Dawnlark Plains ☾ déix̲

uktark took the weight of blackfell’s words without flinching, though something in him tightened—jaw set, breath drawn slow through his nose. gone. the word rang like a struck bell. and the bitterness in his brother’s voice—cold, jagged, unmovable—he recognized it too well. it was grief’s older brother. it was the shape of a man who had already buried hope once and had no hands left to dig it up again.
he stepped closer, the brush of their shoulders a quiet apology, a shared mourning.
he did not say i’m sorry aloud—
uktark’s sorrow lived in the silence, in the steady press of his weight against blackfell’s side before he drew back.
the moondancer came at his call, light drifting to shadow. he turned to her, touching her chin with the briefest lift of his muzzle—an introduction without softness, but not without warmth.
he looked between them, then spoke, rough as winter stone:
my moondancer, he said, so blackfell would understand her place beside him. then, with a tilt of his head, my brother.
his gaze settled on her, on the quiet question in her eyes—we help?
uktark nodded once, solemn, certain. how could he not be?
then he faced blackfell fully, breath fogging between them.
i am uktark, he said, the name carrying the full weight of its claiming. tartok.
no longer faust.
no longer glacier-born prince.
only this—
a man remade in ice and loss and choice.
he flicked his tail toward the taiga stretching open before them.
we find the girl.