Moonspear [m] fear, itself

set for june 5th. attn: @Chakliux @Argent

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After months of watching the children of Moonspear thrive, Sialuk felt the sensation she had awaited. The fire burned in her when she woke that morning, having kept the night to herself. Laying on the deerskin, she blinked her eyes awake, knowing it would be the last restful sleep she would have in many days. She itched for closeness, but she went first to her shrine, eyes settling upon the horned skull that was its centerpiece.

And then, she called for her suitors, the summons replacing her usual greeting of the day. There was urgency in her tone, a warbling that was unmatched by any noise that had come from her prior to this day.

the seal hunter had settled into a rhythm. he woke. he sent his prayer to the oil father. he hunted, each day, even if his jaws were not blessed. chakliux mended what spring-rain had damaged of his lodgefront, utilizing the skill he had showed tullik.
after all, if she chose him, perhaps she might want this lodge. it bittered the man that nasamik had not wanted to stay. this was their home, where their children were buried. but he loved her, and as first wife, she had first choice of where they laid their heads.
so he would join them, eager to see her, to see raiyuk. to see stingray, and to perhaps divide his time between plateau and mountain.
but the rainstar's voice drove all things from his mind, for chakliux rose slowly, dry-mouthed, and knew the call.
he was quietly swift, choosing an old deer-path that wended its way to her ulaq, and there he found her, bright as the paling base of a flame, her eyes lit, her shelter filled with the urgency of spring. "star woman," chakliux growled, dropping lithely down to frame himself in the entrance.

Pualulik, she purred in return. The debtor had come to her ulaq, and she looked him over as hungrily as he had looked at her. Since the moment he had laid eyes upon her, Sialuk knew what Chakliux yearned for. The fates had brought them together when he was weak and hurt. Now his body was strong, and Sialuk saw it in a new light. Two deep marks along his muzzle, the eyes that had followed her for so long.

You come to pay a debt, she said. Nasamik and her boy had parted the spear for Moontide, but Chakliux dutifully stayed behind, holding up his end of the deal. Sialuk moved to close the distance between them. Show me how a seal hunter gives pleasure to women, she whispered into his ear.

Mature Content Warning

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happy to timeskip or fade! <3

chakliux caught sialuk in his embrace; he wanted the rainstar to feel the strength of him, to know that the promise he had made would be fulfilled now. to assure her that she had chosen correctly.
among the seal hunters there was a type of rite. a boy made man, freshly scarred, now caught the eyes of the village women. there was no talk of bride price nor marriage; their lives were short beneath the long dark and the harsh cold. the young danced together and with one another, and when the dance ended, they chose with whom they would make a lodge. the young born of those springtimes were raised by all the village. only if a man paired with a woman would he know the next year that the children were sure to be his, and perhaps not even then. the seal hunters recognized husband and wife, and the rights of a first wife, but wives might lie with other men, or women might have two husbands.
it was in this natal freedom that chakliux came to sialuk, unbound, unburdened; in soft time he bore her down gently to the furs of her sleeping place with the careful ardency of an experienced and patient man.
his debt, he wanted its currency to be her pleasured cries.

timeskip is good!

All in village Moonspear—and perhaps those in Moonglow as well—would know that a debt had been fully paid in the currency graciously provided by Chakliux. He was only the second man Sialuk had taken as a lover on Moonspear, and she did not regret her choice.

Sprawled on her side atop the deerskin now, she lifted her head just high enough to lick his cheek. The bones do not make mistakes, she said, thinking of how she had asked them for guidance upon Nasamik's request. I know it is not without ache that you have stayed while your first wife has gone to Moontide. To have children shared between us will make the bond between villages stronger. If Moonglow had a suitable candidate, Sialuk would have tempted him with an offer as well.

chakliux was pleased with himself and even more pleased with sialuk. he had known from the way the rainstar had first danced in the glen that she was filled with truths, and he had seen their face in her now, truly.
sialuk spoke of their union, of the children that would come, and chakliux grinned toward the ceiling of her ulaq, chest rising and lifting as he caught his breath; turning his eyes on her snowstorm body once more. "i hope to give you many sons and daughters," the seal hunter rejoined; already he felt himself replenished, rejuvenated by her nearness, her warmth.
favored would be all her lovers.

some friendly powerplay. <3

Sialuk grinned at his comment, then she let her paw drape over his shoulder and pulled him close to her. The scars along each of his shoulder drew her in, and she touched one of them gently with her paw. Tell me of the day you won your marks, she asked, moving now to rest her head on one of his forelegs.

