Moonsong Glacier complicating

she thought of @Chakliux when she stepped upon the glacier.

not in a way that made her warm as it so very recently once had. seal hunter with his many wives, first warrior who had made her laugh.

did he hold her name with hope?

she had come with something to bury. she must remember how to soothe herself first, before anyone else did.

up high on the moonsong did she bring the glacier to life. a loud song that would mean nothing to any but her, surely. still she sang, still she wondered if she was heard.

and if so, which ears listened?

did he understand what drew him? did chakliux think himself in the grip of some powerful magick, devoid of choice?
or did he comprehend himself and the pull of her calling voice?
once he had climbed these slopes for ariadne. now he traveled them for callyope, tracking her step across the glacier and stopping in somber silence when he finally found her silhouetted in the distance.

the chill rejuvenated her.

moonsong was her birth right, but the grove was given to her by things far more spiritual. loss was as powerful as gain, she had come to learn this.

even more so when she turned to see him. pale and dark grooves of stark scars.

say his name.

a smooth stone was protected under her paw. hidden from view as if his eyes upon it might remove it from her wholly.

seal hunter, not a name, but a title. just as strong and just as branded.

"mist woman."
something had happened between them, a cooling, snow pouring over the mouth of a hot springs. their clouds now obscured callyope.
he closed some steps between them, but kept back. away. his eyes watched the grove-runner, and he was silent.

he did not say her name.

he guarded it still.

she pressed hard against the stone underneath her, enough that a muscle ached like a strain. pressed hard, hard, harder into the earth. if she could not bury it in front of his eyes then this was second best.

she moved like a hunter now, she danced higher upon the glacier. it might have looked like departure —

she looked back to him. expectant that he would follow, despite the distance between them.

chakliux maintained that distance.
his gait was a rangy bounce. he kept the faraway figure in his sight, neither narrowing nor widening the space which separated them. this, his own challenge, something to hone his mind.
had she pressed something into the ground? he could not remember. 
the air grew cooler. he thought of ariadne and his jaw tightened in pain.

higher, higher, higher.

crane bird woman could not be held by the jaws of a seal hunter. it was her spirit that guarded her when her mother was not here. it was that spirit that had her in flight.

when he is yours, he is yours.

darkness would soon sweep over the lands. then it would be moon and starlight.

she planned to keep going until she could no more. yet she continued to look behind, to give looks of continued expectancy.

he tasted the snow and thought of how a village had once been carved from this ice.
he had not thought of himself. only her. and only the misted one now.
darkness fell, and now snow.
the seal hunter quickened after callyope.

he was quick, fluid as a seal hunter must be.

she had gone too high, she had trapped herself on a trail that would end in a more permanent darkness if she went any further. what would she do when he was near?

her heart raced like the migrating caribou.

she shoved herself against a cold and snowy slope to ice the burn of her flesh.

mist woman wrapped herself in snow.
he heard his own tread upon the packed snow; what he knew next was the glimmering length of her spine, traced upward from the base of her spine in slow reverence.
his breath bloomed warm against her pelt. chakliux lingered, drawing, wanting.

he was warm, he was there. so close and so near.

she wanted to say something — anything! — but her voice was lodged against the pulse in her throat.

she could reach out and be there in the thick of his pelt. only one little movement and she might know him more than she knew anyone.

it will be as if sedna had made only the two of you to walk the face of the world.

she did not move closer, but she did not move away either.

quickly he realized her stillness and stepped back, veins thudding with soft flame. for some moments they only gazed at one another.
the seal hunter searched for reciprocity, gathering himself to reach toward callyope now with a questing muzzle and a great confidence.
but still he did not speak. and he did not say her name.

and before she knew it she was reaching for him, but it was not with kindness. it was the nipping of teeth seeking his muzzle. not looking to harm but wanting to keep his curiosity and confidence away.

i must be a wife to be known that way. it felt like she pushed against a door but the breeze pushed back. and i cannot be a third wife, seal hunter.

and she wanted, yearned and longed! but maybe it was not for him so specifically.

stung. chastened. knowing.
he touched his tongue to the new weals along his muzzle. they would fade. but not the lesson.
"yes, mist woman. you are right."
she could not be third. callyope's status carried her from his reach. in her gesture he perceived a dismissal. he responded.
chakliux wore a soft, acceptant smile; he backed down the snowy path, away from her.

it could be different, things could be changed.

sunshine was not meant to be seal hunter. seal hunter was not meant to be sunshine.

she thought she had seen this song and dance before. it had been tartok in his place. it had been a departed sister in her place.

if she would not change for him, she could not make him change for her.

the stone buried beneath her paw had been a wedge between them, she knew that now. she watched him leave and only allowed herself a tremble when he was gone from sight. sinking into snow, held by only the cold.

mist woman became one with the glacier and would not leave it until dawn.