She spoke. Not a figment of his imagination. Her eyes were as he remembered: the deepest blue. Blue as the sea on a clear day; he could compare it, now, having seen the vast expanse and all its joy and terrible fury. The memory of salt in his lungs still burned. But she was real. She was here; she looked him in the face with the same shock he wore.

He knew nothing of what she had done in his absence; only the vaguest memory of ceremony, something meant for women. He did not think of the seal hunters she had stayed with. He did not think of the distance and time, and all that had changed with the seasons. All he knew was that he had found the closest thing he had to a home in many years, and then lost it, and now found—

He stepped towards her, eyes stinging, unable to find the proper words. Perhaps there were none. If she allowed it, he would embrace her. He needed to know that she was real. He would bury his face in her furs with a choked sob.

"Ȟákac'enyu," he said, recalling the name she had given. "You live, you live. You live."