Larksong Grotto sleeping dog beside you

she leaps at any chance to yap about muradoii people

Sivaak huffed softly, her breath curling like smoke in the cold air as she regarded Nanuralaaq. Sivaak said nothing, her scarred face set in its usual unreadable expression. Sivaak snorted, her crimson eyes narrowing slightly as she responded. "Brother is chief, then. Good for him. Let him stay with whelps and duties." Her tone was blunt, unbothered. "Nanuralaaq is free. She should roam. See lands. Hunt."

Upon question of her own traditions, Sivaak tilted her head slightly, as if considering how much to share—or how much the polar cub could even comprehend. “Our traditions are blood.” She stepped closer, her crimson gaze glinting as she looked down at the smaller wolf. "Men hunt, fight, raid. They roam but never too far from sea, spill blood. Women stay. They speak for the sea. They tell men when to hunt, when to return, when to kill. Women rule Muradoii. Men obey. They fight, but only because the women tell them to. That is the way. Always has been."

Sivaak's top lip curls up, as if tasting something bitter. She knows she is no boy. “But Sivaak was not born for that life. I was born wrong. I was meant to be a man.”

The words came sharp, but there was no hesitation in them, no shame. Sivaak’s expression hardened as she held Nanuralaaq’s gaze. “The sea decided. It did not want me with the women. It did not want me to speak or heal. It made me fight. It made me bleed.” Her lips curled faintly, not quite a smile, but something close to defiance. “I fought the men. I spilled their blood. I earned my place with them, in their raids, their hunts. The sea saw what I was and let me become it.” Her lips twitched faintly, baring teeth that gleamed in the pale light.

Sivaak’s gaze flicked briefly to the horizon, her voice darkening as she continued. “The sea is god to Muradoii. Its waves take offerings: prey, wolves, anything with blood. It decides what comes back and what is swallowed forever. Every kill feeds it. Every death pleases it. That is our way.”