Duck Lake aanniqtuq ☀

seconds ticked by. kukutux sniffed back her tears silently. if the fur was dead, it was dead; there was nothing she could do about it. and despite her grief, the girl was curious. she watched in a quiet awe as a giant fish breached the murky shadows beneath the ice, dragged from its home by the man's dark jaws. it flashed silver in the sunlight, a great burden, but the wolf held it as though it weighed little, and killed it before kukutux.

hunger rose savagely in her belly. she did not move as he approached her, drawing the immense fish through the snow, and lay it at her paws. kukutux did not keep her eyes long upon it, for her gaze remained on him. the male returned holding the drenched form of her fur, and an apology moved in his throat.

so perhaps he did know the soul held by the skin! lowering her slender muzzle, kukutux ran her lips across the soaked hide. it had suffered, yes, but it was not dead. and with it, he had drawn the fish. what magick was there in him, she wondered, glancing upward toward where rivulets of water streamed down his legs, from the fur of his chest. it flattened his pelt against hard muscles; she looked away.

what man would give a fish of this size to a woman he had only met? there must be only one reason, and her heart resisted it. i am not yet through with my mourning, kukutux thought. your mourning means nothing if you starve, the spirit responded, and used her secret name, as if to emphasize what it said.

sorrow tightened her throat, but at last the girl raised her springweather eyes to the man's own, a stark glacial blue that stood out like twinned gems against the darkness of his coat. he was not bad to look at. he was merely strange. but he had hunted for her, and he had apologized for his trespass against the spirit of her rabbit skin.

a smile that did not quite reach upward curved the girl's mouth; she sniffed along the long body of the heavy fish, and then looked toward her companion again. "i will be your wife." she needed a husband, after all. no man brought a kill for a woman and did not want something in return. kukutux had nothing to give but herself. and though her soul cried out for the one she had lost, though it growled against being wife of a foreigner, she kept her gaze upon him, shining with invitation.