Moonspear uuliutik ◯

her climb was slow. hips that had begun to ache now truly twinged. had it been from all the sitting? the leather-making, the circles?

well then. she would not regret it.

sialuk's ulaq. her heart hurt to see it, and rejoiced for the same. oil and leather; the scent of washed fur. wood worn by hanging pelts.

it was a space still warm in her daughter's absence. tiuttuk had kept it this way.

curls of salmon, dessicated hunks of elk fat, three oysters carefully wrapped in kelp, having been buried deep these months. more — loose bundles of wheatgrass, three green stones, and cormorant feathers from the coast, gotten in trade when moontide stood.

their glossy darkness gleamed even now.

pouches of powdered kelp, chamomile, lavender, nettle, white lichen, torn oakleaf, mint, rosehips.

otterhide and last, a caribou skin, pristine despite the far distance it had been carried, and burnished with age.

"so. you will be sage of this village?" kukutux asked first, encouraging her granddaughter to begin with the shellfish.