Alpine Lake i would swim

a dream as she walked, of the first time she had been alone with her husband. both of them had been very young, or perhaps kukutux only felt older now. she had gone to him with bowed head as befit a wife, but he had uttered her name and lifted her chin. then, the one who hunted seals upon the ice, the duck had known he would treat her differently from other women.

a smile tugged at the girl's lips as she traveled across the terrain, the keep at her back, the rabbit fur draped as usual over her shoulders. it was becoming tattered, however, rot clinging at its edges, and kukutux knew she would need to make a hunt for a new one. presently, however, she was simply glad to be out of the dark recesses of the golden forest, away from cry's heavy gaze and the women who would be new mothers.

kukutux paused; she would have approached the glittering invitation of the lake had it not been for a delicate creature of ivory and scars roaming its edges, ethereal and almost ghostlike to the superstitious ugigiqadanax.