Moonstone Quarry quqsuqtaq ⋞

He'd spent weeks with the boulder wolves and when the storm eased, he told Mahler of his intention to travel; but he would be back, or so he had said. The urge to investigate the Watch and any survivors of the storm did strike Kigipigak.

He moved through the valley and hunted in the Emberwood so that he would not have to struggle up through the mountains. The Sunspire afforded him solace for one night; then in the days that followed Kigipigak prowled the lake beyond it.

Mahler's offer had made a nest in his mind and populated it with various thoughts and plans, none that Kigipigak found suitable. Without a claim of his own he had no right to take a wife; that was the way of his people, regardless of what was made law by his new issumatar. Still Kigipigak entertained curiosities of his own. When he slept in the belly of the Heartwood his dreams were of more than running tuktu.

It was here that he heard the first stirrings of a call upon the wind. The familiar voice of Kukutux, somehow ringing through the emptiness of winter. He wasted no time and called back to her; the song he sang held a note of surprise above all else. From there he moved on, to the west where the mountains welcomed him.