Silver Creek 'til I see the lights of my home town

@Winterbourne

Fish could be found abundantly in this land, but Ingiullik craved red meat instead on this day. She brought Winterbourne along on a hunt, hoping to track down a deer they could take down together.

"I like the name Whirlybird," she said, apropos of nothing.

Whirlybird. He bit back the unkind impulse to laugh, half in astonishment and half in disbelief. Of course, Winterbourne had his own ideas about how their children ought to be named — but he supposed that Ingiullik's opinion held a bit more sway here. She was, after all, carrying them.

I like Sunshine, He suggested lightly, gesturing for her to investigate the fresh trail he'd picked up. Tinged with blood; a stroke of luck for the pair who would soon find themselves hard-pressed to keep their growing family fed.

Her ears perked.

"Sunshine is a good name," he replied, his tone decisive. Her eyes shimmered with delight, crinkling suddenly at the edges as she gazed up at Winterbourne. It put her mind on a different track, briefly, but she soon spoke again:

"Cloudburst," she suggested, giving into a few brief tippy-taps.

Her next suggestion was decidedly more sensible. Winterbourne's smile was bright then, his relief great enough to let him pass over the minor annoyance of Ingiullik's distraction from their hunt. He could pay attention for the both of them, for now.

Still, he allowed his eyes to flit briefly to her. I like that, He murmured. How 'bout... Windlass? Cloudburst, Sunshine, and Windlass. In his mind he saw Windlass with his father's eyes, and Sunshine with his mother's furs, and Cloudburst with Ingiullik's smile.

Her lilac eyes seemed to glow. Windlass! Suddenly, she took a flying leap at her husband, as if she might tackle him to the ground with enough enthusiasm. The reality that these individuals would soon be living and breathing among them was almost too much for her heart to carry. Love poured from her eyes and dropped snottily from her nose.

"I love those names!" she declared, taking out her preemptive cuteness-aggression on the thick fur of his scruff. "I love them. I love you."

She babbled to him, overcome, hardly aware of what she was saying. She would soon have a whole and proper family again, and she has only this man to thank. Thanking him, then, had just become her life's mission.