Moonsong Glacier pittaq ▱

it was hard to be back upon the ice mountain, to know it had long been without the moondaughter.

it was hard to stand among the pristine white drifts and know that ariadne would not come back.

a plume of white steam rose from her throat as she called out for @Dutch: without preamble, moonwoman said that her village could provide two bodies, either mother and daughter or the young pair.

but she asked to see him, for before she sent her people, kukutux wished to be sure that leading them was in his heart.

The day caught him by surprise.

Dutch had fallen into a routine since his visit to Moontide. He hunted. He swam in the lake. He learned from Towhee and taught what he could to Fallen Sun. At night, he curled up with Sulukinak and whoever else joined their pile, and when he woke, he did it all again.

Leith had become his main outlet for conversation. Dutch thought him strange, but he was a pleasant man — a man of science! — and the panther was able to fill his days in this way without falling into despair.

Life went on.

When moonwomam's voice rang out, he found himself frozen in brief confusion. Her meaning was clear, but his routine has become hard-ingrained very fast, and for a moment, he wondered how it was possible for something else to exist. When that moment ended, it was with a mighty shake of his gold-framed pelt. He stood up straighter, and he looked around for what felt like the first time in weeks —

I am coming, he called back to moonwoman, and then he dashed away to fetch meat from their last kill before seeking her out.

"Moonwoman," he hailed her, breathless, a tender haunch laid before her. "I greet you."

There was a wild look in his eye. The look of a single parent who had just jumped out of bed after realizing things were a little too quiet.

the usual week of her fire-time had come and gone, leaving kukutux with a vague sense of emptiness. for years she had dutifully birthed strong children at the hearth of her sun man. now this appeared to be done for her, and now vairë would be the young mother around whom moonglow flowed.

it was their way of things.

but was she ready?

"i greet you," she said, welcoming the spine-man with a smile that took in the disheveled nature of his face. "you are settling as headman of moonsong?"

At her question, his features pinched in confusion. "Headman?" he asked, though it was clear enough what this word meant. The panther colored beneath his fur, his head drawing up and back a fraction before he caught himself. "I am settled, yes," he said to her, "but whoever you send will have my support."

He searched her face, worried, suddenly, that his message had been taken the wrong way. Was she upset with his wording? Had he presumed too much?

"I have not asked this village to look to me as their chieftain," he murmured, his voice low, as if he was afraid one of the children other villagers might overhear such heresy.

moonwoman nodded, studying his face and feeling the that the cold tension of ariadne's disappearance had sapped the warmth of her usual greeting.

but this was a time of great change, and to know that dutch had not asserted himself as headman intrigued the duck. if he wanted power, here it was. he had not taken it, and to her mind it meant that he did not want it.

"i know no one in this place aside from the girl sulukinak and your own face." pitching her voice to match his, the woman closed her eyes for an anguished moment. "i have no moondaughters to send. my sister, my star hunter, she has offered to come. if she leaves the village then i have the thinking her daughter will not want to be without her."

"firsthunter and new wife will come if they are asked. but chickadee choosing this place to move their ulaq when the daughter is wanted in brecheliant maybe will turn the fat sour between us."

he was not headman. kukutux spoke as if he was, and now she looked into the handsome and sober face. "if this village is to be kept, then you and your people must quickly choose a headman or headwoman. i have made my choosing for this in you, dutch, but only if it is wanted in your mind and spirit. the ice mountain is fierce and strong. it will only bow to a strong leader, one who wishes to be here in its strength." 

there came a quietness, wherein the wind's howl could be heard through the tiny places of the ice caves far above. "firsthunter, kivaluk, was born at the hearth of kigipigak and abandoned at mine. we do not often speak of it, he is son to aiolos and i in all other ways." there was a frostweave tone now to her voice as she gazed along the glacier. "we did not see kigipigak for many, many months." a year? not quite? two years? 

"the next time that moonglow saw him, he was kaluktuk, asking the bride-price for the hearth-sister of the son he left behind." there was anger now; moonwoman sprang to her feet as if she were much younger.

"come. there is a sacred place here in moonsong that existed before its name. it is where the one i now call gray trader is buried. he was born alongside my first husband as brother."

if dutch did not want to be leader, then kukutux would not wish it. but he would know the secrets of this place, the hidden altars. the powers that bound the spirit of gray brother.

Moonwoman gazed up at him, and the panther gazed back. Slowly, he came to understand that she had no real help for him. Her star woman has a daughter who needed her, and her son and his wife needed to be close to her own family. He would not try to take them from the places they were needed. But he still felt the need to ask — 

"If they did come," he said, his tongue feeling clumsy, "Would they not lead this village themselves? I am not one of the sunshine people. I cannot lead them in your ways. And how can village Moonsong thrive without a moon?"

