Moonsong Glacier and I'm drinking your wine

The panther had seen Kukutux and his own aunt, Lavender, do the same. And Tulugak, he thought, somewhere in his first days on the mountainside. He made a contemplative sound — he'd previously considered it something only women did, but according to Eira, this was not the case.

"If he will not, then I am sure someone will," he said, his tone thoughtful. "Perhaps I will hunt up a mountain ram for him. It a thicker pelt than a deer would warm him better. And if we present it to him already made — "

Dutch smiled, glad to share his scheming with another.

"He is much too polite a man to turn down such a thing," he told her.

But she'd mentioned something that interested him perhaps a little more than Aditya's aching joints. It was, at least, something he was far more keen to discuss.

"You have spent much time with our sunset man," he said. A statement, but one that fished for further information.