Chakliux explained their travel plans with practiced ease, and Kukik had no reason to doubt the man's decision. Deftly cracking open the shell of the mussel, he quickly took its flesh within his jaws and swallowed it.

-I will do as you ask.- The boy had spent little time with the caribou hunter, the Sharadoii woman, but Elk Charm he knew was a woman to be respected. With this task now planned, the boy funneled the chore away and enjoyed the presence of his lodge father. It does not take long for Chakliux to pose to him a question he himself had been asking of himself.

Will you be scarred, Kukik?

The boy did not turn his flame colored gaze to Chakliux, instead turning it out to the sea.

-Can I truly become a man?- Kukik understood that physically, he would continue to grow into adulthood, but he was not asking if he would simply stop aging. There was a doubt that pressed the boy's conscious. A lack of understanding the boy had of his place in this world.

Kukik found that the saltwater did not simply remain in the ocean's bed. Water fell from his eyes, to which the boy screwed them shut.

The walrus hunters and seal hunters were separate peoples, even if they were cut from similar cloth. Women held the sway in a walrus hunter village, while seal hunter men commonly had multiple wives. It was funny how both types of hunters went about things, because both of these decisions were made with the understanding that men were expendable.

For a long time now, Kukik had accepted that bitter truth. He was expendable, but perhaps that was simply the way things had to be.

-Would you like me to be scarred?- Kukik understood that it was not an answer he was giving the man.