Moonspear rich folks laugh while the furnace burns

had she been so eager for stories? kukutux looked at each one of their measured expressions in turn, surrendering to a small spate of laughter. "yes. milik waits until it is time to come down." there had been few mountains in her memory; the flat taiga, the slopes, the sea-ice. but many she recalled, and always at their top, a dome of white.

"there are many stories of lightning mother and thunder uncle. perhaps i tell you of how lightning mother first fell to earth," kukutux marvelled. "or how one day, she touched an elder in my village. after that, he knew he had seen the face of the earth herself, and every day he told us what she had told him in his dreams." sweeping the dust clear. "and thunder uncle, he is the growl that comes before the rain-time, and he shouts in his love for the lightning mother that she is coming close."

eyes dancing as she glanced with mischief between the boys, alighting briefly upon sialuk with a satisified expression.