat quieted. He pulled in a few more uneven breaths before he felt grounded once more, releasing the nameless fear that'd gripped him for a moment. He made a low sound; apology, perhaps, or reassurance she hadn't asked for. Maybe he was the one that needed it.
A tiny shiver wracked his body. This one had nothing to do with his mood.
"Have you ever seen an ice bear?" he asked her, becoming more and more aware of the sharp hurt at his flank. He thought blearily that he should have asked Chickadee to send a healer back. It hadn't hurt as much then, though — and he could not yet detect that telltale reek of decay. It was only healing. Slowly. Poorly.
she did not think to ask him any questions. the warmth between them was comforting to her, and she did not know it was partially caused by his light fever. these were things that had not been taught to sulukinak. very little by way of skills had been taught to her, really, and she was ill-equipped to deal with much.
an ice bear, though — she gave a shift of her chin, but knew a second later that he could not see her in the dark. once. with her conclave — two cubs.
it had been from very far away, and she would have missed the sighting altogether had aniktuktun's keen eye not spotted them.
she made a sound like a purr, thrumming her tongue with a questioning lilt. it was an odd thing to ask; perhaps that had been in his head, just now.
That word she used — conclave. Dutch felt strange every time she said it, but he could not name any particular reason why. Perhaps it was just that he was getting a better picture of what her life had looked like as time went on, and conclave, like cave was beginning to sound like a place that was dark and cold, and quite probably filled with unknown danger.
"This one was, too," he said when he felt prompted. "With her conclave. But it was a brown bear." His shifted his hip to indicate which 'one' he was talking about. He had not told anyone in detail how he had become so injured, but it had been made known to those in the healing camp that it was a bear's claws that'd scored him.
He tried to settle once more, but the pain was just annoying enough to keep him from fully relaxing. He gazed out into the snowy woodland instead.
"It hurts like ice," he told her, poorly and belatedly connecting his question to his inland empire.
she wondered now if these bears filled his head, but also sulukinak was skeptical of this. she had not had a proper dream since she'd fled echo bay; so far, they'd been drifting snow and the roar of the sea, and nothing to grasp on to, and nothing to lead to supposition in any direction.
dutch spoke of these bears and of his pains, and sulukinak wondered also if he was awake now and complaining because -- well, just because. sometimes her brothers would complain in the early days, if the hike in the snow was too much for their bodies. dutch was an old man. his hunt had been arduous, and he had come back hurt.
she moved to sniff at his wound and lightly cleaned it with her tongue, being none too careful about it. after, she looked to him with a tilt to her face as if to ask, better?
His mind was slow to unfog until pain sharpened it. His flank twitched like a horse shaking off flies.
"Gently, bachchee," he huffed, but his tail gave a grateful few thumps all the same. It was her care that thawed him, which made him worry it was dark magicks poisoning the wound. He decided that he was too strong for even this to take him down, though, and resolved to ask about it the next time he saw a spiritual healer.
He shifted, hoping to head off more of her tender care at the pass — or at least direct it away from his wound. Now they lay side-by-side instead of yin-yang, and the panther could see Sulukinak's face just a little better through the dark. The solemn red glow of her eyes brought him the usual mixture of comfort and melancholy.
"Are you happy here, bachchee?" he wondered. "Staying with me?"
gentle was not a word she had ever used before, nor were the implications of such a thing ever used upon her. sulukinak was finished swiftly enough that it might have seemed she heeded dutch, which was good enough. she began to clean her front with her tongue, then her own shoulders, partly to get some of the unruly furs to stay down and partly to clean the taste of her friend from her mouth.
then, she settled carefully back in to place.
another thing that hadn't occurred to her — being happy, anywhere. if she thought about it, sulukinak might've said she was happy in the moment. she wasn't dead, and she was in a warm place with someone she trusted. that was happy. if i wasn't, i'd have gone.
there wouldn't have been a word — much like the vanished leadership of this place.
thinking of them as these vague forces rather than people, sulukinak asks, —is this your conclave now?
This answer, though almost positive, was not what he'd been looking for. There was no right or wrong answer, of course, and he did not let his expression show his displeasure — but he was just a little hurt.
For a moment, anyway. Then he was only sad.
"No," he said quietly, still studying her face. "They are my people, for now. Mine to protect, until the next cloudwoman comes to lead them."
He felt he was failing already. Tulugak had gone. Aminthe had disappeared. He wanted to see this pack unified, but it was a group of wolves who seemed to have no hope of understanding each other. How was he meant to fix that? How was he meant to hold them together, when it seemed necessary to speak a different language to each one?
