Moonsong Glacier tulatuk

Summer faded, though the sun followed after the trader as he journeyed—the trees becoming gilded as the days went on and on, alone but surviving. He did not hunger because he could hunt efficiently enough, and he knew this coast, these forests; the only thing he missed was the company of others, and perhaps that was what drew Kilgitsuk towards the mountains.

He climbed, resting in the early evening as the stars came sprawling out as his only company. For a time Kilgitsuk counted them. Some nights he was in good humor and would trace shapes with his eyes, even make up stories to go along with them. There wasn't that same playfulness in him at the moment; not when he was in such familiar surroundings.

A plume of his breath was briefly visible as he steadied upon the earth, having made his camp and scraped out a sleeping place for himself upon a ledge of dry grasses and moss. The air was getting cooler in the evenings too, which was bracing, but nothing compared to the far north where Kilgitsuk had been for the previous long, lonely months.

The man would not sleep. His mind was drawn to nostalgia and the glimmerings of guilt instead.