The Heartwood inuusik ✾

her expression filled with a naked surprise at the suggestion astaroth proposed. he was hunt leader. why let a woman less experienced than a boy determine the outcome of their stalk? 

could kuktutux be a woman like hydra, powerful and skilled outside what men said she might? would jarilo take offense to her returning home with such? the duck did not think so, but thoughts of her new husband trilled distractingly in her skull for a moment.

a nod, and she began to cut a pale shadow through the undergrowth in imitation of what she had seen hunters do before.