Duskfire Glacier a dog can smell a lie you know

Just as he reached to greet her, Imaq’s attention turned from their wayward pup — now that she’d located him and could breathe again — to her future husband. She bent, smothering a grimace as the motion pulled at her aching lower half, accepting his kiss and slowly swiping her own spotted muzzle across the top of his head, planting her lips against his honeyed crown. Her cracked gaze returned to Sikuliak for a moment, grinning as he smiled and ‘talked’ to them. 

Before she could say anything back or encourage the boy to speak some more, Rye’s question had drawn her sheepish and guilty eyes back to him. 

“Rye is good man, good father,” she reassured him, gentle octaves hushed as she sidestepped to curl herself around his shoulders and upper back in a sort of canine hug. “Imaq be okay. Just pain.” She smiled as she pulled back, hoping he could see that she meant it. 

It was true they communicated best silently, in part because it was also the language of her people. Words and grand gestures were often replaced with simple acts of kindness and consideration, affection and touch revealing the truth of the islanders’ stoic nature. But Imaq felt she had enough words now to unravel some of her mystique. 

“Siku not Imaq’s only son,” she admitted in a soft wisp, voice so tiny it couldn’t possibly be her own. The shepherd’s aquamarines dropped, moving to her fourth born child. “Three sons before. Three gone.”