Moonsong Glacier fall at your feet

I figured she'd hear the ruckus

A song, not for her, but for the moonvillages.

Tulugak's head shot up, the hairs along her spine prickling with unease. It did not take a genius to decipher that something was very, very wrong. She had left Taqtara to bathe in the hotsprings in favour of traversing trails through Neverwinter, comforting as it was now held a more sinister feeling. 

What of cloud woman? Her brow furrowed as she recalled the last time her friend had been present - or well, absent - here. The memories weren't exactly pleasant. Nevertheless, she still held Ariadne dear to her heart. Breathless, she raced north towards the glacier, towards Morningsong. If Ariadne was to be anywhere, it would be here, right?

"Ariadne!" she cried, face slick with worry. The glacier loomed and leered above her head.

Valiant had felt the same call to the glacier, where Ariadne used to reign. He still thought of it as hers, even though he had known it as Dutch's for longer. Perhaps the same held true for her. But he found no paths on his way there, and when he lifted his head to call, it was another's voice that rent the air. He startled, rose-gold eyes widening for a moment before he called back:

"Ariadne?"

It was not her voice, but had its owner seen her? Were they both hailing her? Was she close at hand?

He picked up the pace, hurrying toward the sound's origin. There was no sign of the cloud woman on his way, and at the short trip's terminus, there was only one unfamiliar face.

"Have you seen her?" he called out, breathless from the run.

Ariadne?

For a brief moment of elation, she imagined the caller to be her cloudwater friend until logic said otherwise. It was masculine and not at all like Ariadne's timbre, and yet she knew she must investigate in case whoever it was brought news or information.

Wrenching her eyes away from the glacier brought her face to face with a shadowkissed man. He was entirely a stranger to her, though the faint speckles on his legs were reminiscent of someone she couldn't quite place.

"Not a trace," she regarded him warily before concern for Ariadne overshadowed any anxiety. "I heard moonwoman; I thought Morningsong would be her first point of call." By the urgency in his step, it seemed he harboured similar thoughts. "I wish to climb to the village and see if she has hidden herself away there." 

He did not have it in him to be suspicious of a woman, so the stranger's concern read as genuine enough even in this heightened state of wariness. He regarded her with a tired sort of curiosity, too out of sorts to make efficient inquires as to who she was.

"Morningsong moved to the Weald, a day's travel from here," he informed her. This was a fact. Easy enough to recite. He could still smell Dutch's scent markers — not borders, but messages left behind for some unknown entity. It did not occur to him that this was she. "I thought to check the village, too. No one has lived there for months, as far as I know — but she's not in the woods."

It was time to broaden their search.

He began moving toward to village, inviting the stranger along with a swish of his tail.

"Her daughter is missing, too," he went on, his voice grave. He gave a quick description of Nutuyiruk, his heart aching as she entered his mind. He was a distant figure to her, but he had watched over her with as much love as he had his own daughters. Moonglow was his family, now, and all of its children were precious to him.

Finally, he looked at Tulugak directly.

"I beg your pardon — I never got your name," he told her. "I'm Valiant Morningside," he added, an afterthought. "First hunter of Moonglow."

Morningsong had moved. Tulugak's ears drooped and she could barely conceal her dismay, though, as she begun to put the pieces together, she could hardly blame them. The glacier was Ariadne's by choice, not Dutch's, but still a little of her died to hear the village of her friend's creation now lay abandoned. 

Perhaps, if she had only been here-

"Thank you, I- I did not know," she dipped her head gratefully, pushing those thoughts aside for now. Following the man, she was surprised when they passed a number of scent posts all that smelled strongly of the village Chief. Her heart swelled, although he was not here to greet her, each message of his presence brought with it a sliver of warmth as they began to climb the icy slope.

The feeling shattered as quickly as it had come. "Oh, Sedna, she became anaa." And she had missed it all. "We will search every ice cave. She must be found quickly." Ariadne and her daughter both. Each step brought with it the sinking realisation that Ariadne now had a family of her own, a family that would be missing her dearly by now.

"Tulugak," she replied after a moment of thought. "Shaman - former shaman - of Morningsong. Friend of Ariadne and Dutch."

Her care for Ariadne was clear, but Valiant's lips thinned. Still, he was delicate when he said, "I'll search a few with you — but then I gotta prioritize the girl." His tone suggested Tulugak do the same. For, "Ari's got a history of disappearin'. I ain't sayin' that's what happened this time, but — well. It's just that Nutu's still little. And she ain't gonna have made it up here, if she even knew to come this way."

He wondered why Tulugak was the former instead of present shaman, but it ceased to concern him soon enough. They had a girl to find. Two girls, in his mind.

"Dutch is my brother. Well — my cousin. But like a brother to me," he said. He was started to realize that he had heard of this woman before. Dutch had called her the morning star.

As much as she wished to disagree, that Ariadne should be the priority, she could understand his worry. "If it is anything like last time, she may be gone for a while," her lips pursed at the thought. "You know, I came to peace when she vanished from Moonsong. But this- I do not know if I could forgive." Of course, Valiant may not be right, but the idea of Ariadne leaving her young family stuck a thorn in her heart. "Please, take me with you when you search for the girl." Nutu. "It is the least I can do."

Soon enough, the pair arrived at the communal area that occupied the village centre. From here, caves of glistening ice disappeared into darkness where they eventually twisted and turned beneath the glacier.

The revelation of Valiant's connection was met with a true, genuine smile. "I take it you two are close? 

Valiant didn't know what to say to this. He only grunted in vague agreement, lost in thoughts of what might have become of the woman — for he no longer believed she was gone of her own volition. He would not say this to her friend, however, just as he would not tell Tulugak of Dutch's new family. Surely this duty must fall to someone else?

Valiant, for once, felt it was outside of his purview.

He called for Ariadne a few more times, and for his young niece as well. When neither were apparent, he turned away to go.

"He was always there for me," he agreed, "Even when it shoulda been the other way around. C'mon — they ain't up here."

He did not want to be in this place. He wanted to go home to his own babies.

"He told me about you, I think," he said vaguely as they traveled. "He was real cut up when you had to go home. I heard him sing, sometimes."

And he had moved on, apparently! But Valiant had been much aggrieved by this past sorrow. When morning star returned, it'd sounded like things might get serious. Then they hadn't, and Valiant had stopped hearing about her at all.

Silence was always telling, with the panther. Valiant just wasn't sure what all it was meant to say.

She didn't know fully why she had begun to open her heart to this man; the only reasonable explanation being his connection to Dutch. There was an almost immediate spark of trust that Tulugak fostered gently among the icy terrain.

Joining his call for the lost girls, she gave a solemn nod at his defeat and they departed swiftly to look elsewhere

Their trudge, though melancholy, brought a surprising revelation. Although she fondly recalled his singing at her first departure, it was news to her how deep a mark she had left on the Chief. "He always had a good voice," she pondered to Valiant, though her eyes gazed elsewhere.

Oh, she would have to visit the Weald and hear it from him first-hand! "It pained me to leave the second time as it did the first, but my heart was not all with Morningsong." Dutch would have understood, surely. "Nevertheless, I am glad to have met his brother now," she added with a small smile, "though I wish it were under... happier circumstances."