Silvertip Mountain pikpaksriruk ∅

a silence followed, in which kukutux gazed with rainstorm ice upon wraen. her truth realized in the next of words, and a shimmer of guilt spreading through the fierce duck. perhaps not for the woman, but that she had broken her word to arcturus. a word made in harshness, upon the edge of what she had thought then to be a promise of punishment.

wraen now, sinking claws into the underbelly of kukutux' hidden sin and greatest shame. anger now, that this annaligiak should speak of her children; and she drew a breath, jadestone eyes the hue of frozen plants broken from the center of a glacier. pain ebbing through her for that first meet, where hydra had urged him and arcturus had rejected her as wife; an old wound carried raw on the surface of her spirit, now half-buried beneath the dust of memories.

"because he is my brother now." because he had wanted wraen, not her, not — and in the end, he had turned upon moonspear. she would not have bound herself to that, kukutux fervently believed, though her pulse quickened. "he desired you above moonspear and his clan." a breath, steam lapped away by the wind. "but when that season comes and goes again, when he is the only brother with no children, he will remember what it was he surrendered. what he gave for no bride-price. you do not understand blood," the snowbird went on — another step — "and you do not accept the truth of a debt. i gave moonspear a daughter and my husband a son. what will you give my brother?"