Moonsong Glacier moons

meant to be set for eeeeaaarly morning today, but i'm flexible on that if it doesnt work for anyone wanting to join!
tags for reference (but also welcome )

Before the sun peaked above, she sat upon the glacier.

It was here that she imagined the face of White @Elk in the shadows of the ice. The feather he had given her still lodged well in the thick tufts of her fur.

She thought of the warm fawn colors of @Ariadne and how her children might run upon the slick surface of the glacier. How easily they could rove from here to the spine! That they would always know the blood of their anaa's first home. That they would be sunshine faces even in a place of ice.

She walked with a gaze meant to appraise now.

Soon the light would sweep across the glacier and reveal the things hidden in the dark hours of morning.

He was late in finding her, but he had worked hard to track her — tirelessly through the night and doggedly into the morning. He thought such things about her! About them both. About being together.

There was a girl at home to whome he had no relation, and who he was meant to go home and marry. It had not been spoken of; it was only what was expected for him at such an age. He imagined never seeing her lovely face again and felt a faint trace of sadness. But it was one that quickly fled in wake of the fire Callyope had ignited in him.

Of course he searched tirelessly. He could not sleep for want of her.

When he finally laid eyes on her, he stopped where he was to watch her for a time. Her loveliness was clear even from this distance, and he marveled at the grace of the statuesque beauty, blind to all but what he saw through rose-tinted lenses.

It was not the fawn of a sister who came to her now.

She imagined she might be bundled with her children, safe inside the protective spine of Moonglow. It was the right place to be for a mother and wife.

Unlike Callyope who danced through the dark hours on whims and visions.

Like the vision of White Elk once more. How she thought she saw him in the ice more clearly this time. These dark spots upon his coat seemed more real than any shadows could cast.

She only realized after a long moment of staring that it was because he was here. Not made of ice but made of man. Flesh and blood. Warm where the glacier could not be.

She became acutely aware of herself, of the the feather he had placed in her fur. Still she could not bring herself to look away from him!

They gazed at one another for a long moment, like two hummingbirds who were also gazing at each other. The herald felt his breath catch first in his throat and then low in his belly as her focus narrowed on him. He did not speak before he began gliding toward her on long, soot-smudged legs.

Even up close, it felt impossible to form words. He was caught up in her eyes — her eyes which were the warmest shade of amber, like two gold circles with black dots in the center.

He bowed to her, as he had before.

He bowed low once more.

Eventually one of them would have to speak. One of them would need to break the ice that stood between them. Not that it was awkward or uncomfortable at all.

So she would not break it first.

Instead she turned away from him! Only to offer a look over her shoulder, gaze placed heavily upon him. Expecting him to follow wherever she was going to lead them.

He wrestled with his nerves, with the stiffness of his throat. More than that, he wrestled with his mind. He wanted to say something clever, but no clever words came to mind. When she turned away form him, he nearly gave into a wordless cry of protest — wait!

But she looked back to him before he could make a sound, silently beckoning him. The feather he'd gifted her quivered in the wind.

"Is this Moonsong?" he finally asked, already following in her pawsteps. He looked up and then forced his gaze back down, away from the tantalizing image of her.

There were signs of life once lived here. Some fresh, some old.

Soon she wished to see them all fresh!

She would not speak that aloud to him. It was a thing kept in the shade of her heart as they walked along the trails.

It is, She looked to him with a smile now. Reluctant to think he might ever have to return somewhere beyond her reach.

Did you find the moon village along the spine?

They walked together toward the higher reaches of the glacier. It was nothing like Mountain Home, but he did nit tire as they began the climb.

"I did," he replied, coloring beneath his fur to remember the encounter. "I spoke Moonmother Kukutux and your... Brother? Valiant. He didn't think much of me at first — but later on, we hunted together."

He smiled to himself, though he was still mortified by the things Kukutux had said.

"Your mother..." he began, still not quite sure what to say. After a moment, he finished with, "She told me I might find you here. I did not ask her! In case you thought to accuse me of cheating."

She looked upon him with a tenderness unbefitting their newness.

Although had anything they'd done so far fit their recent acquaintance? She had her doubts.

He had spoken to her mother, hunted with a marriage brother. He had, in her eyes, kept his word and came to find her again. She wondered if any of the men in Moonglow were on their way back to wed his sister. She had not forgot what his duty in this land was.

If she has sent you to me without your asking, it was with a good reason.

A pause before she turned her gaze out towards the glacier again.

What else did she tell you?

He colored further; the reason seemed scandalous to him, even as respectable as Kukutux had seemed. He could not repeat all that she had said to him, not even the thoughts that Valiant had voiced. He struggled for a long moment to answer Callyope, but soon enough landed on a subject that he could speak on without stuttering:

"She said that if I found you, I might not want to leave," he told her, candid despite his chagrin. He steeled himself and went on: "And when I told her I already didn't want to leave, she told me that I should stay."

They came to the caves, where — unbeknownst to him — the village of Moonsong had once made their home. He poked his head into one and saw fine furs bundled together against the cave's craggy face. He did not know this either, but they were the wedding skins that Ariadne and Kigipigak had left in their hasty flight, and that Dutch had set aside for them when moving the village of Morningsong to the coast.

His words steadied her while he looked within, she remained on the outside. Unaware of the importance that laid undisturbed inside.

Unaware of how tragic it might be to see wedding skins from a sister who seemed discontent in her own while Callyope gazed upon White Elk with hope.

He did not want to leave and she did not want him to either.

Will you stay, White Elk?

She could sing to him.

She could tend the furs he would bring.

She could allow herself to be so utterly lost in these glimmers of a future.

Would he stay?

