I dream of Polar night

Osprey's father Aether had been a master at reading stars - for a very long time his daughter had been convinced, that the stars had been actually speaking to him, whispering their secrets in a language only he could understand. She had not been successful at learning and over the time her interest from the shiny objects in the sky turned to chasing her dreams and ideas, forming them into stories.

Did she believe that spirits of her ancestors found place among stars? She didn't know that - during the years she had heard so many tales and beliefs of the afterlife, that she didn't know, what to believe in anymore. For some, thinking that their loved ones thrived somewhere may be soothing, Osprey thought that this prevented them from moving on. She thought of her deceased mother now and then, but she had accepted the idea that she wasn't here and that it was very likely that she wasn't anywhere else either.

Therefore, when she heard the child's voice asking about her mother, making her snap out of her sad thoughts and look up at him, she didn't have an answer. She didn't know. But would it be fair to tell the kid? "Is yours there?" she asked him, wondering, why would he have such a question, when he surely was one of the white beast's kin.