Moonspear snowfox

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Every day since he had spoken them, @Chakliux ‘s words haunted her brain.

She could not tell how she felt about them. Even now, dragging a pine bough behind her towards her fallen tree home, she puzzled over it, endlessly, chewing on it as though it was a thick piece of cartilage or an annoying cut in the mouth you couldn’t help but chew at.

She swung the bough around, angling it just so before adjusting her grip as she hauled it off the ground. Gently, she rested it among the others, filling the annoying gap that had been caused by recent rains. Just the other day, she had woken up rather soaked instead of warm and dry. Part of her considered moving up into the mountain proper, becoming some kind of cave Lauren.

Maybe it is time to come down from the mountain.

She cringed. She didn’t know what confused her more, her feelings over Chakliux’s proposal, or her feelings that he may be right about her beloved mountains. Tullik could feel her face warming and she coughed.

Good wives weren't cave trolls. It was a stupid idea.

things had changed; plans moved in motion. chakliux did not want to leave the slopes of moonspear even for a short while, but he could not disagree that the mountain had grown full.
he enjoyed a place of status among them, with his own large lodge and a higher rank. nasamik also! why did she wish to leave?
kannoyak would stay, it seemed.
despite all of this, chakliux had not forgotten his words to tullik, and so when he saw her again, his eyes danced. "let me help you carry that," the seal hunter called to her.

His voice called to her and she wondered for a moment if this was to be her life. Hearing his voice with her decisions.

Until she looked and there he was. Briefly she jumped, though it was more of a twitch to the naked eye, and she blinked a few times like a startled owl.

I have another to carry. She gestured a little ways off to the other pine bough she had grabbed earlier that day.

There is a hole, there. I had to remove a piece, it had turned brown and was shedding all over. Pine needles do not make a sleeping space homey. She gestured to part of the tree, where a gap sat innocently surrounded by the needles she had spoken of.

to live among pine needles was quite a choice. chakliux glanced around her dwelling, noting the large gap where the bough had been. "i could patch this with birchbark and sap," he told to tullik, turning for the opportunity of resting his eyes on her again.
but he said nothing more, seizing the other and showing that he would follow the mountain-walker where she went.

Tullik went wide eyed. It seemed that’s all she did around this man.

You could, truly? She felt an ugly flush rise to her cheeks at how childish that sounded, her eyes traveling to the peaks for a moment, before turning back to Chakliux.

Could you teach me? She would speak as she guided the man to the hole in her dwelling’s roof.

"watch what i do, snow woman," chakliux teased when he had put aside his burden. his brightberry eyes now turned to the size of the torn place; he saw how she had laid the boughs, and looked down into her ulaq.
and then he descended, and gestured for her to follow.
silverbirch gave bark in long rolls if pulled from its mooring in a steady, even manner. chakliux demonstrated how to nip until a toothhold was gotten, how to draw back, how to keep tension upon the bark as one stepped in a circle around the tree.
it would take practice to carve a wide whorl the first time, as chakliux did. he left the strip where it lay and set his eyes upon a pine tree, lifting a paw to indicate where thick sap had bubbled upon the bark. a piece of the tree's own covering was best for this; chakliux lifted and twisted it until a sticky mass had gathered.
this he meant for tullik to carry, passing it toward her with a flirtatious flick of tail. the seal hunter took up the birch bark and returned now to her home.
"smear that around the edges of the tear," he instructed, setting aside his materials for a moment. "use a great amount."

She watched the man like a hawk, her keen eyes picking up every movement with the twitch of a hunter used to picking out silhouettes from a distance.

Her people had hunted by sight, by sound. The highest peaks with the snow did not hold scent as well as the green places.

The flirting didn’t go over her head, and a sheepish flush came to her cheeks as she gathered the materials given to her by Chakliux. Tullik’s eyes watched the gaps, then the man himself, somewhat bemused, but she did as told. She settled the substance beside her and began to smear it with her paws and the assistance of her tongue, which made her lips twitch upwards and her head jerk back a short ways.

It is not pleasant a taste. came her idle comment, her face twisted into a frown.

"it is not meant to be," the seal hunter chuckled teasingly. "we will wash after."
he stepped forward now, touching his paw to hers gently, then away, showing how to even the sticky area around the edge of the tear.
and how to press the bark to it, setting the strip so that its center was also upon the place they were mending.
extra bark hung down; chakliux stripped it in a near-straight line. "use the rest as you want. i would use what is left to carry fish from the lake." his eyes, upon those of tullik.

