RE: The stars are unusually bright tonight. Maybe because it's also unusually cold.. brr.
Sakari had strayed from the river just a bit—far enough that she felt adventurous but not so far that she could not still smell her liquid lifeline. It was pointless to stick to the river anyway... it had been so cold last night that the river had frozen solid, so thick even in the very center that it was impossible to bore through. So the fish were safe, for one more night at least, and Sakari traveled onward with a rumbling stomach.
She had come to the place where the thick vegetation of the wildwood gave way to the ethereal, swaying branches of the willow forest. The dark maiden lifted her nose to scan her surroundings, but she was immediately distracted by a break in the overgrowth above. Countless stars beamed down from the heavens, scattering their reflected light upon the girl’s face and back.
The view reminded her of the land of her birth, where there were no trees to obscure the nighttime sky. This breathtaking sight had been a nightly occurrence, and so of course Sakari’s family had construed the perfect way to mar the beauty by imposing their morose beliefs. To the Noatak wolves, the stars were the spirits of the dead, watching and judging the actions of the living. One wrong move was like to enrage one of these ever-vigilant spirits, promising bad luck for the hapless, misstepping wolf.