Ouroboros Spine attukuanniyaila

Tags for ref!

The ulaq where they stayed with their aunt @Vairë felt crowded, and besides that Tautukpik saw they were not welcome by the other children. One day, not long after aapa came, aaka visited to say she was also going.

Tautukpik did not understand; but @Kukutux came with her, and she gathered the boy and his sisters, and together they were brought to another ulaq. Now it was Tau's turn to emote.

He had been there for @Nutuyikruk and Akmaaksi; he had tried to intervene when their cousins were mean to them; he did not dislike any of these people but, his delayed processing of the last few days had finally begun to catch up to him.

When brought food, he refused it. The same defiance came when the children were made to sleep, as Tautukpik sat and watched his sisters and scowled at his grandmother. When prompted to leave the ulaq or go to the Three Sisters, he would shout and scream and fight.

Why had aaka gone away too? Wasn't it enough that aapa had been told to go? He did not understand! He only wanted things to go back to normal, before this place and all of its changes!

the little ones struggled.

she kept little @Nutuyikruk and akmaaksi close to her pelt-gathering and the endless stripping of hides. they gathered berries in the lake-forest and she told them the stories of lightning mother and grandfather wind, even to the brother who grew angrier and more distant as his mother began her journey. 

they grieved.

little tautukpik had grown fierce. his outbursts were received with a wide patience of the mothers watching over the children of ariadne. there was pain in him, and now her eyes turned in quiet search for kigipigak upon the pathway to the ulax.

kukutux had considered much of what she might say to the little boy, and chose to appeal not to tautukpik as a child, but as a wolf of moonglow with a part in the village.

the grandmother settled herself quietly near him, though not so near; she lowered her muzzle respectfully, offering him the recognition of his frequently-expressed emotion. "two kiiriq have been stealing strips of meat from my drying-rack," kukutux murmured. "they come early in the morning, before father sun has raised his face. i think i will sit here all night. but i am not fast enough any longer to catch them," and here she sighed, looking up toward the sky.

The boy watched when his sisters were given skins and strips of flesh, seeing them play or learn, and despite his own curiosity he could not shake the feelings the abandonment of his mother had aroused within him. He would not help; he would only watch his sisters and be mindful of the adults, the way aapa had been. He was not here now to protect them and Tautukpik saw the responsibility fall upon his own shoulders—especially after aaka departed.

He had seen the greenlight drawing her away like a kite on a string; he had heard the wind humming a song, and knew in his heart it was what aaka needed to be doing. But he was a child and he did not want to see, he did not want to hear. Tautukpik turned his back on the lights to focus on his sisters.

The woman—aaka to his own—spoke of two thieves she was not skilled enough to catch. Tautukpik was respectful enough to listen but he would not offer himself to help; if she could not stop these things, what business did she have watching over Nutuyikruk of Akmaaksi?

So he turned away from her too.

her gambit did not work, but kukutux only glanced aside when tautukpik turned in the opposite direction. she could ask him to do this thing. she could insist that he did. but there was no desire to do so even in the recognition of her own power.

the duck was silent for some time.

"the kiirik is a spirit being. sometimes it is only a kiirik. but other times it is a tupilak. and sometimes they are even ijiraq, those who change shape."

"the world is not all what it seems when you see first, tautukpik. there is a second eye which grows behind the first two. it is with this that you will one day see the world as it is."

The words she used were not things he had heard before; but she mentioned spirits, which sounded more familiar, and earned a turn of his ear as his attention was caught. Then the wind blew, and the trees around the ulax shuddered. He thought he heard someone speak—not grandmother's voice, something thin and far-away, and alluring.

Tautukpik watched the trees as they danced and when the breath of wind ebbed away to stillness again, he took his own breath and looked at Kutukux.

Iggaġriq says uiga watches. But nobody had spoken! It had only been the wind. He spoke words he had not heard before; but he knew them somehow, his eyes bright and shining to his grandmother.

moonmother grew very still.

her mind avoided the truth that immediately came to the front of her thoughts.

kukutux felt a singe of fear, and then a deep, fierce wonder for the boy at her side.

"what else does iggaġriq say?" black bear!

she heard the wind; she shut her eyes, lifted her chin, shivered as her own ears searched for the taboo she had broken.

Usually when he tried to tell the adults of things, like his aapa specifically, they would hardly entertain his nonsense. Tautukpik expected the same in this moment but felt relief when the opposite was offered—acceptance, involvement.

He listened again, but even with the rise of the wind there was no further message. The boy frowned and sat.

Tau shrugged and kicked a rock. Calls me little brother sometimes. He didn't like that. He didn't want to be little!

several things shifted within kukutux, changing. the dread remained, but it had sharpened into something more.

spirit-talkers often found their sight young.

"look, tautukpik." she turned slightly, gesturing to the peak of moonspear. "that is a place, a village which is led by sialuk. she is sister to your mother. sialuk was born there in that place, and now it is alive."

"but once the mountain was dead. it was murdered. before it died, it lived, tautukpik. and i lived there too, in that first village, with my first husband."

she told him of the black bear, hydra, of the blackfox, jarilo; she spoke the names of those who had lived and those who had died, all save for that of grey brother.

his anger kept his name back from her lips.

but she thought it! revui! revui!

"the lands of our people are filled with spirits. if you can hear them, if they speak to you, listen. even if they call you little brother. it is for a reason."

She showed him the mountain, far away.

She did it through stories and by speaking names which he did not know, yet each time these names were spoken Tautukpik heard another whispered on the wind; like a second current beneath the tide of information Kukutux shared with him.

Her stories were different from what his aapa shared.

The boy watches the mountain. He appears transfixed by it, this giant tooth sticking out of a black gum horizon.

Come home, brother.

Although he did not know her mind, her thoughts of the gray man, when she thought his name the boy looked keenly her way again. His frown was deeper now.

I want aapa.

"aapa will be back," she reassured the boy, wanting to brush the downy spine and show him he was loved while both ariadne and kigipgak were gone.

but perhaps this would not be how it was between them.

"would you like to come with me to find his trail? we will follow it to where he went over the border-line and wait there for some time, if you have this wish, tautukpik."

he had stared at the mountain.

"when your legs are longer, we will go there, to that place. there you can listen more clearly."

Okay, ka-ka. The boy had heard adults call her Kukutux, and aaka call her aaka, and now these things merged upon his tongue.

He turned finally from having his back turned to the woman. As he began to saunter close and then drift by, he paused and asked, Did aapa go home? Is he hunnin' for the baby?

Why else would aaka send him away?

Tautukpik had heard the songs being sung and he had watched the greenlight burn strong across the sky at that time. He had not seen his brother dancing, and had not heard his voice as the wind.

pain clenched her throat.

"aapa has gone away to hunt for your mother, and for you little children," she said softly, unsure of how to walk this path without ariadne.

ka-ka; she was amused despite the weight of things. "but he will be back." surely this would not be done a second time.

Oh, they play seeks! it was a new game that had piqued the boy's interest, one his sisters had invented. One would hide, the others would find.

Anyway, it seemed a very serious game based on how aaka had come to say his byes earlier. He had made everyone cry.

Buh aaka is here. She not hiding. What was anaa not telling him? Maybe their game was different because they were big?

He frowned but continued to trundle along.

her small grandson wished to bring sense from all these things, and kukutux chose her words softly. "aapa and aaka do not play. they hunt for you in different places, and come back at different times. sometimes aapa walks on a longer path than your anaa."

did he understand now?

"look. his trail is here. let us walk beside it," and kukutux let the boy trundle gently ahead, leading her along the marks of kigipigak.