Sequoia Coast seal mother

travel map

the going was soaked and long. the seal hunter and the boys followed the coastline for many days, fishing and watching the sleek bodies of walrus, sea lion, and seal.
chakliux was inexhaustible in his eagerness to reach the sea ice, but he tempered his step for their own.
a bluff of birds provided their second camp. again they hunted the crying waterfowl and stole eggs from high ridges. their dinner was rich with oil and fat. chakliux told @Raiyuk and @Matteo many stories long into the night, describing the filling blubber of the seal, the way it could be kept. he told of the sweet meat, and how once they had taken one seal, they could come to hunt more.
urchins with their ripened ovaries of orange eggs provided traveling fare the next morning. pointing out how fog had haloed the moon and now muted the sun, chakliux led them inland, toward the taiga.
rabbits were taken here, and lemmings. a river quenched them, but the staunch markings of many female wolves turned their track again. "that is sapphique. they do not much care for men."
the sea fell away behind them, even down to its sound, and they were left with long drifts of snow, ice crusting the top into sharp ridges. they hunted the plains, made their camp in the open as caribou swarmed in the opposite direction, thousands in their number. a hunter learned to track them by putting his ear to the ground, chakliux explained. he went on to describe the caribou hunters, those people who do not build lodges or ulax, but instead follow the herds, timing the birth of pups with that of calves in a sacred cycle that had lasted a long while.
the moraine called for a romp, a test of their muscles in the snow, and then they were curving back toward the sea, putting a large mountain between them and sapphique.
then the land became flat again, slanting toward a sheet of white. he did not call a camp that night, and the three of them traveled through a night made pale by the reflection of moon on snow.
the dawn only brightened what they had not seen before: the land here was split by five rivers rushing from the tangle, and the seal hunter showed them how to carefully ford as the expanse of glittering whiteness grew ever closer.
and then they had come to the edge of the ocean, and chakliux stood in reverent awe as candle-ice licked the edge of hard-packed floes, the sea vast until it ended in glaciers which groaned and let down themselves into the water with a great, sharp cracking.
homesong sang in him, deep and silent.
"we will camp here. tomorrow we will enter the water. the cold is like nothing you have felt before. your body must know it first."
dried meat and the pogy-fish, filled with oil made their dinner. they lay down closely in a cluster of stones upon the white-ice beach, but chakliux did not think he could sleep.
were he ever to build a village, here is where he would set its first stones.

If he were to fail in his hunt, if he were to drown beneath the ice alongside the seal in the deep ocean, if he were made in to an example for siblings he would not otherwise meet, Raiyuk's spirit would hold firm to these days of travel with his father and his lodge-brother.
Already the ice of his heart, which had become solid leading up to their departure from Moontide, had melted and become something new. He was not afraid of what was to come; he relished every opportunity to fish along the seaside, or chase the birds and steal their eggs, and in the evenings when Chakliux shared his many stories it was Raiyuk who was last to fall asleep; his mind buzzing with the tales, importing himself in to these spectacles as if he had lived them.
He dreamed of the sea ice.
He saw the seals with their heads bobbing.
He knew the cold of the frozen ocean and in this dreamscape, was as nimble as any shark.
In the waking hours Chakliux spoke of a place where women gathered, those who did not like men, and he was reminded of the way the Moon Villages did the same for their circles; but somehow it was different in this coastal place, even with the ripe scent to rival the salt.
Finally, they made camp for the night and Raiyuk's father warned of the coming trial.
He ate well, and he knew he should sleep; he needed the energy in the morning, and he needed to be in top form. Yet it was alongside Matteo that the boy sprawled. He saw that his father feigned sleep poorly, and in silence the trio rested together, each anticipating the morning.

What exhaustion he had felt during the bison hunt paled in comparison to the aching fatigue he experienced at their second camp. He was keen to show off the skill his father had taught him, but come dinner his eyes felt heavy and his legs like powdered snow. They gorged themselves on eggs and fowl and before long, Matteo was a puddle of charcoal fur beside his brother. The words of Chakliux spun dreams of singing seals as he drifted asleep, and he was reminded fondly of Dutch.

Day by day he could feel his muscles becoming stronger, his lungs a little more forgiving as they hunted and trekked and slept again. As the sea faded to a grey smudge on the horizon and they entered the snow-covered plains, his mind wandered to the girl Sobeille. The thought of her disapproving scowl as they hunted her water cousins brought a faint smile to his face. 

The ocean was a welcome sound as they arrived finally at the sea ice. It was as intimidating as it was beautiful; the boy spent perhaps longer than he should gazing transfixed as it undulated like the flank of a great big sea creature. 

That night, sleep evaded him as much as the others. In the end, he came to rest his chin upon his brother's shoulder as he dozed in and out of consciousness, soft puffs of air ruffling the fur there in a steady rhythm.