Ocean's Breath Plateau fox squirrel

departure post for @Tullik & kilalurak! set for 11/13/24. this post/the option for departure is open also to any other kids (@Chagak @Puffin @Sea Hunter @Sirmiq) other tags for ref, will assume chak initially came back alone so everyone can keep searching if they want <3

near a week since the seal hunter had left, he returned with no news for @Rodyn, @Simbelmyne, dutch, and @Aditya. it was with a broken heart that he gave them this report, seelie's mother especially, his eyes suffused with a thousand haunting emotions. chakliux was swift to inform them that no body had been found, no evidence that the girl had been killed. in fact, he had found two of her own tracks nearly wiped away by the wind, but they disappeared as the captor moved inland.
this was no reassurance. he would go again when he had rested.
aching legs carried him at sundown to the lodges, where a worried tullik met him along the pathway. in the chaos of the search and the pack rallying around one another, another set of information had come: her family was possibly alive. part of her mountain-people village had survived a great avalanche, and among them was a chance to discover bloodkin.
heart already shattered gasped with more hurt, but chakliux only embraced his wife. he spent the night awake with her; they twined together in desperate longing, at last still as the skies greyed. my heart will not stop loving you, he told tullik, unable then to smile for the heaviness in his eyes.
kilalurak wished to go with her mother. when dawn rose on a second day, chakliux gazed long at the girl who so resembled him and assured her that she had become a fierce woman of the seal hunters in her own right. guard your mother. keep her safe on your journey.
as much as he did not wish to, he opened the choice to his other tall-grown four. any who departed would have the support of their father, his love, his adoration.
but chakliux was unsure how much more he might be able to stand.

sirmiq arrived back to the lodges just before the news of his mother's departure was shared amongst the children. the boy was still for a long while, curled near to his siblings as his parent's embraced one another for what he thought could be the last time.

his sister would depart too, and sirmiq wished it would not be so. but when the sun rose on the second day, he did not speak for either to stay. 

he could not chain them here when their path was set elsewhere. he knew both mother and sister to be strong, to be survivors, but his heart ached to watch them leave. he stood beside his father and those of his remaining siblings until they turned back toward the lodges, and even then sirmiq stood there. 

it was long past the last light when sirmiq finally stirred, some evidence of silent tears smeared across his snout. he returned to the lodges that night and could have sworn they felt a little bit colder.