Swiftcurrent Creek tuvaq

Home now, to the creek camp, Kilgitsuk had found nothing amiss in the world beyond. He had been trawling the waterway for fish as something to pass the time, and found himself at a loss for what to fill his time with.

The man still ached for those he left behind. He did his best not to share openly of his grief as that would not serve anyone; but in private, as he watched the water flow or the snow gather in near-silent flurries, he thought of Natigvik.

A fish surfaced briefly, as if to taunt him. Kilgitsuk did not see it.

kilgitsuk.
lestan by now was too settled and too harried to care so much that kigipigak obscured himself. he had hunted all day with nothing to show for it; now he returned home empty-jawed and morose.
the man sat beside the territory's namesake. lestan joined him, noticing the fish belatedly.
it was odd, somehow, to rest together here. the mayfair did not break the silence with any speaking.

Kilgitsuk noticed as the man approached. He kept an ear cocked towards Lestan in case the man had anything to say, but, there was only silence. They shared something uneasy and awkward.

The pale man cleared his throat eventually, scaring at least one fish away which had come very close.

I do not know how long I will stay here. It wasn't what he meant to say, but that's what came out. He wasn't sure why he was telling Lestan - perhaps because of their history, and his loyalty? His familiar face bringing out some semblance of truth? Or maybe Kilgitsuk merely needed to say it.

"are you going back? for sakhmet, i mean."
lestan did not know why he pried so harshly. the man had closed off his entire name. of course he did not mean to go back!
"or — are you going out there." lestan gestured vaguely, somewhere beyond the creek.

out there, kilgitsuk answered, momentarily.

he was not certain yet if he would ever go back to his wife; that thought alone gnawed at him, but he could not bring the truth to the surface, especially to another man. he could not let himself feel weakness or it might infect him and spread. hiding it was the only option - for lestan could see it as an opening, a means to an end.

kilgitsuk should have known better than to doubt this man. it wasn't lestan he doubted specifically, but all men, for he knew the way their minds worked - the way the world was, for them. he knew it because that was what his mother had taught him, and his father, when he had killed him.

a deep breath comes.

i am a trader now. my time will end here when the thaw comes. and he will be gone, as he was hawk-in-snow for as long as the winter persisted.

lestan nodded.
what could he say? what might he even voice?
a roll of his shoulders.
"hunt and trade with me while you are here, kilgitsuk."
acceptance. finality.