Blacktail Deer Plateau from the steeples in the church yard

He was awake but didn't feel coherent; numb from the cold, dulled by hunger. The scrape which had been his makeshift shelter lay abandoned behind him—he'd been wandering for a while without any understanding of time, as each day felt like it had gotten shorter than the last. He doubled back when his bladder gut-punched him and as he sat squatting over the gap in the snow, waited for that liminal satisfaction to flood him. Afterwards he withdrew again, scratching the earth by accident as he lunged through the snow, fought against it... As tall and broad as he had become, and as adept as his bloodline made him when it came to winter, this was the first time the boy had ever experienced the white-out conditions. He didn't understand what had happened to the world, or to himself. He knew hunger. He knew lonliness. A part of him was afraid, but he walled that away, having devolved in the weeks since his separation from Diaspora and fashioned in to something feral, solely invested in his own survival.

He still thought of home but not in the same manner as before; whereas once Mesa dreamed of Takiyok and his siblings, or thought he could discern the familiar shapes of their bodies between waves of flurrying snow, now he knew he had gone mad; or rather, he suspected it, and the lethargy caused by his hunger prevented further investment. He trailed after them sometimes—those shapes led him through the greylight and the darkness, vanishing when the stars were exposed, fading in the dawn. He spent many sleepless nights roaming, chasing these ghosts. Sometimes the act of moving one more step was too much for him and so he'd drop in the snow, sleep for many hours, and wake only to feel the same emptiness. He was like a hollowed out vessel.

When the warm scent of wolves hit his nose he almost didn't react; figuring it was another trick of the white, or something concocted by his strugging brain. He bypassed one marker only to find another a few meters away—strong, layered—as if taunting him with the possibility of life. The boy circled between the two of these positions until his legs were too tired to keep him aloft, so he dropped to his haunches, looking down at a frozen line of yellow in the snow while thinking of how strange it looked. Didn't he do this? Didn't he make this mark? No—that was hours ago now, this one was different.

Unsure of what to do now, he merely sat... Pelted with snow.

remaining vague about his status/not mentioning anything rank-related

The snow that fell was a true sight to behold, comforting him whilst the feeling of bounding through the growing mounds felt natural; the weather spoke to him, telling tales of his ancestors and their journeys through the snow whilst his own was created before him. He had never found himself to enjoy anything more than the current forecast, the white blanket doing well to momentarily wipe the coast entirely from his mind for the first time in a long time.

Although the snowfall should have encouraged him to remain at home, it had quite the opposite effect on the young male; with each flake that added to the whitening of the earth underfoot, the more restless he became. But he couldn’t leave them—or, rather, he simply would not; the idea of leaving behind the faces most familiar to him was unsettling and he worried that, should he leave, he may never find his way back. How many had gone and not returned? He couldn’t add himself to those numbers. So Aningan loitered as far from the heart of the territory as he could, each jolt of energy driving him to better his maneuvering through the endless frost. Up until the frost took shape and that shape solidified, creating a wolf, not unlike himself.

“Kina…?” he drawled, slowed by uncertainty. Was this truly a wolf before him, or a mere illusion of the ice? He squinted against the flurries and then his eyes widened with realisation, his own voice repeating in his head. “Ah, no…” A restart was necessary. “Who are you?”

Sorry for the wait!!

He had nowhere he could go; if he did, that's where he'd be, or where he'd strive to reach. It was hard to keep things straight right now with how strange everything looked in the snow, and how hollow he felt. The emptiness of hunger had passed over him and even now, aching as he might've been, the boy had gone beyond the hunger and in to a new state of something different. The hunger wasn't gone but he still felt hollow, kind of like when you go so long without sleep that you're overtired, and then kind-of giddy regardless of how worn out your body is.

And so he sat there... And he stared. Sometimes the fallings now looked like a shape, and sometimes that shape was famliar—but only for a second. The shapes were dark sometimes and his mind said, Stigmata? When the wind twisted them in to piles of white he thought, Takiyok? His brothers and sisters too — and then one of the silhouettes drew up to where he slouched against the ice, and out of it came a voice he did not know, but... There was a faint accent too, and that he recognized in a vague sense.