He imagined waking up in the morning to find her gone, too.
"Am I not your conclave?" he ventured, his tone even.
for the first time among their conversations, sulukinak visibly fumbled. she felt her cheeks redden, and knew the question brought a backward slant to her ears and could not help the tuck of her tail. such a visceral reaction should not have been necessary — but this was yet again, a moment of disconnect between them.
it felt so strange to have to explain these basic things to an adult! were they not all grown the same? she thought he had a brother, suddenly; remembering valiant from the hunts, but knowing they were not age-mates, and that only reinforced her thinking. brothers, yes, but survivors of their own separate tunillalik from one-another.
if dutch and sulukinak were to be a conclave, then — do you want that? i thought... maybe a lodge, for you.
it was a word she'd heard spoken but did not fully understand it; only, sulukinak was very perceptive, and had picked up more than just this word since dutch had returned to her upon the plains.
Her reaction was palpable, which was unusual, coming from her. His head tipped to the side, and he studied her with a slight furrow in his brow. Perhaps he did not quite understand what a conclave was. He was not even certain he knew what a lodge was, when the word came from her mouth.
"What do these words mean to you?" he asked her, watching her expression for more stray emotions. Then, gently, he reminded her: "I did not grow up with either of these words. Where I am from, we only say family. These are your blood, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. Sometimes many generations of these. But we do not build a lodge, as the seal people seem to know it. We sleep like this, under the stars, or beneath the trees. And children may disperse to go and make their own families, or they may bring lovers back to the fold and grow our family with the children that come of it. Or two brothers may go out together, as Valiant and I have. He has found a woman to start his own family with."
And I have found you, he thought, but did not speak aloud. She was surely not ready to start a family. And if she was, Dutch did not feel quite secure in the idea of her being the vessel of his own children. The ship, he thought, was not quite fit for sea.
she is quiet again, and frowning, and thinking.
mother called us her conclave. i think it is like family.
but there was more to it. a conclave could be only two from what sulukinak had discerned, but she did not want to think back to that night where things had become tempestuous; the meanings of things had changed abruptly, then.
and lodge is something like family.
she mused. but the hunter man you ran with, it is his word.
there was an implication there which sulukinak did not know how to parse, but her frown lifted and she looked upon dutch with fondness, and wonder.
why had he gone to run with the seal hunter man if not to join his lodge? if not for the sake of conclave? sulukinak did not yet realize that two men could not follow the same route as her mother; they could be fathers, which was a concept wholly alien to her.
there was a women's meeting on the plains. they spoke of women changing, and coming in to power. in the taking of husband.
she did not know that these were sacred talks, that they should not be shared with men or else the men would have been included; but she spoke candidly, always, and remained oblivious. is that what your brother has done? taking husband? is that... what you did, when you went to seal hunter man?
so then wasn't lodge the right word to use?
At the first "I think", Dutch concluded that the girl had no idea what she was talking about about. She had been born upon the ice — she knew nothing but her frightened mother and stories of hungry men.
"Did you speak with him?" the panther asked, curious as to when this might have occurred. More than that, even, he was amused imagining how such a conversation must have gone. And then, of course, all that was swept aside by the concept of a women's meeting. He knew that women held secret magicks within their bodies, and that the knowledge of how to use it must be passed from one to another — but Dutch had never observed any secret meetings between his mother and his sister.
None of what Sulukinak shared was a secret, however. He had known already that she would come into her "power" this season, and of course he knew that women took husbands — not that he was used to phrasing it that way. He would have said that men took wives.
"A man is a husband when he married," he said to Sulukinak. "And a woman is a wife. Valiant will take a wife."
He had to work to keep his expression neutral. She was just too cute.
"Men do not take husbands," he went on. "In my family, this bond between men is called hunting partners. A man with a hunting partner may still take a wife. This bond does not exist in all cultures — but in seal hunter culture, I believe it is called lodge brothers."
ah, no... it was something i heard. a boy...
she did not know raiyuk but she had heard the name dutch spoken as he passed through the healers camp, and heard other names, and words of seal hunting. sulukinak might have been socially stunted but she was not stupid.
although, as further things came to light through dutch, she felt insufficient. why didn't she know this? there was no shame in her needing to learn - only frustration.
so you would not take a husband, even though you are lodge-brother?
A boy? Raiyuk, he thought, and then he imagined Sulukinak hiding behind a tree and listening in on one of the boy's conversations.
"A man can only be husband to women," he said patiently. "I cannot take a husband for myself. But a man with wives may still have a hunting partner. Lodge brother." After a moment, he said, "I may take a wife. Someday."
