Moonspear tatee

chakliux found that his lodge was unpleasantly quiet without his wife and son. kannoyak kept to the slopes of moonspear, hunting most often.
the seal hunter cleared debris and old trash, shook out the sleeping-pelts, and picked up chewed bones from the den-floor. he sat thinking of raiyuk for a moment, then nasamik, next sialuk, and then tullik.
and then he too left his lodge behind, seeking a hunt of his own.

Stingray had gone. Nassamik and Raiyuk too. Soon, Chakliux would join them but Njord knew not why he lingered behind.

Today, he traveled to the sealhunter’s lodge to find the man on his way out.

“Chakliux, mo chairaid! You have not departed for Moontide?” On one hand, Njord was thankful he would get a chance to say his goodbyes.

njord, councilor to sialuk. 
chakliux wondered at what was between them. the man was married and not of the north. but the raindrop was a powerful woman who had brought most of them into her ways. the seal hunter then, was intrigued.
but he kept his tongue.
"not yet, kamajik. my lodge is quiet without her voice and without raiyuk's play."
a wry smile that touched his eyes with something unsaid curved now. "sialuk, i wait to repay her skill in healing my wounds. then i will join my first wife beside the sea. but my lodge, ah. kannoyak will have it. and yet i want also to keep a home here."

Njord spied the smile. The sparkle in the seal hunter’s eye. But Njord did not understand it.

“Surely ye ‘ave repaid your debt, nae?” He queried, ignorant of the contract signed when Sialuk admitted a pregnant Nasamik and disgraced Chakliux into her village. “Ye ‘ave hunted tirelessly for the pack. Defended our borders and helped build this village.” In Njord’s eyes, the pair had given their honest all to Moonspear. “What more can she ask of ye?”

First wife. Njord was curious at this phrase, and a swivel of his good ear telegraphed this.

"ah, well." and here his lips were fluted in humour and perhaps a wistfulness. "sialuk wants more seal hunter blood in her village. when she calls for me, i go," he explained, setting his brightberry eyes on njord for a moment to see that the other man understood.
"i do not want to leave," chakliux admitted a moment later, scarred shoulders tensing and then lapsing into their ease once more. "but if nasamik is not happy, then i will not stay. yet i think i will take a second wife, and give her my half of the lodge."
this was a new thing, but not to chakliux, who had long planned for it. "meerkat told to me that stingray also, has left the village. when i go there, i will watch over him, njord. a boy becoming man needs other men to recognize what he has become but not to be a father who he might fail."