The man wasn't someone he knew off the bat; whether the northern creature was related to his own ilk was unknown to him and he did not have the energy to think it. Who are you? The voice stated next, to which the boy moodily shrugged his shoulders and said: Tuvak. He did not know why he opted for his other name, other than finding comfort in the sound of it, and the memory of his mother. Maybe the stranger reminded him somewhat of Takiyok with his heavy-set figure and his frigid ice-white coat? In the end it would not matter. Nobody. He corrects of himself, and stares blankly at the man's giant paws.

you’re good! hope all is well

There was something missing from the boy, a spark of life not present in his eyes that the yearling found unnerving; he did not feel the stranger to be dangerous just… different. The lack of whatever it was, wasn’t something Aningan could say he ever encountered—yet it struck him with a familiar feeling and left him asking himself, is this me? Because seeing how he sat there, pelted by the falling snow, he wondered if he might have looked the same back before meeting Caiaphas. When he was alone, wandering these lands with not a soul to guide him other than the uppik.

And then he spoke—Tuvak—and the young leader wondered just how truly similar they were.

“Tuvak?” he repeated back. “Inuttut uKâlasonguven?” The name alone suggested yes, yet he refrained from letting his hopes get too high; what were the chances that he would happen across another of the north? “Are you lost?” Maybe the uppik found the boy like she had Aningan so long ago and guided him there…? But, if that was the case, then where was she?

He wished he was home, but didn't voice such a sentiment aloud, as it was pointless. It was clear by how hunched he was that he felt small and insignificant, and the way the snow pelted at him seemed to pile and begin to bury him where he sat, utterly lost within himself for a few moments. Tuvak would've stayed there and let the snow bury him if the stranger hadn't come along—and when they spoke again, this time with a language that sounded so familiar to him, his head raised and eyes brightened in a flash of understanding. That was his mother's language—!

Ketakuluk The boy enunciated sharply, and his jaw hinged a little afterwards, his surprise quite clear upon his face. He didn't have anything to say about being lost—or maybe his single answer worked for both questions. He knew he was still in the Wilds and that somewhere out there his mother waited for him, and his siblings, and all of Diaspora, but he had no idea where to start looking nor the energy to begin that epic adventure. So here he sat, frozen in place but so very alive in the knowledge that he wasn't alone anymore. This man was like his mother; he was one of their people, somehow.

I'm hungry, and it's so cold... He began to say, but the sad tone of his own voice made his blood run cold, and he refused to sound like a child; he didn't want to be weak, especially here before this man, although Tuvak had no idea why he felt this way. So he stopped his complaining and set his jaw, taking on a hard edge to the glimmer in his eyes. Who are you?

Ketakuluk.

Ketakuluk—a little bit was still more than those that currently surrounded him, the language belonging to people he wondered if he might ever find. But, he did find them, did he not? There was a boy before him, able to speak that language he treasured, even if only partially. This boy, Tuvak, was surely guided to him not by the uppik but by his ancestors—those that came before him saw the lonesome ways of the young Inuk and thought to resolve it, he was certain.

“I’m Aningan,” he introduced himself, tail wagging; a second later and his tail was stilled, a frown crossing his lips whilst Tuvak’s previous statement struck him. “Come on, maliniakKama,” he offered, approaching the young male to help if needed. “Mânek. Food is still scarce but… there are warm places to stay.” And if the boy was truly there by the will of his ancestors, then Aningan had to help him; he would not turn him away and fall out of favour with the spirits, especially not when he was unbelievably happy to have another of his people there.

Aningan. It was not a word he knew, but it was familiar all the same. Another aspect of his mother's tongue, his mother's people, and by proxy his own blood; he did not know what it meant but he found comfort all the same, there in the word. In the presence of the stranger. And the further the stranger spoke the more free Tuvak felt—intrigued by the promise of food and warmth and all that he would need to survive, he did not think twice about the offer. His strides were sluggish at first; his limbs shaking with the smallest effort to propel himself through the snow, but... He fell in beside the man, eventually trailing after him in his wake, as it was easier to follow in the path the man carved than to fjord his own through the blanket of nothingness. Perhaps he would survive after all—and one day he would reunite with his family and tell them of his adventure.