A time would come when he would return to his first wife, but now, Chakliux was hers. She found herself possessive of him, perhaps only because he was bound to another, unlike Argent or Elentari.

a text wall! <3

that day had been scorched into his mind.
"my father and his brother came to find me early that morning. they said, 'chakliux, you have gone with us many times to the ice. you have watched as a boy. now you will hunt as a man.'"
"it was my ninth hunt but it was also my first." chakliux leant into the story, raising his own paw to caress the strong line of her shoulder as the rainstar curled close. "and so i went. we broke the ice upon the edge of the sea and we went down inside. your eyes do not work at first. and your body is so cold, you cannot stay for long at first. but i had been beneath eight times. and so i helped them trap the seal against the ice."
"this is where men drown. the seal grows strong in its panic; its hard tail can break a limb or a neck. but on this day, we brought the seal up, and we wounded him until his blood was all upon the ice. and then i killed him, and we called out to oil father in thanks, and danced until we could not."
chakliux grinned; he remembered his mouth full of blood, his teeth full of good seal fat.
"we called others from the village to cut the seal into many pieces and carry some to each lodge. and when we had finished that, i was so tired i could not walk. but my father, he laughed, he gave me a strong drink that the women had made. and then i was taken to the shaman, who then was my mother, k'os."
"i lay upon my back, and my brother lay across me, and my cousin held my head. and my mother made the long marks. 'do not cry, chakliux.' it was agony, but not once did i cry, not even when she rubbed crush-shell into the wounds, to darken them."
and from that day forward, he had been a full man of the seal hunters.

Sialuk listened in earnest to his story, one which was so rich, Sialuk felt as though her own arm burned with the marks as he explained how his mother had pushed the shell into his wounds. The tradition fascinated her, though they had no seals here for his sons to carry on this rite of passage. She knew now why he would move to Moontide, back to the ocean that was no doubt calling him, just as Moonspear had never stopped calling to her throughout her life.

And what rite does a woman perform when she finds that she is no longer a girl? she asked. Perhaps it was the same as the one Chakliux had endured, but this was not always the way. She wondered also what rites her own children would march into as they moved to adulthood. This was many months away, and yet she wondered... perhaps the bones would show her what tasks they would need to accomplish before they could be known as men and women.

"this is not so known to me, but i was a boy who listened to what i should not hear, and saw also what i should not see." a jest; his laugh ran low and smooth in the half-light of the shelter, and he drew sialuk closer.
"seal hunter women, when they have seen so many long long darks, they are considered mitsilillik: those between. the oil father may speak to them then. in the summer, they go out with the women and — well. i do not know all that happens. i know they dance. i know they are taught sacred songs. and i know that the shaman woman gives them a tea to drink, and through this the oil father comes to them."
"for a moon they do this, and then after their visions, they too, are scarred, in secret places. i have not seen it done. i have only loved seal hunter women, and so seen their spirit-marks." these were meant to draw the eye, to delight the lover, to bring the fertile energies down into coupling.
"this is meant to be tied to the spring where they will become women. a season to be in-between, the final long dark. a girl may seek unscarred boys her age, but men do not touch mitsilillik. it is a time of greatest power, and in the months of scarce food and angered storms, one does not violate taboos. it is said to be a between-time because evil spirits wish to possess a body for the winter, so those who stand between two worlds of life are bare to such forces once again."
chakliux had spoken much, but he was pleased that sialuk wished to know so much of his village.

The weight of his voice was pleasant, bouncing off the walls. The customs were so strange to her, and yet she knew they were important to his people. She wondered too if Nasamik had asked these things, learned of the man she had made her husband. Sialuk pushed the jealous thought away, not wanting to sour precious moments with Chakliux. She knew this was a test of her strength, of her ability to live up to what she had preached both to Argent and Elentari: pleasure was meant to be shared, not kept away to one person. There was no cap on the amount she felt for either of the regular visitors to her ulaq.

It is our way to give a spirit name to our children, she said. This is spoken once when we first come into the world, and again when we are ready to become man or woman. It is mother who gives these names, then shares them when we are ready. Sialuk recalled the day Kukutux had shared her own spirit name, and although that day had been wrought with frustration, the polar bear now found herself ready to become the mother she was meant to be.

a spirit name. this was not known to chakliux. but if kukutux had given it, perhaps it was a woman's thing, not for him to understand. 
the seal hunter lifted a paw to trace the powerfully beautiful features of the rainstar, pressing close to kiss her forehead.
"is it for me also to know, this spirit name?" he asked, suddenly whimsical about the young ones which might come from their bedding.

last from me! <3

Sialuk smiled, shaking her head beneath his chin. It is not, she said, then found herself growing drowsy and comfortable with the warmth of Chakliux radiating around her. The starwoman's breathing grew deeper and slower, and soon she dreamt of young children chasing Chakliux in the snow.

<3

for some time longer, the seal hunter was awake. but then he too answered the warm press of sialuk's sleeping form, lingering as she did, waking when she moved, all of him craving and attentive to any one of her desires.
the rainstar had captivated him.