Silver Moraine chase

She listened to him, curious—hearing his wish. Tikigâk was intrigued to know that he did not, having thought there was a possibility that he did. 

But Tikigâk heard the hold of the past in his heavy words, weighted by his experiences there. No, she did not understand—not yet. She had not lived his life after all, and so she would not presume to know it. 

Tikigâk had also never been so compelled to be curious, when another seemed to be tethered to something both so far away that hounded persistently at the ankles of one no longer there. It occupied them, distracted them—so she had thought, having seen it many times.

If you are happy—why wish? To become does not mean we forget what blows have hurt and once lay us low. To become means, we win that next fight and every fight after. We endure. We kill it. Together, she rumbled. 

Make it a thing that no longer mattered—because all that mattered was what came next. If the past was more than a geist that came back to polter, her words were no quip: they would kill it, truly. The most important lesson Tikigâk had learned that served her best: do not look back. There was nothing left for her there but the graves she had left behind—many that she herself had dug. 

No judgment from her—she did not look down upon him for his words, wondering if she had better explained now their way, her way. For it could—only, it wore a different name should he ever wish for it. 

Not a thing she sought an answer to, not then. And if from this he only came to better understand the strength of will it took many to accept that part of it in the path of choosing, that felt enough; choosing, for some, could be the most difficult aspect of becoming.