Mount Apikuni I still wonder if I ever felt the pain

<3

The girl chased the stars.

They shone bright tonight, roused to life through the fading hues of sunset. Brilliant, and ever watching. Nanook traced the familiar patterns, and found comfort in their presence. They were constant and faithful - but these were not the stars she chased.

Nanook had spent a long time scaling the mountainside, testing the ridges and finding none that satisfied. Their vantage couldn't be compared to the summits in the south, but the star she followed was a runner, and it wouldn't wait for her. She twisted around a bend and paused momentarily to rove her gaze to the slivered moon, before she tracked her eyes to the bright star just below it. Nanook pressed on.

When she rounded another bend, she stopped again, but not to look to the heavens. Her gaze latched onto the silvery form of another, with rapt attention on the sky. She wondered briefly if he sensed her there. If he had, that didn't matter. She quickly gave him no other option. "Do you know where that star came from? The one below the moon?" Maybe he had seen it more years than her. Maybe he chased it, too.