Duskfire Glacier Sometimes a flower is just a flower.

Veteran laughed at his sister's observation. You have to imagine the legs! he almost told her, but she interrupted with the question about the zombie disease, which was a little odd. As far as he knew, caribou didn't lose their legs with the disease... but maybe Wayfarer had seen more things than he had. She had traveled much more extensively than he, after all. 

After they arrived at their special stargazing boulder, Wayfarer dug into the meal. She ate like a wild animal, which was an uneasy reminder to Veteran that he had never experienced hunger like she had. He hopped up to the boulder (oddly, it was smaller than he remembered it being) when she scooted to make room for him, but he would wait to eat until she finished, unwilling to get in the way when she had such a possessive look about her. 

As his sister ate, Veteran's attention was drawn to the moon hanging over the treeline. It was the last night of the waxing gibbous. Tomorrow it would be full, and they would hold their father's funeral. 

"The northerners had a story about the sun and moon," he recalled. "The sun is a young woman, beautiful with but with a fiery temper, and the moon is her..." Brother, Veteran almost said, because that was how the story was supposed to go. "..her Mother," he said instead, on a whim. "The daughter thought her mother was cold and hard, but the mother was misunderstood. The mother only wanted to be close to her daughter, which made the daughter angrier and angrier. One day, she hit her mother in the face and left a burn--" Veteran pointed to the dark mark on the moon-- "And ran away. The mother has been chasing after her daughter ever since, every night across the sky, hoping to one day catch her so they can make up." Okay, Veteran's retelling had deviated drastically from the original version, but he felt his had more relevance to their lives. Especially since the original version was about an incestuous brother and sister, which was just all kinds of disgusting and nothing he would ever want to speak about to his own sister.

Going to wrap this up, since Wayfarer is inactive.

Veteran looked to Wayfarer, wondering how she would receive the story with the not-so-subtle lesson. She had finished her meal, and her eyes were closed. Her breathing was long and even. She was... asleep?! After all that effort he'd put into crafting such a perfect story? He snorted in annoyance, and he laid his chin on his paws with a huff. 

He would watch the lights in the sky for a long time, but eventually sleep would also find him.