There was a celebration waiting for him, at home. He would be a man upon his return, ready to take a wife of his own. His father would touch him on either shoulder and then above his eyes and he would receive a new name — one that was not a matching set with his siblings.

But he looked back at Callyope and he knew that he would not mind her calling him White Elk for the rest of his life.

"I will stay," he told her. "I must finish my work as herald — but I will finish it near to this place. Near to you."

She had promised him nothing. He made this vow for the precedent already set: that he might seek her, and that she might let him. When he thought about it, it made his breath catch, and he trembled to think of the strange power she held over him. He thought about it now and felt a pleasurable shiver race down his spine.

You will have time,

Her voice was a reassurance of things that perhaps he did not fully grasp — or maybe he did. Maybe he knew exactly what she meant when she said this.

She moved now to weave alongside him so that she might enter the cave, where fine skins awaited as if they ached to see life again. She did not unfurl them from where they had been stored.

Instead her head turned and looked to the sooted face of White Elk.

The herald lingered in the entrance, feeling not quite unwelcome, but something akin to it in her family's ancestral lands. Wrong-footed, perhaps. Nervous. For now that they had made something of their thoughts and intentions known to one another, he found himself at a loss.

If he did not show her respect by procuring a chaperone for them, how was he to do so?

She looked back at him. A thrill traveled through him right down to his blunted nails. His toes clawed into the frosted rock face.

"Tell me something of yourself," he prompted, stepping deeper into the cave to follow her — always, to follow. "You smelled of far-off places when we met."

She leaned against a cold wall. There was a great comfort here in the chillier shades of the glacier.

Soon it might hold warmth from either bodies or weather, but for now it was more familiar to far lands.

I have the want to be a fine hunter, I think. She laughed softly at this though. As if she had declared some farfetched idea!

Away from home I saw them bring down great beasts of winter. Their furs were fine but that is not the part that intrigued me the most. It was the way hunters moved against them to bring them down.

Her gaze was softer now as she looked to him. Would he find it silly? Practical? She found she cared far too much.

The limpid blue of his eyes was unbroken while he listened to her thoughts. She would be a fine hunter, he was sure, if she was not a fine hunter already! He believed great things of her without knowing her very well. It seemed harmless to him to offer this sort of confidence.

"What sort of creatures?" he wanted to know, intrigued. He and his family had hunted his namesake, but there were many other creatures of winter that Callyope might mean. "We should hunt together, you and I. Perhaps we will have things to teach each other."

Or perhaps they would only share a meal — either option sounded wonderful to him.

Caribou. Sometimes the long haired ox.

There was a distant look in her eyes, as if she recalled it all in that moment with a fondness and a worry. The hunters had made it look as if it had been practiced forever. Perhaps it had, just in the way that she carried the things her mother had learned.

We will! She assured him with a more grounded, warm face now.

What will you have us hunt?

Slowly she lowered herself to the ground, meaning to lounge now in his kind company.

Caribou — he knew those well enough! Not so much the second creature she spoke of, but that just meant he would hear of new things from Callyope. He was eager to find out.

"Deer, to start!" was his first suggestion, "And caribou in time. You are plenty large enough to bring them down!"

It was uncouth to speak of a woman's largeness — prized as it was amongst his people, it was something only a husband ought to praise his wife for. He colored at once, ruddy under his fur, and went on as though he wasn't ashamed to have a mouth.

"But I would like to hear more about these ox — I am not familiar with them. Are they fearsome creatures?"

Had it been any other, she might have been wounded.

Instead she saw in it the way he saw her! Strength enough to be a hunter, large enough to perhaps not be fretted over so terrible as a frail wife. She would not sit idly in some ulaq all day while a husband hunted or saw the world.

Callyope knew life began with marriage and children, it was not meant to be an end.

Why did she think this now when she looked to him — !

Terrifying! And she meant it but she was awed by it too. I did not ever witness a full and healthy one be brought down. Only the young or the old.

Their fur! Their horns! They are made of prizes but they defend them fiercely!

In truth, the herald was picturing something more like a bear than an ox; he was not familiar with the word, and so he was left to come up on his own with the details that she left out. He exclaimed over them, though, and he admitted to her,

"That sounds like something I should like to see!"

Would she go again? He watched her keenly for a moment, wondering if she knew that he was ready to follow her to the ends of the earth. What was this? Surely not love; not so soon! 

"We could hunt them together," he suggested, wondering how she might take these words. For as eager as he was to follow her, he could see already a kind of ruin lying in wait.

Her features, once bathed in her awe and joy of recalling hunters, fell into something more demure. The look she fixed upon him, while not cold, was more considerate of him now.

You do not mean it.

Did he?

Why did he say it? To impress? To flaunt? To woo?

He was an open book, and today, the pages spoke of his abject confusion. He didn't mean it?

"Why shouldn't I mean it?" he asked, a faint furrow to his brows. "I should like a little more help than just the two of us, but..." He wasn't sure what her quarrel with the statement might be. "... but I should still like to," he finished, a little lamely.

She did not know why her heart lodged in her throat.

She did not know why he already had such a great place in her mind. Perhaps she wanted him to not mean it so that it would not hurt so terribly if he could not.

She knew why she was scared.

Forgive me, She tried to return some of her light to her features.

I will have to return home soon... I would like to walk the glacier together before I do.

He could not help but feel he'd given the wrong answer, somehow. Unfortunately, this was a feeling the young man was all too familiar with. He resigned himself to it, and he looked just a little downcast even before she voiced her intention to leave.

But he still had a little smile when she invited him to walk with her.

"As you wish," he replied, falling easily into step beside her. He was quieter after this, but eventually, he tried to make quiet conversation talking about their respective homes.