Moonspear rich folks laugh while the furnace burns

kukutux was warmed by their invested, upturned little faces. "no. but it is a different story," and she looked at each one of them in turn, grinning a bit toward her raindrop, as they had shared all the tales between them a thousand times by now. "where i am from, we have a word for each sort of snow. and a story for every one as well."

"i will tell you about milik, which is the softest snow. it is the first one, when all the leaves have made their sleeping place upon the ground. before milik, the poor ground was cold. 'please, send down a blanket to us,' it called to the trees. 'winter has come, but our shoulders are bare.'"

she shifted, wiping clean the slate of her earlier sketchwork and patting her paw against the earth so that it rushed softly around her toes. "and so the trees said, 'brother, we hear you. we will give you a blanket.' and so when sister wind came to shake them, the ground was thankful for the gift of the leaves that fell." but kukutux sighed sadly here, glancing heavenward. "but sister wind was very powerful. and she had ice in her throat, for it was winter. she blew the leaves off the ground, which grew cold again."

two broad sideways lines to show how sister wind had taken the ground's blanket. "'sister wind, what have you done? now the earth will become hard and frozen,' the trees said, but she did not hear them, for she had whirled away into the stars." a wry curve of her lips, for she had come to the favorite part of the telling.

"this time, the ground called to saviguk, the ice crystal in the throat of sister wind. and they cried to sialuk, the sweet rain in the belly of aunt cloud. 'speak to our sister. tell her she must return to fix what she has done.' and the ground wept, for it was so cold now, and it would surely die if it had no blanket." a series of dots, to make the voice of the ground upward. "saviguk heard. sialuk heard. 'stop, sister,' saviguk told the wind. 'stop, sister,' sialuk said with her round blue voice. and the wind moved no more."

"'the ground will die. you took the blanket the trees gave down,' they told her, and she was filled with sorrow. and then —" kukutux let out her breath. "she knew what she must do. she cut her hair, sister wind, which moves against our faces but we cannot see, her long, long hair. she cut it, and let it fall to earth. and as aunt cloud carried it down, her hair turned to milik, and lay down upon the cold hard ground before it truly died."

"that is why," the duck went on, "when the last leaves fall from the branches to find sleep upon the ground, milik arrives, for he will not be late again, and puts his arms around the earth so that while it sleeps, it will dream of new things and not death."