Otter Creek New and Untested Lands

She could tell she struck a nerve in him, and his calculated response only piqued her curiosity. But Nanook knew better than to press if she wished to keep his company, and she chose to accept his elaboration with a simple nod, and let the subject fall. This was a line she wouldn't cross. Not now, at least, but she would be patient. Perhaps a moment would come when one of her questions would be appropriate to voice, but until then, she would count his answer sufficient, and generous enough.

There was something in the way the ice bear spoke that made her name sound right. Perhaps it was his accent, his Northerner's lilt, or the way it reminded her of how her father once spoke it. Even more, she could tell her words pleased him, too. Nanook found herself grinning, tipping her nose as the sound of his laugh lent her lips a faint yet mirrored curl.

"Siarut Iyaroak Ateneq," she repeated his name, as he had hers, and glanced skyward as she often did when she wanted to truly remember a thing. A proper name of the North, and she rolled each syllable carefully over once again, to commit the name deeper, and so as not to butcher the strong and foreign sounds. "Siarut Iyaroak Ateneq. Quite the name." She glanced at him sidelong and tipped her head with a tried attempt to return his playful smile, "You will be Ice Bear to me."

Unlike Siarut, Nanook found no qualms in offering him the answers to what he sought from her. In part, she felt she owed him - he had willingly provided her with more information than he had needed to share about his own family, after all. But she found the stronger sway came from a genuine want to share with this man, and the personal hope that her openness might prompt him to share more of himself with her. "I also have two sisters. The first rules a pack some days north of here, neighbouring my brother's. The other is alive, but only the stars know where." Yet there was one she hadn't mentioned to the Ice Bear, and Nanook paused, taking her own turn of silence to consider - but what harm could come in providing this, too? "And my mother, but she has been dead for a very long time."