Duck Lake cousin elk

staying vague! <3

they left the creek, following the din of ducks toward a glistening expanse of blue. chakliux, aquainted enough with the streamways in the wilderness, he had not kept company beside a lake since moonglow, and this one was larger!
"i miss my wives!" he declared, laughing aloud. "the lodge is warm and their voices wind together. i could be upon the ice all day, for hours, and returning home would remove all ice from me."
it was a wonder @Dutch did not have women of his own, chakliux thought in admiration. simbelmyne might choose the spine-hunter, a pleasant thought for the seal hunter who had begun to claim him as companion.
among his people there was a specific sense of hospitality: a trader who came to one of their villages would be playfully fought over. each lodge wished the honor of hosting so powerful an individual. the one who won the trader's eye might also gain the attention of the women within the lodge.
bearing a trader's child conceived in luck and happiness brought a sense of protection to the village at large.
chakliux did not expect this from his wives. it was always a seal hunter's choice and this included equality among their women for such practices. but the image of dutch among them was pleasing to his mind, though he thought again of the glacier.
he sat down among the long grass and let his tongue loll. "if the storms come, we must turn back. i promised to raiyuk that i would do this."

It was a pretty picture to imagine. Dutch had thought often of Chakliux's wives, and what they must be like. He assumed that they were not seal hunter women, but were they as stalwart and boisterous as he? Raiyuk seemed more reserved, but Dutch believed that it must be due in part to the natural shyness of youth.

"Then we will have you home to them," the panther replied. "It is good that we seek to destroy this evil — but they are better served with your presence, if this cannot be easily done. But the packs we warn will not harbor him, and he will find no succor. He will die as the fates will him, either at their teeth or our, or the teeth of the winter — but regardless, he will die."

It had been said before, but Dutch thought this sentiment bore repeating. It would be hard on them both not to finish this task before returning home, but it would fall hardest on the seal hunter. The panther had been trying not to let him dwell on this too often or for too long at a time. He shifted the subject now, just a little, back to what he'd said before.

"I will return to Moontide with you, if you still offer your hospitality," he said. "I would like to meet your wives, and young Matteo. And then I must return to Moonsong to see that they are well. But after — I have no wives or children. I can go and search the hinterlands, and warn any I meet there."

once more dutch reaffirmed him and their mission; once more chakliux faced into the fangs of the wintertime wind and his nostrils burnt with the cold, and he felt confidence flood through his veins once more.
he had not lost it, but what he had lost was time; with raiyuk, with tullik, with marina. he had lost time in preparing his son, in soothing one wife, in teaching another. 
and the monster had stolen this from him.
"yes. come home with me, dutch," he said, at last relenting with a flash of his teeth. "and then go on your journey." his eyes were regretful that he could not go upon a second with the spine-man, but not truly so, for he would be taking raiyuk on a path that was to change both their lives.
"you have no wives and or children." the mouth quirked, but chakliux was watching the ducks as he spoke, not staring at his companion. he only wondered.

Dutch stepped into the shallow water and watched blood and grit flake away from his toes. Bounty hunting didn't appeal to him now in the way it had in his youth. It would be a cold and lonely journey without Chakliux beside him, and with only the grim task of slaying the monster at the end. He hoped still that they would find him before the snow, and Chakliux would be able to dispense justice rather than Dutch performing pest control weeks after the fact — but it was not looking good.

"Well — children, maybe. If I can count Krait and Catamaran. But the sisterhood only acknowledges mothers. Aside from the necessary contribution — " he flashed a sideways grin at the seal hunter — "Fathers are obsolete. My connection to them is immaterial."

A flock of geese called to each other across the lake. Their cries were unearthly by the time they reached his ears in the cold, wet air.

"I wish sometimes that I hadn't laid with Auk," he admitted, his ears slicking back against his skull. "I was allowed to visit, but I could not be a father to them. They turned the males out when they reached their majority, but they did not wait for me. They had already gone south when I arrived at the turn of the season, as I did every season while they grew. I left a message for them with their mother, but I do not expect they will seek me. What use am I to two grown men who already have each other?"

It was a rhetorical question. Dutch turned back to Chakliux, his expression pensive.

"I spoke to moonwoman," he said, appropos of nothing. It seemed for a moment that he might say more, but his thoughts outran his mouth, and he found himself at a loss for words.

krait. catamaran. the ways of dutch's people were strange and perhaps wrong, if it seemed that his companion was so greatly touched by what he had experienced among them. in his mind, the echo of wingbeats upon the crystalline surface of the lake reminded him of their breath, of his. of theirs. connected beneath a spiritual magick that not even shamans understood.
his sons had been carried off by these women. dutch had not been allowed to rear them or even have a hand in what they had been taught. his thoughts shifted to raiyuk, already such a fine seal hunter before he had received his scars. without his father, he might not have become that.
he was humbled and thoughtful, not quite registering the mention of moon woman. in a way, she had touched his first marriage as well, empowering nasamik even if she had left moonglow for chakliux, and tended him through his wounding.
but dutch had been denied all these things, and the seal hunter saw the magnitude of what had been said, and the vastness of what had not been spoken.
"i feel you are already father. see how you speak of them. it was what your heart always wanted, even if this was not allowed for you, dutch. if someone took raiyuk from me, and i knew he still lived, i would never stop my love. i am his atâtak, forever. so are you to krait and catamaran. and if they come here, i will say this to them also, that i saw fatherhood in your heart when they could not yet see it."

