Great Bear Wilderness Sea Born

For @Kukutux. Set outside of Moonglow's borders.

Mauruk approached the village of his mother once more. He stepped lightly, keeping away from the borders. Moonwoman had returned. Here he would find her, he knew. From within the guarded walls, he could feel the residual grief and sense of mourning. What was worse, though he had played no direct role in the life and death of Samani, he still felt weighed down.

He came in the late hours, as the sun began to set over another day. He came for closure. Closure which he was not so sure even Moonwoman could offer.

Calling out, he asked her to meet him this evening, if she had the heart to.

mauruk.

firstborn son.

spirit traveller.

cleansed man.

but still her sea-girl had died, and the man returned from sedna lived.

kukutux came to him, clad in the fur-wrap of a stoat. so much like the blackfox he looked! and yet when she reached for the love she had borne the moon-hunter, it was trapped behind the name she could not speak.

mauruk was not him. her eyes filled with the tears it felt would never stop their flowing.

She came to him.

A stoat skin around her shoulders. But she did not speak. Did not reach out.

Only wept, tears flowing freely. His face was somber. 

He knew why she wept. Who she wept for.

He sat gingerly on his haunches, head lowering to take his eyes from her face.

"I must know. Please. Is it my fault?" He strained, trying not to let his voice choke.

"oh, mauruk," kukutux moaned in words he would not know after the mountain had killed him.

"i do not know."

at last her arms were for the weeping wolf; even if she could not see him as son any longer, he was her blood, knit of her bones.

a child.

kukutux held him, jaw tensed to remember her sea girl, to recall the loll of her head and the lightness of a body which had lost all its blood.

He leaned into her arms. Once a boy, now a fine grown man. His athletic figure was riddled with small little shudders, like tiny little waves of the ocean.

She had no answers. Not the one's he sought. Brow pressing into the herbal scent of pale fur, he scrunched his eyes shut.

"Then...w-why do I feel so weighed with guilt? The ceremony...I was there. It should have been me, not her!" His voice cracked. 

He felt like a bad omen. A sister, lost. One whose beautiful eyes and voice he would never know.

to hold him caused kukutux to feel both empty and perhaps alive, the piece of her which remembered his birth, how she had grown this weeping man inside her own body.

"because you do not yet know what it is to be back among those who live, mauruk," kukutux said quietly. 

"you were a boy who did not know his spirit name. you died before the spirits knew your face. we sang you to the lights. now you have come back. your face is the same but your name has changed. but to them, to the spirits, you must be born a second time."

He breathed in a slow, deep breath. So, in a nutshell, the spirits did not acknowledge Mauruk as reborn. Not yet. That he had lost and missed much, the ways of Moonglow unknown to him. Had never known his spirit name.

Deep into her emerald eyes he looked, seeking the guidance he knew only she could offer. "What must I do then, to return to their favor? I will do anything, whatever it takes."

"you did not have a spirit-journey when you were a boy. when you had your first name. you will go out now, as if you only have six moons."

this was her only thought. if the spirits could not reach mauruk, then kukutux knew in her dread what must be true. this was the only way such horror could be turned away.

He did not hesitate in the deliverance of his soft reply. "I understand. If that is what I must do, then it will be so." His brows knitted while seafoam eyes lowered, thoughtful. Looking to his mother, he again, sought her guidance.

"For this journey...where is it I must go? Distance is of no consequence to me. I shall do what must be done."

a boy went from his village, as she would send her sons this year.

but these things could not be for mauruk. he had come and gone in another way. 

"i will send you to our kin, the caribou hunters. you will begin again. perhaps even with a new name."

a third name.

a second protection.

if mauruk was not protected, the spirit world would always call to him.

she looked into his eyes. "you may be gone for a long time, my son."

He fell quiet. Kukutux would send him to the Caribou Hunters. Kin of their own. "Where will I find them? When I go, I will integrate as theirs. Follow their word...the word of the spirits. Even if it must be with a new name."

He hoped he could see he was sincere. Devoted in going to any lengths necessary to redeem and renew himself. That he might be gone a long time, did not shake him. There was only quiet acceptance and soft determination in his eyes. "However long it takes. I will run with them until the spirits call me home." He looked to his side, pained in expression. "Even if it is a lifetime."

<33

her son!

"look for the cold sea islands. they are on the peninsula which faces the ice side."

her child!

her firstborn son!

"walk with sedna."

her love, he carried in his heart.