Moonspear nuyuiksuk ⚬

she could not help the comparison made within her mind to the first time the hunter of seals had come to her sleeping place. it was their custom that the bride should wait inside the ulaq he had dug, spirited there by her mother and aunts and sisters, to await her groom.

the duck had been wife at an age where the women of this land were still considered girls, unmarriageable children. kukutux had therefore began to sense a sort of wrongness about how the wolves of the isle had lived, but fought it defiantly.

the snowbloom did not look up as the dark male shifted his tall body in the cave to settle alongside her. she felt the warmth of jarilo fill the small space between their bodies, and relief at the familiar, yearned-for touch of her own kind washed through her slight figure.

upon its heels chased the sensation of moral aversion. it was not proper, not correct. there were many ways a woman might fulfill a role for a man, but this situation did not bear the nature of any.

and so kukutux was tense for a time as she adjusted to jarilo beside her, to the gentle sound of his breathing and the tone of his sigh.

perhaps he did not want to be here. she wondered if he had a mate who would wait and watch the blowing snow, wondering why her husband had not come home that night. maybe that was why he had not commented upon her status.

presently, kukutux let out her breath in a small exhale of her own, curling pale plume tightly around her flank. this was merely the way of their kith; this was comfort and tradition older than her own.

the thought reassured the little duck; soon a langour stole through to smooth the lines of her body, arrange her into soft curves that vibrated now with a deeper yawn.

she lay her chin upon her foreleg. such a strange day it had been, one of much chaos and shock and in the end, disappointment. but kukutux appreciated the care that jarilo had shown to her, the kindness with which he had listened.

so sharp a gratitude arose in her breast it was as if a knife had bit briefly into her spirit. she could not help the shuddering breath that choked audibly in her throat, nor the sudden, violent welling of tears that overflowed her springmint eyes and flecked her cheeks.

she was so tired; kukutux turned her face away and swallowed forcibly the sobs so that they would not shake her body. refusal, now, to allow even the careful, observant brother of the moonspear clan to see her grief.

kukutux begged the unseen spirits in a silent praying arrow that she might soon sleep, drown her sorrow and shame for a time in the silken darkness afforded by her bone-deep fatigue.

the cave was warmer now; slumber tugged at the girl from all sides and she began to drift, comforted despite herself by the closeness of jarilo, his scent, the vague pressure of he next to her.