Neverwinter Forest grief.

Backdated to the end of June.

The time of death songs came to the mountain. Kigipigak could hear them, and he knew their significance; while the man was of Tartok descent, he hurt over the loss the same as the Sunshine People. They had lost a daughter - his children, a mother. Himself, a wife twice over. It hurt the same whether they were united or not. It hurt the same as the loss of their child. It hurt so much, and Kigipigak considered how pure and insurmountable the loss felt; wondering as he stood at the lake's edge, is it too much?

What was another body? He was a trader; what might his family earn if he were to give himself up? This lake which had taken Ariadne - it was not alive, yet he could see it breathe with the wind across its surface. It could not think, it could not plot, it had no malice unto itself; yet he stared out across that almost-stillness with such a vengeance in his heart!

Kigipigak was there while the death songs were sung. He heard the messages begged of mother to air, of heart to Sedna, and he thought of his own mother who would never have done the same if he should have died. Especially if it had been by drowning! A wolf of the endless ice and dark sea; a man of Tartok would die an honorable death only through battle.

He ached knowing his mother would have never sung these songs for him. That she had gone weeks before Ariadne, that it felt now the Sunshine People cried to his Sedna, begging for passage for what was left of their daughter.

He wished he could see her again. That he could believe strongly enough in the way of these people, and that his will might summon her (Sedna? Ariadne? By now Kigipigak did not know). He finally gathered himself in the stillness, as that final song came; it had been days of camping here in this place of loss, of not eating and barely sleeping - days, to wait out those songs.

As the last voices petered out, Kigipigak was on his feet. He had listened, he had willed, he had stared out at that water and as each day passed, traveled through his own grief. He knew there was nothing left to be done; realistically she was gone. She was gone. All that was left of her existed in their children together.

He ached there too, thinking of the boy.

The voice of Ariadne as she sang without him.

The image came to him of Sedna, stalwart like the mountain, and Ariadne begging to be free; of her with their child, finally.

As silence descended that night, Kigipigak raised his voice to sing to them. His voice had not been used for anything in a week, maybe more, after having shouted himself silent on his hunt for Nutuyikruk; and now it came erupting from him! The forest shook and sleeping birds took wing at the abrupt noise; but he did not care.

He sang what pieces of the death song he could remember, and gave it his own meaning with verses in the tongue of his people:

I knew you as Ariadne of the Sunshine, and then Asivaq of the Ice.

Know that you are loved by your children. That you were the Shining Water Girl to your mother and father; know you were beloved by many people.

Know that I am sorry...

His voice broke there, and as he took a breath Kigipigak tasted salt. He struggled and panted, noticing the racing of his heart and a dull pounding in his ears. The distinct feeling that something was wrong; but only because it was so wholly unfamiliar to expose himself like this, and speak his truth.

When he had calmed enough he sang again:

I wish we had more time.

I wish you could have met my Sedna, and not been tempted to your's.

I wish we could have mended things.

I wish you could see your babies grow, but I... I trust you will, wherever you have gone.

I hope you see Nutuyikruk, and that she is safe beneath your eye. Please keep her from Sedna; I promise to find her.

I loved you, Asivaq. I loved you, Ariadne.
Go in peace. Go, knowing you were, and are, beloved.

This last moment had a break of its own for Kigipigak: his spirit, which he had not but begun to feel, gave the sensation of such deep weakness that his voice did falter and he fell to his knees at the lakeside. He sat there in the ensuing silence, imagining the woman where she had been found tangled deep; and the man there with her, who had been a stranger.

If Kigipigak could protect that tender, hurting piece of himself in that moment he would have - but no, this was all too much. To accept the loss was difficult enough without the sensation of blame, and shame, and the deeply rooted sense of failed masculinity that choked that piece of spirit. And when Kigipigak did rise again, he would be even more firmly dedicated to the power of Tartok - the power he knew best, which would take the hurt away.