Moonsong Glacier rises the moon

A broad grin that he was almost entirely unaware of curved his mouth as he watched her "think". The anticipation was as long as the names she shared, which were all just as complex as the ones she'd actually given her children. But —

"That middle one," he said, "Iniqpala... say it again for me? But slow-like."

Lightning in the sky. He liked that one. He repeated it to himself, lips moving soundlessly to form a word he was not sure he could actually pronounce. But it seemed important to learn it, for some reason.

"Rappahannock," he said, almost as an afterthought. "Where the tide ebbs and flows. That's what I'd call a boy, I think."

He didn't spend long hours thinking about these things. It hurt him if he wasn't careful with it, and he wasn't being careful, now. But it was far less melancholy to talk about it with company, and too, he realized he'd never said these names to another before. They were just words he'd heard by chance; words he'd murmured to himself, soundless until now, while no one else was watching.

Ikniqpalagaqï.

If Valiant felt an odd prickle down his spine, it was probably just the glacial breeze.