What could be said of d’Mani that likely hadn’t already been said? She had gone to Moladion, tasted it once more, and she had left with the resolution to really never return. When she said it that time, she really meant it. She felt it in her bones that she meant it. She’d realized, after all, that she didn’t need to be there to feel her family or to feel at home. Those things were arbitrary, and she’d been spending too much energy in attempting to define them by the standards of others. In that way, she’d left Moladion laughing with the mountains at her back as she followed the black shores of the tundra further and further north. Spring made her passage easy, and by winter, she’d put enough distance between she and Moladion that it had begun to feel like a dream.

Somehow, somewhere in the tundra’s vastness, she’d found herself attached to a group of other women. They’d simply all drifted together, drawn in by food, comfort, conversation – each had their reasons, but nobody questioned them. When d’Mani had drifted into their ranks, it had disarmed her. They didn’t question her, or probe her, or even challenge her place among them as she snuck in between two strangers and took her share of a kill she’d never contributed to. Just like that, they’d accepted her presence and, in time, she’d accepted theirs. Opening up was comfortably slow, and they respected the boundaries around each woman’s private, secret thoughts.

Anjij was so white it hid the grizzling of age along her muzzle. Cuput was as black as midnight – or would have been years ago – but she wore stretches of grey and sun-bleached mahogany. Kirima was a patchwork of grey and brown, with a splash of pure white that covered a single eye – an eye so blue and blind that it seemed to stare right through them all. Then, Alasie, who had somehow become their leader without meaning to – a woman so silver that even her eyes were.

Well, leader seemed the closest definition d’Mani could think of. In truth, they sat around their meals and discussed their decisions. Where would they go next? Had they seen that woman by the river – should they find her? Should they settle for the winter, or try to make it to the next valley? If there had ever been a place for d’Mani, she had found it in that circle of women. They traveled, ate, rested, played in the autumn leaves and groaned in unison – then laughed! – at their creaking joints.

Niviaq, she had learned, was a name found in the north. Or rather, a name that had come from the north, just as d’Mani’s own name had been born there too. Sila, Panik, Alyeska, Tonraq, Kavik. The north had been sprinkled through d’Mani’s life like confetti. As they lay about beneath the stars and talked, d’Mani felt at home beneath the northern sky. Great green lights danced above them, and she saw her mother in them dancing with her father and siblings. Alasie decided then and there, and the next day, they began towards the coast.

This, she came to understand, had been the shoreline she had always dreamed of. It hadn’t been Litherum or Glorall, or any other one. Her emotions culminated in a great sigh of relief as they all stood side by side at the edge of the water. The sand was white, the water so deep it verged on black, and she could see great sheets of ice far in the distance. Cuput said the ice met the shore come winter, and so they settled into their playing and circle-making for the summer and autumn. Once the ice met the shore, they started on their next adventure.

Her heart was so full she had feared it might very well crack the ice itself, and she met with the sand and forest on the other side. By then, she’d found peace, and she’d been clear she’d not continue onward. Alasie understood, and the two of them laid together in the sand, beneath the dancing sky, and let themselves enter a sleep so deep they’d wake up with new eyes, new names, and new souls.

The others moved them come the morning. Onto the ice, they went, so that they might have their final adventure as the great sheets of ice drifted far and wide into the unknown. Cuput, Kirima and Anjij began on their next adventure then, meeting with their own newcomers and saying goodbye each in turn eventually. Cuput became the black sand of another shoreline; Kirima became the roots of a tree atop a lone hill; and Anjij found her place within a field so vast, it seemed to overwhelm the horizon. In their steed, the newcomers continued onward, each with a little piece of the others, taking them on an endless adventure.