Sequoia Coast oil tears

seal hunt! vague on timeline and participants: @Raiyuk @Chagak @Sirmiq @Sea Hunter <3 can be single post/reference as well

once more did the seal hunter come again to the place of sea ice.
this time his heart was moved with heaviness, having once more pursued birdflesh along the cliffline and sought out their nests. he was reminded anew of what had been and what had been lost, and in more silence he made camp.
whispering aloud stories in the vein given down by his father, the seal hunter faced the heavens and murmured a quiet prayer that if sirmiq choose the sunshine girl nantahala, that they make their own way among their peoples; that they stand apart from what moon woman desired.
seal spirits; chakliux sang to them as the nights grew rimed with ice and the sea itself seemed to exhale the death-cold, which lodges into bone and marrow.
lemmings, hunted in mouthfuls to tauten bellies with warmth. at one point the tall man was forced to slow, skirting sapphique into a storm which devoured time and sent his paws sore along a frozen terrace, snow flying into his eyes.
there was a little amusement then, that he should almost go the way he had come! again chakliux found a font of energies long listing; he ran along the now-familiar ridges until they had come to the crossing of the five rivers.
there he made notice of sapphique and its nearness; he carefully forded along floes and between twisting chunks of glittered ice, leading on.
at last the frozen shore lay ahead of them, lay before; chakliux faced into its vastness with a peace in his heart not tasted in a place without sea ice.
camp, made again; snow shelters dug into archways, but soon he left his work behind to trot along the vastness of the frozen salt, heart a marvel that beneath it lay the finishing-stone of a seal hunter man.

It came time for his brothers to go on their journey, as he had. Fortunate to see this, glad to have been home in time for such a rite, Raiyuk was content to follow along and aid where he could. He cajoled those that accepted his presence, and gave smiles to those too shy to meet their elder brother directly; he followed Chakliux and hunted when needed, asked or not. There was a particular role for an older brother in this, and he was glad to find his place.

The path was familiar, until the storm pushed at them and drove them back. Raiyuk saw a weight to his father which had not been there the first time they had done this. He kept all questions back from his tongue. It was better to work, and to show his brothers what a seal hunter looked like, and to provide now in ways that he'd been unable to before, given how often he traveled. He wished his brothers to know him and to trust him—as until this point, Raiyuk was closer to a story told by Chakliux, or Tullik, or Marina, to those younger.

Once a site for their camp was chosen, Raiyuk aided in the building of sleeping-places by packing ice, or cutting through with claws and the heaving of shoulders, with digging or with smoothing. His breath plumed; silence came and went, and came again, as questions were asked by one or anther of his siblings, or a complaint maybe, all taken with a smile as Raiyuk focused on this task.

Then, after, Raiyuk saw to it that his brothers were safe and together, and that their father was with them too. Picturing them all together as one hunting party reminded Raiyuk of his travels and the people he had met, and soon he was resting among the sleeping-places, awake but distant and reminiscent of things he had seen, or done, and left behind in favor of this.

anxiety thrummed at the heart of sirmiq, as did excitement. for months now he'd prepared for this trek, for the leap to chilled waters. he had never felt such a buzzing of thrill in his blood before as their hunting party came to the sea ice. 

the storm kept sirmiq close to his brothers as they pressed forward, his eyes trained to raiyuk as he watched in the ways a seal hunter man moved. together with him sirmiq helped prepare their camp, learning how to claw at ice and tundra snow. 

and when the time came to plunge beneath the icebound sea, sirmiq gave low whoops of encouragement to his brothers and to himself. together they would take upon this task, and it was together that he hoped they would return. 

he jumped to the waters with a held breath, and thought of how he would prepare the seal skin that would make him a man.

down beneath the waves they plunged, and chakliux felt the good sting of the ice in his flesh and his eyes, in his bones and very marrow. gaze forced to adjust; his head ached for a moment as pressure denied air.
but skill claimed him next; with strong movements he cut through the water, berrybright eyes searching for seal.
he was radiant with pride; he glanced around for raiuk now, not knowing if his oldest son had chosent o dive with them or stay upon the ice to watch the water threshed red.
sirmiq now, brushed with encouragement beneath the waves as chakliux was forced to surface before return.

He watched as his father went beneath the ice. The urge to follow was strong! He was reminded of his first hunt and the struggle he had endured; and now it was time for Sirmiq and the others to go to the ice, and to go beneath.

'It would be best to stay above and to watch, and be ready if things go wrong.' He decided. As he turned to look for the first of his brothers to go, he saw Sirmiq. He watched as the boy plunged in to the cold and resisted the urge to grin as the boy struggled against the shock of the water.

Chakliux surfaced and Raiyuk moved to help his father from the water, or to be there; he knew his father was capable of much and did not want to be in the way of him, so he was quick to offer support and quick to move back again. It became a game of who can stay under the longest.

Each of the boys tried — leaving Raiyuk to wonder who would get a seal first.