Kildeer Rest only the beginning

Feeling that their conversation had been reduced to nothing, and pleased enough to be dismissed to clearer air, Kigipigak said nothing as he listened to her order.

She was not moon-woman but she was still greater than he, and Kigipigak was obedient to structure. He was obedient to his role within the village and, in a broader sense, the world, because that was what he had been taught.

Sialuk looked tired; she had seemed weighted before, but now it was like something had shifted, and she would go away angry with him. Kigipigak was not wise enough to know what to do, and so he would merely go — to work, as was expected of him.

Perhaps in time he would come to understand.