Dutch smiled to himself, unsure if he thought Chakliux's sentiment very naive or very wise. Either way, he understood it was meant to bring him comfort — and so he let it. He might not have his children, but he had friends. Other family. Moonsong.

"They were happy children," he said, as he had often thought to himself in the dead of the night. "And they grew into strong men and women. This is how they honor me." He didn't need them to know or love him, no matter how much he sometimes wished things could be different.

His paws were going numb in the cold waters. He tasted sharp ice on the breeze.

"As Raiyuk honors you," he said, turning and ramming his head into the seal hunter's shoulder. "But he has not passed his need for you. So let us run before the snow — so you will make it back to him on time."

buffeted by the friendly blow, chakliux fell back and laughed, sending a splash of water toward dutch.
and then he truly was rising, experiencing the pleasant rush of adrenaline in his muscles; he nipped at the freezing air and darted leftward, around the flank of the spine-man.
ahead of the snows; the hunters' path was made, and chakliux pounded madly along the side of the lake.
"do you miss home?" he inquired in the next breath, his tongue lolling as he slowed, watching the frightened ducks take to the skies once more. "moonsong, i mean. or both."

They frisked along the lakeside, tails wheeling despite the deadly intent of their hunt. Life, Dutch had heard, was what happened in-between. It did not pause while they doled out justice or exacted revenge. It did not wait while they searched for lost family or for a place to call their own. So if this was his life, Dutch wanted it to be a happy one — and Chakliux did not make this a very difficult task.

Still.

"Yes," he admitted. "Moonsong."

He didn't like to think of them getting along without him. He'd not been there long, and his position still felt rather tenuous at times. He missed Fallen Sun and he worried for Sulukinak, and he wondered often if they were all getting enough to eat while the weather cooled.

"They are a pack of strays," he said to Chakliux. "Strangers that Ariadne has gathered together. They all have love for her, but I do not think the rest of their bonds are strong. I wonder who will be missing when I return."

None, he hoped. But he was a pragmatic man despite his penchant for fairytales.

dutch did not speak so well of moonsong, which caused the seal hunter to pause, to suck his teeth.
"a lodge can always be made larger," he said to the man, the bright eyes solemn for a moment. if dutch did not feel cohesiveness upon the glacier, perhaps he might another place.
secretly he had dreams of a true seal hunter village, where his wives might embrace his hunting-brother in a similar way as they did for him. such connections built strong power between individuals.
"do you think she will hold them together?" he asked of the charming and beautiful moonwolf, one who had not in the end chosen chakliux.

The panther barked out a laugh at this rejoinder, not to mock, but to express the sudden helplessness he felt. It was shallow and fleeting, for he knew he had everything he could want already. But, "You tempt me," he admitted, wondering at the full context of such a statement. Did moving into a lodge mean you joined a family? It was something more intimate than a pack, he thought, since Chakliux still claimed Moontide, but it did not seem that all of them dwelled in his domain.

"But Moonsong — I am called to the glacier still." He studied the seal hunter's face for a moment before quietly conceding, "Perhaps not for forever."

The question brought a gusty sigh past the panther's lips. He looked out at the waters once more, his own thoughts drifting to cloudwoman, and to the ragtag team she'd put together.

"It is not only up to her," he said after a moment. "And she must be more than a leader. More than a friend. Where there are no blood ties, lives must be woven together with skill. And she is young yet. Injured. She will focus on her brood through the spring. When I left — " He wasn't sure. He thought of Sulukinak, and he fretted for a moment over how she might be getting along. "There were many loose threads. I worry they will be left awry in my absence."

temptation! it was a start. the seal hunter had dreamed of such an arrangement since he and kannoyak and tullik had shared a lodge; the blurring of men with wives into a unit of four and the children born from it given a quartet of parents to ensure survival.
perhaps not forever. chakliux accepted this with a jerk of his chin, knowing to say no more for now on this front.
loose threads. did this indicate moonsong's fray? the seal hunter had not known dutch a long time, but he felt that by now he could assume safely this: the man would not stay if the glacierpack was ready to simply disintegrate.
"ariadne is a sunshine woman. you have seen they are strong. she knows she must find her footing." but would dutch stay to discover this. "she has chosen kaluktuk. do you think he will guide her as leader?"

Dutch hummed in agreement; yes, there was something to be said for the strength of her people. She had come from the body of moonwoman, who was as wise a woman as the panther had known. And of Kaluktuk —

"He is as strong as hunter as any woman could wish for," the panther replied. And then, as if it answered Chakliux's question: "But I do not know him well."

Perhaps this was his own failing. He had not been as forward in pursuing Kaluktuk's friendship as he had Fallen Sun and Towhee's. Perhaps the others knew him better than he.

"There is no point in worrying over it," he admitted to the seal hunter. "We will see when we return what cloudwoman has made of it."

"i do not know him either," and chakliux set to broodiness.
dutch was right. the seal hunter wished for the success of the moonsong village almost as much as he wished for ariadne to tire of her man and seek better diversion in moontide — he had not forgotten what he had promised her, but her head had been clouded by the other northman.
now her eyes were all for him and chakliux was jealous, an emotion he refused to indulge.
"let us hunt," he grunted. "i need meat."