He sought her wisdom! These questions were asked without frustration, for her felt sure the answers would be given to him quickly now that he had moonwoman before him. He was quiet while she spoke; attentive. A story unfolded, and his expression grew hard as new truths were made known to him. Oh, he should have known! He felt a vicious stab of vindication; he told himself he was not surprised by the other man's history.

But that expression broke when he realized his own father's story was just as checkered, if not moreso. And if he could love Aditya, then perhaps he had no business passing judgement on the trader.

Still though, he thought. The man had led young Ariadne astray.

He followed quietly in moonwoman's wake, and, feeling listless, spoke words that had been stewing inside him since his mother's visit.

"My own brother has come back to life," he told her, his weary voice oddly devoid of emotion. "He did not thrive as a babe. My mother took his spirit back into herself for safe-keeping."

gray trader.

his grave was an expanse of unmarked ice.

his spirit had been tethered here in his anger.

there was no protection here from stone nor mountain; kukutux sank down into the long-ago remembered place where she had kept her vigil over him for the nine nights of death songs.

"they will lead if the people choose them." but her eyes were upon the land where once the thick red of life had stained the snow, where the wind had carried the last of gray trader's breath to the dancing lights.

"you are not a sunshine person.  a moon village must be led by a sunshine person. otherwise it is a village of its own."

acceptance must come! kukutux shut her eyes and lifted chin into the bite of the frost-burdened wind.

"so ariadne takes the name of moonsong with her. this does not mean that the ice mountain cannot be home to its own people."

to a new name, a new ways. the duck would not insist that the village come apart for the lack of her daughter. they did not deserve to be swallowed by other villages if they did not wish to come. "all in the wilderness are open to those who live here. but perhaps they want a chance to be reborn."

the wind tossed her words up, up and distant. "how did your mother accomplish this?" easy? was she a shaman?

The panther followed moonwoman to the unmarked grave, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He hesitated a few steps back and watched her sink into remembrance in heavy silence.

When she spoke, he only half heard her words. He stepped carefully up beside her, lowering himself a few inches away.

"What do we do here?" he asked her, wishing instead he could ask how to raise her spirit. Sometimes, however, there was no smile to be found. That was okay, too.

Her question made his ears flick.

"I do not know," he admitted, although he had theories. "She found a man close in age to me whose spirit had been injured. She said that his heart is warm, and that when she whispered the name of my brother to him, they met like old friends."

He looked to Kukutux.

"It is women's magic," he said, faintly puzzled. He had assumed all women's magic must be universal, despite having an impressive understanding of many other aspects of cultures different than his own.

to his question there was only a jut of the duck's chin at first, a gesture to the cold air above them. "listen."

kukutux was silent, and as winds laden with ice howled up the far side of the glacier, there seemed to be a man's voice caught in the cold lash, a mournful, spiteful sound. a shout that wavered and was swallowed.

"women's magick," moonmother murmured, thought she was faraway now in her thoughts of gray trader's final tortured moments. 

women's magick. ariadne had run away from it. 

would the others of moonsong? 

kukutux set her eyes on dutch. "i can teach those here to be sunshine people. our words. our ways. our magick. but you hear that the mountain is strong. it aches to be heard. the man who lies here, perhaps he tested my daughter and kigipigak. maybe he found in them some lack. that is why they no longer lead."

The panther listened when instructed, his ears swiveling uneasily as the wind cried out. He was not sure what it was he was meant to hear, but he bristled all the same as the wind crept under his pelt to cool his skin.

The mountain is strong.

Dutch knew that. He knew that this was the mountain his grandfather had once walked, too. He lifted his face up toward the peak, thinking of Grayday, and of the man called gray trader. Were both their spirits in this place?

"Do not send your people," he said after a moment, his face turning back toward her. "Your sister and your son belong among you. This place — "

He looked to Silvertip once more.

"It will stand or it will fall," he said quietly, "But the wolves who live here will find peace. If the pack cannot make it, I will send them to the other villages. And if it can..."

The thought sat uneasily in his chest for a moment.

"In the springtime, perhaps you can come to teach us your sunshine ways," he said. "But for this winter, I will have to do my best as sword of the morning."

He lowered his head to her.

"You have given this mountain much already," he said to her. "I hope, come spring, we will have something to give back."

without words, moonmother watched dutch until he spoke again. her nod was contemplative, acceptant.

she saw him as head of this ice mountain now. if his people chose another they would be foolish in their choice.

the right one for the moonsong wolves was before her.

"i will come back to teach when the sun returns," she said at last, straightening.

and her eyes were radiant with determination upon him.

"walk with sedna, uuyurat."

The panther's head dipped once more, accepting these words as her blessing. He did not know the word she called him, but he committed it to memory all the same.

"In my family, we bless one another: Be strong and vigilant. Protect one another. I will see you on the other side." He offered a smile that was a little truer than his last few. "Be well, moonwoman."

And he let her go.