Ocean's Breath Plateau caught in the waves

Night after night @Sialuk sang the keening songs of her people in a language Seal did not understand.

With each chorus, feelings she could not identify washed over her. Flowed through her. One day, she would comprehend them.

Seal remained close to her mentor and was even trusted to brew an herbal tea to ease her leader's throat.

By day, she watched the Moonspear children. She even found time to reconnect with her childhood friend, @Raiyuk. How he had grown!

A sense of change displaced her usual groundedness.

The sea air was cold and the sky was gray.

hope u dont mind me!

it was in quiet that moonwoman came to sit beside the young woman.

she knew seal through her understanding of meerkat and njord, and their older sons.

silently she had wondered after a future match for one of her sons, but it was not on her mind this moment. 

the springjade eyes roved the ashen sky.

"it is hard to carry grief when you do not understand it."

Big heart eyes!

“Moonwoman Kukutux,” Seal breathed quietly when the revered leader, the beating heart of Moonglow and her villages, sat adjacent. She was the mother to her idolized mentor, Sialuk, as well as her friend Massaraq… but the boy and his brothers were not here for this ceremony and Seal did not know why.

Her doe-eyed gaze shifted shyly from Kuktux down to her own sandy toes.

Momma and Da had departed for Sun Mote Copse. On one hand, Seal felt energized by her newfound freedom… but on the other, she felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. As if her parents counted on her to succeed.

She wanted to do well.

Moonwoman’s cryptic words poked holes in her small ego. She had much to learn.

“Is that why she sings?” Seal asked as she thought of Uncle Caracal and her poor cousins.

:D <3

kukutux nodded.

"we sing to send the spirit through the throat of sedna, to the dancing lights. nine nights. three to know they are dead. six to know they cannot return. nine to complete the ghost-walking."

"but we let our voices sing what is in our heart. and there is much pain now. we must let it go."

the young girl's respect was palpable, and kukutux felt in it her ticking shift from mother to elder.

maybe her path had ended this year.

but she did not feel anger or pain. only a slow settling.

"do you sing, kasigiak?"

New questions burned inside Seal and it felt like the more Kukutux spoke, the less she understood. Who was Sedna? Where were the dancing lights? What was ghost-walking? Why couldn’t the spirits return? Is this why Sialuk had never uttered Samani’s name?

Seal’s ears twitched to telegraph her processing mind.

Then, a question. “I can sing, but I’ve nae sang,” Seal explained as her brown eyes flicked back up to Kukutux. “One time, I chanted with Sialuk tae lay an old spirit tae rest.” But it wasn’t the same.

“What happens… what happens if you cannae let go of the pain?” Seal asked.

kukutux was pleased to hear that sialuk was passing along her spirit-talking ways to the young, especially those who would be women.

seal had perhaps not felt such pain, which must pour from one's lungs into the sky.

this was good; she was too young to suffer in this way.

"if you cannot let go, you become bitter. it stays with you. it turns food to the taste of dirt and keeps your eyes from closing at night. not letting go of these things will mean a sharper life."

“That sounds like that story you told us… the one about Akhlut.” Seal was beginning to comprehend that harboring negative feelings could irreversibly transform one’s character. Bitterness, anger, shame… the many traits that could coax a monster out of one’s spirit.

“I willnae ever let that happen tae me,” Seal vowed to the wise woman with large, innocent and dewy eyes.

Another chorus of Sialuk’s song raised above the drone of distance crashing waves.

Seal’s ears rolled back as if she shared her leader’s pain.

“What more can I do for her?” Seal asked Kukkutux in a quiet voice. “I ken she must let the pain go, but… it’s hard… difficult… I feel helpless.”

kukutux thought of that old, old story, something like a smile touching her mouth. "yes. like Akhlut." the seal girl was learning.

she put an arm about seal in response to the promise, and for the next moment, sialuk's pain existed in them both.

a breath, drawn. "i know it is hard to see. to listen. but sialuk must do this alone. and she will feel lighter once her pain has gone into her songs. wait for her, seal. see that she eats. this will not last forever."

When Kukutux embraced her, Seal laid her head against Moonwoman’s shoulder and took a deep breath.

From her words, Seal began to understand what it meant to support someone. Give them space. Give them time. Be near, should they need you. Bring food to fill their bellies, even if their heart was empty.

“I will, Kukutux,” Seal agreed. “Sialuk is a dear mentor to me… I will be there for her through thick and thin,” she swore.

She offered Moonwoman a smile to show she had new optimism.

