Moonsong Glacier aatkatik [m]

"when i came to your village, i made a meeting with the man dutch," kukutux remarked to her daughter.

ariadne was healing well, and moonwoman quietly felt that the daily breathing of frigid air enlivened the lungs. already she felt much of her malaise lifting, her limbs strengthening.

her gaze shone with approval for the polite hunter who had accompanied her to ariadne's ulaq.

a step outside the door; her eyes cooled. she had welcomed kilgitsuk as kin, as kiggavik.  she bore him love. she respected him as kith to moonglow, to all moonwolves.

it did not mean she felt he deserved to court ariadne. and with their kinship ties, it would be an odd pairing.

"ah, i have two things to tell you," kukutux went on, not turning if the winterhawk entered. "the first is that your brother arrluk has completed his spirit journey, and is now a man. i will seek a wife for him when the sun returns. the second is that kivaluk, a son to my hearth," and therefore ariadne's brother, and therefore kilgitsuk was more of an uncle! "— will be marrying a nuliakskraun from brecheliant. she has the name chickadee. once, she meant to marry stratos with her sister. but her sister has gone away. and it was kivaluk who brought her to us, and already they live as wife and husband."

she told this story for many reasons: to remind kilgitsuk of what he had missed, to enforce that ariadne was kin to the trader and therefore not a conventional wife, to say for his ears the things he might not know about his son and the woman he was to marry. things a father might wish to know. kukutux would not say them directly into his eyes, bearing respect for kivaluk, but she would say them aloud to ariadne where kilgitsuk might hear.