Otter Creek New and Untested Lands

From the way he neared her, Nanook could tell her understanding surprised him, and she didn't need to read his thoughts to know why. From her colour to her size, she knew she didn't look the part. Her troubled youth had left her willowy and slight, and though her time at Easthollow had filled her some, she still cut a sharp and angular figure next to more average women. She had never quite reached the fullness she'd seen in her mother, or even in Valette. No, she did not look a Northerner, but she ran with the blood of one in her very pulse.

She accepted his more proper greeting with a dip of her own head, and felt the faintest smile curl the corners of her mouth. "Yes." Inuttuk was not her mother-tongue, but the language felt more a home to her than the common verse. "My father and my brother, too. We were born here, but my father was born in the North."  She paused. "You are from the North." Or perhaps he had been born here, too - but he could always correct her, and her voice suggested a want for more. Seldom did she find others who shared the tongue of ice, and by this alone, he became a curiosity she wished to know.