Dahozhoni Meadow The Beauty is All Outside of Me

Flowers surrounded him, even as the world readied for winter. And yet despite the verdant landscape, the scent of herds and life and plants in the air, it felt foreign to him in a way that a season he had never seen did not. His steps slowed as he trod through it, his pack felt heavy, and the feather flickering behind his ear even that felt like a burden to carry. His bruises and wounds were fading from the fall and though strength returned to him he had turned away from nuutuittuq and yet he did not know where he was headed. And he did not feel the call in his blood. But he had to keep going. He knew that, even as his steps screamed at him and his body weighed him down. He needed to keep going. He would know the place, know the time when he found it. The words echoed in his head, but they felt outside of him.