Sedna's Fingers
In the Long Night, in the silent darkness of the world beneath the floes, our frozen roof shatters, and death comes to my brother.
The ice-walker who takes us in our safe place is invisible – a shock wave in the inky black, a scattering of bubbles, the muffled sounds of struggle. But we know her. We have seen her in the Day. She and her two sisters are slim as dolphins, white as the beluga, cold and deadly as the deepwater sharks.
Clouds of sea-floss stream from her head, brushing us as we flee, and mix with the tang of my brother's blood. One thin tendril escapes, to taint the frigid water. That, and no more. For these ones take only the blood, and, like the lamprey, she has captured my brother's hot leak before his wound can call to others.
A companion waits for her above. A stranger. Unfamiliar. We hear his footfalls, the creaking of the ice above, as he follows the deathbringer, and my brother's weak thrashing.
The ice-walkers prefer the kin who run above, as they do. The bleating herds. The wolves. Even the great white bear. The blood of these lies closer to the skin, and only fur bars the way – not the impenetrable blubber that shields us from our cold cradle.
But sometimes, sometimes, the ice-walkers desire us too, for our blood is very rich, and they are sated long on it. The white ones do not wait at our breathing holes, as the warm two-leggeds do. And they have no need of boats. With their own bodies they break our sky. And take. And leave.
Where are this one's sisters? And is she teaching the new one to hunt us too? And will he stay?
Our family scatters now in the dark. My brother's bloodless body sinks below.
A/N ~~ Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the sea. The sea mammals are said to be her severed fingers. A version of her story can be found here: : / / w w w . rainewalker . sedna . h t m .