Gifted Pelt

Chapter 20

Halfway through her fourteenth story etched into the snow, with only a break for sleep, a silence arrives. Not the stifling silence of being covered in a snow layer, but the still silence of the end of a storm, before the winds begin once more. She grins and scrambles to her feet, pulling Kōri up with her. She is through the tunnel in a flash, faster than an arctic hare. Kōri is still fast as he scurries his way up the tunnel, but she is easily able to stay in front of him. When she reaches the top of the tunnel, she stares out at the pristine snow layer, their footprints from earlier have been concealed, going by how it covers a quarter of the tunnel mouth, which is only a meter or so big. Kōri comes barreling through the tunnel behind her, only to crash into Astrila.

She topples forward, and her momentum sends her falling through the fresh snow all the way to the old layer below. She mercifully twists as she falls to land with her face staring up at the sky, so she sees when Kōri looks down at her. It is almost as if she had fallen into a crevice, that's how far away her perspective makes him look. When she sits up, he appears to be a good distance closer than before. She grins up at him, laughing as he reaches a hand down to help her up. She takes it gratefully, and also takes the chance to determine how much snow had fallen. It reaches up to her chest, and she gapes at it as Kayi and Tonraq emerge from the tunnel. They stop in their tracks when they see her, up to her chest in snow. Kayi opens and closes his mouth like a fish before finally mustering up the words to speak.

"Please tell me you're sitting down in the snow."

She shakes her head sadly. "No, I'm standing, and I haven't broken through the old layer."

He sighs. "Wonderful. I was positive that it couldn't snow that much in that little time, especially this far north. The storm only lasted for three days."

Astrila gives him a grim smile, climbing out of the hole in the snow. "The climate here is changing. Every year, there were fewer animals to hunt for my tribe. Maybe it has to do with human hunting, maybe not. But it is happening."

"What do we do about it? I can sense a storm brewing here, something dangerous is coming to the island."

Astrila cautiously steps over to Kayi and gives him a brief hug."I don't know what we can do about that, but we can help get people out of their igluvijait to rebuild."

He smiles at her. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, just like your mother."

She smiles sadly. "Thank you."

She turns away from Kayi, not noticing the lingering look of sadness he gives her as she walks away. Astrila steps toward the first of the igluit and starts to clear the snow away with her hands and her snow knife, but Kōri places a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She looks up at him, confused.

"What is it Kōri?"

"It will be easier to do this if you shift."

She frowns at him. "I don't know how."

"Then I'll teach you. It's similar to when you made your pelt become a coat. While wearing the pelt, either in coat form or with the pelt in its normal shape drawn around you, imagine yourself as a seal. You know what color your pelt is, imagine a seal with that same pattern."

Astrila sighs and closes her eyes, letting the image drift into her mind's eye. The seal is a harbor seal, with a deep black pelt and two twin spots of light gray above its rich brown eyes. Her skin feels weird, tingly, and she shivers. She feels toasty warm, as if she was in her furs sitting around a fire. She opens her eyes to find herself staring directly at two feet. She looks up to see Kōri looking down at her, smiling. He opens his mouth to speak to her, and she is slightly surprised to find that he sounds almost identical to what he sounds like while she is in human form. She didn't know seal and human hearing were so similar, at least on land.

"You're almost identical to your father in seal form, Astrila. The only difference is those gray spots above your eyes."

She tries to tell him "Let's start clearing the snow away!" but only a bark comes out.

He laughs all the same. "Alright, alright. I'm coming."

He ripples and reappears beside her, almost invisible against the snow. He bumps her side with his nose and she snaps her eyes away from him, returning to the task at hand. Her flippers clear away the snow with ease, clawing out large clumps of it to toss behind her. It doesn't take long for her to reach the opening into the iglu, and the occupants smile at her in gratitude. She waves her flipper toward them in a beckoning motion before she squirms her way back. Once out of the new tunnel, she moves to the next iglu.

She only knows that they have emerged from their iglu when they speak to Kayi from behind her. "What's going on?"

"We're rebuilding the igluvijait on top of the snow layer before we get buried too deep to protect the way out and the ventilation shafts."

"Would you like us to get started on that?"

He nods. "Please."

Astrila can hear them say something else, but she is far enough away that she can't tell what they are saying, having already reached the next iglu.
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What do you think is going to happen next? What do you think Kayi is sensing? Tell me your thoughts!

Happy reading and I'll see you next chapter!

~Goddess of Fate, signing out.