He'd thought so all his life. It had always been among his desires, and yet, almost never among his goals.
"I would like us to be family," he said to Sulukinak. "Conclave. If I joined a lodge, I would want to bring you with me."
she settled with understanding little, and decided it would not be worth fretting over. this territory of wife and husband nonsense had not appealed to her before, and had not during the women's circle, so to hear speak of it now from dutch was an oddity but one she would accept. he would have a wife one day; he would build a conclave, she thought. if there were ever a lodge built, she would be included too.
perhaps in time she might see things his way. for now she was reluctant to place upon him the word of conclave because it was still such a heavy thing to sulukinak. i do not want to be wife.
she admits this as openly as anything else. her body unfurls as she stretches, trying to rid herself of the tension that their conversation instilled to her. toes splaying.
a mother maybe. but i do not have much to teach. that is what a mother is for.
but she did want children, she thought. maybe one day. she could think of no other purpose than to have a son or daughter and be close again with someone the way she had been with her mother.
thought you were close, but you weren't really, she corrected herself.
Dutch could not picture the girl as a wife, either — although it was not any easier to picture her as a mother. Something about the idea still made his stomach squirm uneasily, and he was reluctant to allow her even the chance of it, this year.
"You will have plenty to teach when the time is right," he said instead, fondness thawing the edges of his concerns. "We will teach you to be a mighty warrior, and how to care gently for little lives."
Although they were a little short on those, this year. She was the only woman of the right age on the mountain right then.
"But we will need someone else to bring new life to the glacier," he said, broaching a topic he'd been avoiding until now. "All the women have gone except for you and silenthunter."
someone to bring in new life to the glacier? sulukinak listened. she wondered.
i could be mother?
her words were soft, breathy. even if she had little to teach, there were others here. dutch could teach what he knew, and the hunters could teach their skills, and she could be mother and reclaim something that had been taken from her.
sulukinak put aside the deeper, darker thought of what else she would be required to do; she tasted salt water on her tongue then, hears the sussuration of the sea beneath ice.
but she holds on to the sound of dutch in her ears. the warmth of him. his smell. she remains present.
if my fire-time comes,
as that was how the moon people had referred to it at the circle, and I am mother, that is... good? for the village. you would want this?
she knew she wanted this, one day.
She could be. Dutch would not forbid it; he was not sure he could enforce such a thing, after all. He tried never to place himself in situations where those he cared for could go against him. Sometimes that meant manipulation, but more often, it meant bending his own wants to better align with others'. Even so, he could think of no easy answer for Sulukinak.
"If you were ready, then it would be good," he said to her, choosing his words carefully. "I cannot presume to know when a woman is ready or not — " Not aloud, anyway — "but you are not yet a woman. And you will be very new to your womanhood when the time comes."
Plenty were ready as soon as their season touched them. There was something in Sulukinak, however, that he was not sure spring would see healed.
"I think that you should wait until next year," he told her. "But you are welcome at my side, whatever you choose."
he was accepting of the concept. she did not expect to feel so warm and pleased by his admission that even without these children, she was welcome.
a smile flit across her face in the dark.
sulukinak thought to broach the subject of tunilallik as it was important, but when she opened her mouth it was to yawn widely and with shining teeth.
she looked sheepish for a moment after, and nosed in to dutch's fur. there, she mumbled, what happens if they never come home?
she meant the red woman and her nanuk; but as she thought of them, sulukinak realized she was happier without them.
He knew who she spoke of at once; it was recent enough that they were never far from his mind.
"I do not expect that they will," he replied, smoothing the fur of her cheek with a kiss. "If they do, they will find no welcome in me. I will not chase them away — but neither would I remain if they insisted on returning."
He wondered if this would seem very silly to Sulukinak; pride was not a concept he thought she'd had much experience with.
"And if they do not, I suppose our lives shall carry on as they are," he went on, answering her actual question. "Why?"
she listened.
the chance of their return was ever-present and sulukinak disliked thinking of it; but she was also comforted, knowing now that dutch would go if they returned, and that she would go with him.
she began to nest again, their conversation having worn her down and made her sleepy again.
i do not want nanuk to come back. we are better now without them both.
sulukinak burrowed her face in to fur.
Dutch laughed, soft and huffy. It comforted him to hear these words purely because he knew that Sulukinak had not come up with them to comfort him. It was just what she thought, and it made him feel a little less guilty for his own petulant opinions.
"Rest now, Sulu," he said, his tone apologizing for waking her. Then he tucked her head beneath his chin and tried to follow his own adivce.