His paw touched hers and she felt flush with heat. It abated fast, but it left her head spinning. Confusion sat on her features for a brief moment, before she tucked it away. She gladly took the bark as it was offered to her, holding it as one who has been given a baby unexpectedly, far away and wide eyed.

I am beginning to believe I know even less than I did when I first came here. Tullik mused, bringing the strip closer for her to look over.

I did not learn this. Our homes were temporary. We travelled. She remembered, mostly in the way her young paws had ached, the thousands of steps that had separated one sleep from another.

"when my people came to the sea, we saw all the oil father gave us. the walrus. the great fish. the caribou. the seal." chakliux shut his eyes, drawing on all he remembered of home. "the long darks and the great sea. the short summers and the heavy snow. but all was worth these things. we built our lodges close together and learned to sing in the blackness of winter."
now he looked at tullik with solemn brightberry eyes. "you have walked long. known the place of mountains. here in moonspear you can rest."

Chakliux spoke, and she listened. And in his words, she found some sense of truth. She closed her eyes, her ears wilting back towards her neck as she tipped her head back to look up at the sky.

In the mountains, we could not afford to slow. It was what had made her such a busybody. Her throat clicked when she swallowed.

This is not those mountains. The mountains I knew, these are not those. Her periwinkle eyes opened again, turning to find Chakliux’s. There was pain there, but determination to see it through.

Those mountains are gone. Perhaps it is time I stop thinking of them as present. She would never forget them, of course, and it was much easier to say it than consciously choose it. But she would steady her path along that route.

"your home is here. and you deserve to rest. to stop walking, tullik." chakliux paused, and then forged ahead. "someone should take care of you now, as you have not felt before."
let the mountain-walker put down such burdens.
he would carry them to his lodge.
"those high places, they will not leave you. speak them in stories and words to your children. that is how such things keep their life and their role."

To be taken care of..

It sounded nice. Tullik hadn’t been cared for in many months, since the kind man who had welcomed her into Moonspear’s land. She turned her gaze away, staring at the top of the mountain. As she had done for many months now, when she needed to think.

You are correct. She chuffed a self effacing laugh.

In many ways. The sandpiper smiled, a slight humor coming to her lips in an attempt to turn the conversation around.

I would not have guessed that.

to hear tullik agreed brought great pleasure to chakliux, who saw it as a softening toward his suggestion of joining him in his lodge.
but he would not say it again, for she knew these words already. there was time to decide.
a grin crossed his handsome face. "i would not be a seal hunter without such stories. you see there are no seal here!" he joked. "but my village has never left my heart."
sandpiper woman. chakliux wanted her close.

She laughed at that, the sound coming almost easier than before.

I am sure seal live somewhere. She tried to give something, perhaps a cold comfort to the man. She did not know, she had not seen an unfrozen sea before she had looked from the peaks to find it.

Perhaps they will give you even more stories, and more ways to keep me surprised! She couldn’t help the back and forth sweeping of her tail, so Tullik did not try to hide it.

"i am certain i could surprise you in many ways, tullik." the berrybright eyes were vibrant; he answered her tail with a swing of his own, a glimmering smile.
and then chakliux had pulled away; he patted the mended area with his hard paw and turned aside. "if you need another thing, call for me."
fixing her ulaq and hunting for the mountain-walker; suppose he called it courtship.

His eyes were intense, but she did not mind.

It was odd, that.

Her face softened into a smile as she watched him, tipping her head to one side. Just a bit.

I will. She moved around the side of her ulaq, intent on ducking inside and starting to clean it out.

You do the same, if you have need of me. Tullik warmed all over again to think of what that could mean.

chakliux too, flushed to hear this. but he did not think she meant it in such a way. "i will see you again, tullik," the seal hunter promised, and brushed her shoulder with a flick of his tail before he turned away.
he climbed her mountain, her paths; he was away, melting into the high pale ridges.

He vanished from her sight. She had followed him for some time, over her paths, but his coat blended with the snow, and he was gone.

Tullik ducked into her den, tugged out the old pelts, and set to cleaning the inside.

Her heart, however, followed Chakliux over the mountain.