she meant to visit moonspear, to see her sun man, to see sialuk and arrluk and ajei, and the grandchildren here.

her mind whirled with thoughts of samani and ariadne; their voices called to the old woman, and she blinked back tears that she blamed upon the day's hot wind.

she must pull the moon villages together with the end of her strength. she knew there was no end yet to come, but she felt the years crumbling underfoot.

mind turned to that of an atsak, and as the sparrows flitted from branch to branch, the duck pondered.

nantahala, ikniqpalagaqï, and yuralria — one of them stood to perhaps inherit the pack from  vairë. it was for this reason that she felt matches must be made over the winter, or at least sought in the following spring. she did not wish for her granddaughters to wander.

of these young ones, it was nantahala who her grandmother considered now. she had never raised a daughter to be an heir, nor a grandchild; she wondered if such a thing must now be done. if kukutux was able to far-see, to predict what might be, perhaps death would not touch her lineage again.

stratos should have been her first son married, but with a smile she knew it would be arrluk. she placed him alongside ajei in her mind. massaraq, kassuq, and galana had gone on their own ways. she hoped they were together. and salaksartok; the duck knew he would thrive among the caribou people.

she considered lómion and ipiktok now, young men ready to marry in the coming year. acrux too, kukutux thought on, stepping over a tussock of stubborn grass, though she had not seen he nor maggak in some time.

panuk must heal. moongrove was a silent place of sorrow inhabited by he and callyope. if any could turn such bleakness to silver, it would be some power of their love for that place, for the spirits which roamed. panuk — he would still inherit moontide, kuktuux believed, and relaxed. oh, rolayne; she grieved and felt embarrassment, that she hardly knew the dark, silent son of her sea-girl. lead him home, she begged of sedna. lead him back as you have the other moon sons.

akmaaksi and nutuyikruk; her heart said they must see one another, and their brother, before they were whole again. she wanted them home, to be children as had been denied them by the loss and then the death; her own guilt rose now to haunt the elder.

pauk, tiuttuk, and kaujimaq, were spared their grandmother's machinations for now. sialuk had her own way of rearing the young there upon the mountain, and it did not involve arrangements.

five seal hunters had been born to chakliux and his wives. it pleased kukutux to consider that one day the clans might be united again, and she would wait to see them at this gathering.

rain fell against a golden sky, and the woman went on, considering how best to protect their blood against the teeth of a goddess.