Ocean's Breath Plateau [ insert thread title here ]

Although Chagak could not have put into words the way that he viewed women, and his sister and mothers in particular, his beliefs were bone deep and hard-ingrained. Women were simultaneously powerful and mysterious, and yet also in need of careful tending and protection. It was impossible not to see them all as individuals — they were all so different from one another, just as he and his brothers had developed personalities of their own — but there was some shared quality of otherness in women that he could not see in other men.

Chagak believed in Puffin's intrinsic strength despite her diminutive size. He had not yet come to see bodies as things that could be broken, nor did he fully comprehend that he could cause his sister more than fleeting, momentary pain. He would have given no quarter to any of their brothers —

But he pounced very delicately when Puffin stumbled, moderating the force of his landing and the snap of his teeth without thought. Oh, he still shoved a rude paw in her face to try and wrestle the kelp away. He still threw himself down and rolled like a crocodile just to be a pest. But this thrashing would not so much as bruise her. Chagak gentled instinctively, unwittingly, each time they played.