Northstar Vale anugivaalua ❅

!!!

as quickly as it had come, the blossoming heat between them was quelled into something sweetly aching. for kukutux, the realization of what she had done dawned with shame.

she swept eyes and muzzle away from agana, but did not miss the anguish in the fawnwolf's own gaze. it was wrong, and the spirit whispered it indeed was so. not quite abominable, but against the natural way of things.

she was lonely, had been so lonely in the little valley cut near the mouth of the river, but it was for that small ulaq that kukutux wished now. for solitude, to be alone with her guttering dreams gone to guilty dust.

"i am going to look for wild raspberry leaves," the duck swallowed then, venturing away from agana to fetch her carryskin. flinging it gently over her narrow shoulders, the girl could not help a single lingering stare before she darted out into the cold drifts, hoping fervently that her companion would not follow.

tears burned high behind her eyes, but kukutux told herself it was only the biting wind, and pressed on.