Sulukinak watched the shake of his fur send snow scattering like pale moths in the dawn light. The motion was careless, open—nothing hidden, nothing coiled. She noted it without comment, the way one notes the direction of wind or the depth of a drift.

His tongue wrapped around her name carefully, almost reverently, as though it were fragile prey he did not wish to crush. No mockery in it. No claim. Only effort. The name was hers; how he carried it mattered less than that he spoke it without teeth behind the sound.

Good, she said simply. One word. Final.

Her nostrils flared once more, sweeping the air. The wind had shifted again, carrying threads from the south: faint caribou musk, old and scattered, overlaid with something fresher—ptarmigan perhaps, or hare, small but alive. Not enough for two, but a start. Enough to test this new arrangement.

She turned her head south, muzzle lifting slightly.

She took one step forward, then paused—glancing back over her shoulder at the russet bulk behind her.

Hare. If you scare it, we try again. There was a subtle warning there; flat, matter-of-fact, not a threat but a boundary drawn in snow. This was the creature's singular chance to prove himself friend over foe.

Her gaze flicked to the horizon, where the gray sky met white plain. The earth beneath them gave another faint shudder—barely felt, like breath held too long. The dream’s fissures still waited somewhere, patient. She felt them in her bones, in the scar that tugged with every shift of weight.

But hunger was here. Now.

And this strange, loud thing had chosen to walk beside her instead of away.

Sulukinak moved south without another word, paws breaking crust in measured steps, ears swiveled back to catch his heavier footfalls. The snow fell on, soft and steady, veiling their trail almost as soon as it was made.