Ocean's Breath Plateau star shell

one day into the building of the fourth lodge, chakliux grew dejected and found he had lost interest. it had been a task to keep his mind occupied, but as he cast fleeting glances toward marina, he saw the worthlessness and wasted energy of the fourth lodge, and grew angry with himself.
the seal hunter sought solitude for a time, hunting idly among the barnacled rocks, and eventually his healing, lopsided step took him in solemn search of @Tullik.

Tullik focused on the practical.

Much like her former life, she did not expect the paths she took to be the same every time. She did not expect her future to be the same every time.

She tended to her home, her fellow wife, her husband, the children. She hunted to feed them. She wove carpets of dried kelp. She hid her worry beneath her work, and forced her tongue between her teeth.

When Chakliux would find her, she would be ankle deep in the surf, her head down, as if looking for minnows to entertain their children. Really, she was using the salt water to hide the tears steadily staining her cheeks.

but he knew; somehow he knew. tullik's dutiful, endless work had not gone unnoticed as the man had sat outside the lodge and healed from his own wound.
he slung his chin over her nape; he pulled her into the set of his chest and the beat of his heart, and exhaled a long breath against the roots of her pelt as if to say i know, wife. do not hide.

Tullik lifted her head as if to greet Chakliux, ready to hide away beneath the work again. It would be the most practical of her, it would be the easiest route for her to take. To shoulder the work, the blame, the worry, and bare it with clenched teeth.

But he tucked her close, his nose finding the sandy strands of her pelt cloaked in salt, and Tullik found no words coming from her throat. It was as if everything she could have said dried up, and all that would come out was a rasping croak. Her throat hurt, dry from the salt.

She tucked her head down, and some final straw eased and snapped almost gently. The tears caught her before she could get away, and she found herself sobbing, aching into her husband’s chest with everything she had been carrying.

he was silent, and held her close. tullik loved marina in all of her words and deeds, and loved all the children as if they had come from her own body. chakliux listened to the rush of the sea, and felt the sorrowed race of his own heart.
he slowly smoothed the tracery of salt from between her ears, content to make a place there in his arms for as long as tullik needed to vent the heavy grief she had silently and without complaint carried alone for a long while.

I cannot keep doing it.

Her voice rose in a croak, after a time. It trembled, as if Tullik was attempting to wrangle the hurt in her chest and shove it back down.

I cannot keep this watch, husband. She withers before our eyes, you were ill, the vile man who struck his wife-! All of it! She fell into a renewed wave of emotion, spilling from her eyes as she quieted her words.

"it is all bad, wife. yes," he murmured hoarsely in assurance of this beloved woman, that he heard her pain and her plea. "i am here, and i am well. and there is help; raiyuk and taggak. take time, tullik. if you must be away from moontide, i will understand."
but he could not go with her.
"marina — i want to take her to the sea ice. i am not certain she can travel so far. but perhaps if it was only us, i —" but it was so much more to ask of his mountainwife, to be here alone with five pups.
and so he let the words go, and tightened his arms around her, and stroked a soft kiss along her throat, burying his crown there for a moment. "whatever will bring your heart some relief, wife, only say it."

She listened. How could she not?

Take her. I will stay. Came her quiet urge to her husband, the pressing of one paw to his chest firm.

Let her see it, know it, before she-. She cut herself off with a tremble of her lips, the pin flat of her ears. It was not something she could think about.

I do not know. I want things to be right again, but you alone cannot bring me that. I.. Here, she cut herself off again.

I wish only for you right now, husband. Just for a moment. Please. The embrace felt like the only thing holding her together.

"you have me, tullik." in the manner of a man he wished for them to seek one another, to stave away the solemnity with the heat of nearness and love.
but he was guilty of his unexpected, near-unwanted response, and so only enfolded tullik with a soft sigh and a welcoming within himself at the cool touch of the seawater, the breeze, the taste of saltpine.
but the seal hunter did not allow himself to weep. and he truly did not allow himself to imagine a home and a people and a village without marina.