Mature Content Warning

it was a snowbound day that the duck pushed from the ulaq. the snow had come with a great fury, and she hesitated as the wind howled. agnik was harsh but fair, and kukutux had been reared in such fierce climes. it was with little unsurety that the northern wife pushed into the drifts.

but she did not continue for long; frustrated, the whitebird returned back to the emerald recesses of moonspear. her duties to find a wife for aiolos must go sidestepped for now. he would understand, and toad amelia also, kukutux knew. a frown furrowing as she began to cast through the slanted wall of falling mist, searching for the trails of her children.

and now curiously, a long, low dirge cutting through the bank. lifting her fine head, the worried expression deepened. it was hydra, and a summons rode the arch of the alpha's commanding howl. dread began to prickle claws along her spine, but kukutux swallowed and trudged at once for her store of medicines.

throwing her own crown back in a sharp order for @Sialuk and @Saviguk to come to wait out the storm within her ulaq, telling @Jarilo that she went to attend hydra, the islebride headed directly into the teeth of brother wind. here her senses sharpened with an innate confidence; her paws found with ease the known paths leading away from moonspear and the direction her sister had called.

the glen. kukutux sent up a cry ahead of herself — i soon arrive — and lowered her muzzle below shoulders, turning herself into a side-winding gait that kept her distinctly aimed in the proper trajectory. in her teeth a smaller bundle of skin and herbs; she had not brought a wrap, for in this gale it would only be blown away and unseen again.

the glen — the sensation of dread returned. a swallow bobbing her throat as a brief moment of clarity sliced through the snow-wall and showed that she had come nearly to the borders. an inhale; her step froze, and kukutux staggered first in shock, then mounting fear, at the scent of grandfather aktak. green-gaze searched low and she pressed on into the trees.

here the rush was somewhat stifled, and the duck lunged into a run that carried her along the path he had torn through firefly. and then the scent of blood, followed by the sight of it, and of snarling. 

the bundle struck the snow and would have rolled away had not kukutux reached for it reflexively, trapping the medicines beneath her small paw as springjade eyes widened in horror. desdesmona, limp and unmoving. gouts of frozen crimson thawing to warmth; dragging her stare with it, over and over and over until it alit upon the curved form of her friend and followed the agonized lines of her body up to where the face that had always been joyous was lost to a welter of blood.

sickness gripped kukutux; she felt as if she might reel, and bit the inside of her own jaw. wind rose, striking droplets of blood into the snow; she grasped the bundle, could not look away from toad amelia, crept and crept until she shook alongside hydra with a fervency she could not fight.

aullaumajâppuk, the spirit whispered soberly inside the duck's mind, and for the first time kukutux recognized the sound of her mother's own voice, clucking askance and resignation over a young hunter too crushed by the heels of caribou to live. she saw it now, tears turning to ice against her pale cheeks, in the edges of toad amelia's broken body, the wet rattle along the back of her throat. 

extending a trembling foreleg over her companion's body, kukutux found she could not look at hydra as she pulled herself closer. "i am here," the duck whispered, healing mind searching through the more grim herbs of her inventory while warm heart cracked inside her chest. 

a glance to desdemona, who had not moved; and keres. both she could scarcely bear, could not witness in this moment.

a curl of agony that barred shut her throat; she pulled away to grab the bundle and bring it closer, nosing it open to expose the tiny black seeds kept protected from the winds by the edge of her paw. only a moment of wavering; she must not, must not; kukutux licked a good number of them to the edge of her tongue and nosed the offering against the mangled tearing of blood and flesh that had once been toad amelia's muzzle, a sob choked to nothing behind her voice.