“You have new faces in your village. The little ones,” Seal observed. “One even has a red tail just like my Da. But I havnae seen Arrluk, Kassuq, Massaraq, or Ajei. Could they not come?” she asked.

kukutux smiled softly to see seal's changed countenance.

at the mention of her sons, she grew thoughtful but maintained her warmth. "that is nasamiituuq," moonwoman murmured. "she is daughter to vaire, who is my daughter." and so she was grandmother, which pleased her.

"i sent my sons away to seek their spirit walking, seal. it is what changes a boy to a man. they will each come back, but they will come back with new knowledge."

“To a man?” Seal echoed. Suddenly, the young woman thought of the birds and the bees speech with Meerkat, and the girl blushed so hard she thought her nose had turned bright red. She quickly cupped a paw over it, just to be safe.

To think of her friends differently was a strange notion. The next time they saw each other, they would be children no longer.

“What about girls in your village?” Seal asked as her embarrassment began to change into curiosity. Eventually, she would learn to lean into the close circle of women in her life. “Do they seek a spirit walk, too?” she wondered.

And what will that change look like for me? The girl asked herself.

a shake of the pale head. "a young girl is brought to the woman's circle when it is almost her time to be a woman. a boy will become a man a full twelve-moon before he can become a father. a girl has more time. but when she is taken among the women, we will tell her what it is to be married, and what to expect of her man."

jadestone eyes blinked thoughtfully, seeing how seal had reacted in shyness. "sometimes a girl chooses her man when they are both young, before she is wife and he is hunter. it is the heart which chooses."

Seal listened closely, attuned to the wise woman.

She was thankful she would have a sisterhood of women to lean upon. She would not be alone in this journey. She chewed her lip as she thought of sister Orca back home at Moonspear.

Then, Kukutux continued. Seal’s face grew in astonishment. How could anyone’s heart choose so soon? Make such a big decision? She thought of the butterflies in her stomach that time when...

“Is that how it was for you and Aiolos?” She knew the Sunman’s name. “Did you choose him when you were both young?"

a flashing smile, a radiant eye. "i was round with children when i made my meeting with aiolos. when i saw his face after the great star, we had both lost much. but from this moment, we have been together."

nostalgia glimmered upon her face; she found herself in the reveries of an old woman, thinking not only of sun man but the blackfox who had been killed, all the gentle ways in which he had loved her.

and then —

"there is something i have not said to anyone, seal-girl," kukutux murmured, for in this moment she found something behind the soft listening eyes that spoke of a power not yet realized.

"when i had nine moons, there was a seal hunter boy. his father and mother journeyed far to my village to speak with my father and my mother, who was head of the women's circle. they brought him. his mother did not think well of me. 'she is too thin, like bitter saltgrass!'" echoing the complaint brought warmth to moonwoman's face, not for what had been spoken, but for the time after. "in the time when she said this, and more, i felt a wounding inside me. but as our mothers talked, i looked at the boy and he looked at me. and i saw he was very kind."

a breath, the jadestone eyes lifting heavenward as if to search for the memories. "they left him there. it was the way of things. there was much distance between our villages, and much ice. for six moons he lived in my village. we were sent to stay in an ulaq of our own. in this way, you find if you are able to be married. if you are able to grow, two in one bond."

wistfulness; "i liked him very much, natchik." a blink. "and i would have married him as a true wife, for in those six moons he hunted well and was very kind." kukutux did not say more on this; how men had held power in the isle, how it was by their word that things were done. that punishing one's wife was the right of a husband. she had not brought those ways with her and her daughters would never know them.

she had loved a boy despite all this, and he had died beneath the falling rocks as had all of them, save kukutux, and only because her grandfather had sent her out onto the taiga to collect eggs that day.

"i say all these words to tell a story of love. i knew when aiolos came to me that we would belong to each other. but i remember the seal hunter boy even after all these many, many years. you will love more than once, seal. you will choose more than once."

What a beautiful story! Mind if we wrap here?

Seal’s expression became astonished. Never could she have guessed Kukutux and Aiolos had met later in life. They were so bonded, so aligned… It was proof life was not a straight and narrow path. It wound like a river through the mountains. Waterfalls, rapids, and dams could interrupt the water’s flow. However, in some places, a river could be calm and full of life – even fork in two!

Most of all, this notion gave Seal hope, optimism, and independence.

Then, Moonwoman shared a secret tale with the young woman. She loaned the elder her ear and listened to the story, captivated.

Seal could imagine the setting. Small villages on the long ice. Short winter days filled with blustering snow squalls… and as a girl fast approaching her ninth moon, she could envision herself walking in Kukutux’s pawprints. It was all very harrowing… and romantic.

Then, assurance. Guidance. Empowerment. “Thank you Moonwoman,” Seal said sincerely. She felt renewed and realized her discord was gone.