Ocean's Breath Plateau tikalaak

Raiyuk had gone scavenging through the forest. He had not expected to find much with the weather turning grim and cold of late. As he returned from his adventure he carried with him some small branches that looked to be evergreen, with a few intact blossoms sprouting cleanly from them; three-pronged and white. (*Trillium)

He brought this small gift to the sleeping place of his father's second wife, @Tullik. The boy had been slow to trust the woman at first, seeing as how they were not his mother, but a change had occurred soon enough. Tullik made his father happy; that was enough on its own.
Deep down he feared she would leave them both, and fueled by that fear, he was adamant to ingratiate himself to her. So, gifts; flowers and fish and little things found by him as he worked.

The boy placed his latest offering carefully across the mouth of her sleeping place and called to her: Tullik? I have found you something.

Chakliux’s son was not a face she knew well. Raiyuk and herself interacted, of course. But she did not wish to push herself upon a boy who had lost his mother so suddenly, and she had not been in a position to be a parent to him.

Now, though, she thought at the very least they could be friends.

The cold sliced through the air outside the lodge, but inside, body heat kept the walls warm and the brief flashes of sun warmed the packed walls. Tullik was working the skin of a fish, ripping strips between her teeth and setting them aside to dry for jerky. Not that it would taste the best, but the nutrients were hard to ignore.

Then, Raiyuk’s voice, raising from the lodge’s entrance. Tullik turned, her ears raising, to greet the boy with a little smile.

Raiyuk! You may come in, if you wish! Her voice was warm, pleased to see the boy.

Her voice called to him, bade he enter, so he retrieved the gift and came to meet her. This was the lodge he knew best now, and while it was different from the one that they kept in Moonspear when he was a boy, he did not mind.
The people who came to the village to mourn were packed all over, with their own arrangements. There was work done to prepare for them, and even after Raiyuk and his father hunted to keep the caches full.

He was glad for Tullik. Her presence made his father happy - he could tell by how light the work felt. By the gleam in his eye and the sound of his laughter as they hunted, or the stories that were unearthed during this time of good humor. It was not all good, of course. Moontide grieved with the rest of the moon villages; but in these little moments Raiyuk felt as though life was right again.

I do not know what they are, he explained as he brought to her the branches with their flowers but I thought that maybe you would like them. They are so bright and white, while everything else in the forest is not! He spoke of the shades of autumn everywhere, and the slowly but steadily emptying trees.
The gift he laid before her, beside her work.
Do you like it?

Her response was a gasp, and the flight of her paws to her mouth in surprise.

Ah, oh yes! Yes, yes! She came in a flutter, hovering her paws over delicate petals as her mind worked to make sense of her plans. Tullik smiled at her husband’s son, bright and wide, as the fresh scent of the flowers invaded her nostrils.

They are perfect, Raiyuk. I have an idea. She reached down and plucked the branches up. Then, she swiveled, and placed them up on a shelf carved into the side of the lodge, hanging them to where the flowers hung delicately over the edge of it.

Once they begin to wilt, I will dry them. Then, in the winter, I can freshen the lodge with them. To keep our spirits up for spring.

Her reaction was more than he could have ever anticipated! She was so happy with the gift, and as a result Raiyuk was pleased with himself. He basked in the attention of his step-mother and in the back of his mind, wondered what it might've been like had she been his mother instead of the one he'd gotten. How could he make her happier? It was all he wanted in this moment!

As she tidied up the gift, placing it on a ledge, he was watchful and considerate. She had good ideas. At the mention of spring, Raiyuk's focus on the good feelings shifted to that next season: spring. The oncoming expectation that he would be a big brother for the first time.

Are you excited? For... for spring? He probed with a careful question, wondering what Tullik made of her life now, and what she might want in the future. The boy's tail waved happily at his hocks.

The young man asked after her, asked after spring, and she smiled.

Yes. She did not state why, exactly, but she did speak a few moments later.

Where I am from, spring was dangerous. We lost many hunters to warm temperatures making the ice melt, to making the snow dangerous. Every season had its dangers, there. The mountain, forever looming over the head of its sole mountainwalker.

I look forward to a gentle spring.

The ice melt sounded terrible! Raiyuk had grown up with his father's stories of seal hunters on the thick ice, and to hear that it could go away was a surprise. Then again, he had not yet been across the ice, or he would be a man now.

Father will take me across the ice before that, I hope. It sounded like spring was a bad time to become a man or earn his scars; that or dangerous and difficult, which Raiyuk found he dreaded. I am glad you are happy, anaa.