Stone Circle how we love is what will last

‘She must have really loved you.’

The words have an odd comfort to them, one that aches and soothes her all the same. Valette had told her many things of her mother, and her love for them was never a question. It carried on in the life she lived — she, and Selamuit, and Kallik, and Iqiaq, wherever they might be. She did, is all Taktuq says, and lets Tauris’ words sweep through her. A mother worth remembering.

Yes. She is.

Their attention is back on the flowers, and Taktuq returns the other girl’s smile. Fitting, too, in ways you didn’t know! My auntie says she had eyes of this colour, of copper and the fiercest fire, and she gives a little laugh, soft and thoughtful, I wonder if she knew she carried this meaning with her, too. Life, twice given. Perhaps Nanook had always known she would give her life for her children. Perhaps it had never been a choice she needed to think on. Perhaps she had simply known it when she had chosen to love them.

She wondered if, perhaps, she would ever carry so great a love.

Would you tell me of the other flowers? she looked behind them at the colours that decorated the ground, these must have meanings, too?