Ouroboros Spine xlviii. one day, we'll reveal the truth

Almost six weeks. Six weeks since the spiritbear's scent had grown stale upon their bed furs, upon her own dove peltage. Lótë had clasped to hope with trembling, fearful hands until she strangled it in her fervent desperation. 

How long had @Kukutux waited before singing the death songs?

Sivullik had gone after her fever, to search for the firepelted Tupilak, pressing a kiss to her cheek that she had not known to cherish as the last -- his confident, almost boyish smile haunting her like the blinding after-image of brother sun glinting off virgin snow. The Baptiste, who had only recently been given her name, felt foolishly betrayed in this, in not having been prepared for the possibility that Adrastus might not return. 

Six weeks since the fever that brought them together, morning dove and bird of peace. In less than a turn of a moon, the two-year would bring their children into this world. A horrible dread had begun to seize her at the mere thought when there should have been only joy, afraid as she was that her cubs' father would not be here to see it. 

The mother-to-be kept to the ulaq the alabaster huntsman had presented her with, a silent stubbornness to her dailys actions as she tended to the furs that had been stockpiled, stored what food she could catch -- mainly fish -- in her condition. There would be no fasting for the greenpaw and she spoke nothing aloud of the songs echoing in her dreams. 

He would return. And when her husband finally came home, he would be injured, aching from whatever trials had kept him away. Lótë intended to insure that Adrastus came home to a welcoming den, that he would have somewhere comfortable to rest whenever he found his way back. 

the duck felt as though her head might swell largely as she lifted it upright. but there was a sisterly calling in her heart, and eventually she found the strength to rise and walk unsteadily along the pathways.

lótë would be mother with her in moonglow this year. kukutux was relieved not to be alone in this. but adrastus had gone, and he had not come back. it had been many, many days, and the icehunter had not returned. she knew that the heart of the cloudberry woman must be sore with pain indeed.

kukutux whispered weakly the name of her sister as she came upon the painter's threshold, the ulaq where sivullik had once rested with his wife. but lótë did not mourn, she saw; she worked, and moonwoman's eyes rested with wistfulness and approval upon the neat clearing, the things kept as though adrastus would suddenly appear between them.

yet her voice was kind as it reached for the cloudberry woman's ears, and she settled as near as the other permitted, breathing only a single sigh of understanding.

She had avoided the moonwife, though not with any malicious intentions or to hurt the winterwhite -- she had avoided them all, unwilling to face what they thought was the truth shining in their eyes, this silent pity for the pregnant wife in denial that her husband wasn't coming back. But when Kukutux appeared on her doorstep with the softest whisper of empathy, a ghostly figure -- a mirror image, the pain in her eyes both for Lótë and for her own lost mate -- of grief, her sigh whistled hollowly through the Baptiste's chest like wind in the bare branches of autumnal trees. It unwound the last certain resolve in her heart and it broke. 

The dove's lips parted as if she would greet her sister but her mind raced in a thousand different directions and no words were forthcoming. They closed, tongue flicking over them before they separated once more and she tried again. "Tell me true, my dear friend," her words trembled in spite of how she clung to her composition, to any semblance of inner strength she might possess, "am I a fool not to mourn?" 

"you are no fool at all, najâtsuk. how could you know that he would not return? you did not see him die."

and yet —!

and yet;

kukutux bent closer.

"when you are ready, i will sing the death songs with you, lótë. you cannot lift up your voice until you are ready. and you cannot force yourself to feel in this way. only in your spirit will you know."

moonwoman was somber. "do you still feel him speaking to your heart?"

Her eyes slid shut, ears falling back as if she could shut out the  agony the Moon’s words sent lancing through her chest. She tried — hard, feeling her chest tighten and squeeze as if physically clinging to her resolve — but something within snapped beneath the pressure and with a ragged breath, the tears came for the first time in years. 

Unable to stop the sob she tried to smother, the greenpaw’s  head dipped to rest on her sister’s shoulder when she bent forward. When she could breathe enough to talk, the dove sighed an exhausted whisper: “I can’t feel him anymore.  What I would give to see him one more time — or even to know what happened.”

It was this, if anything, that would destroy her. This not knowing whether he was dead or alive, as if he’d simply vanished without a trace.  What was worse, she was too far along to even go searching for him. If there was any clue, it would be gone by the time Lótë could go  looking for her missing mate. 

the ocean rose and became a ulitunnik through her sister's eyes. kukutux moved closer, raising her pale foreleg to enwrap lótë. their foreheads pressed together, and she felt the buried sorrow lifting again.

it has not yet been a whole span of moons!

agony for the blackfox broke over her, but she inhaled through the lash of it.

"sivullik would love his children." her words were firm despite the rush of warmth along her own face. "i knew of his feeling for you much time before he asked you to be wife."

"you do not feel sivullik. but do you remember how his heart raced for you?"

It was no easy task to turn her mind from the sorrow of losing him, away from the gaping hole in her existence that had been left. She had heard others say before that eventually they would forget the faces of their loved ones in their grief. Such was not her experience. 

Adrastus’ face hovered behind her eyelids, as if he would round the bend in the trees or walk into their ulaq at any moment. Every time she turned around — every glimpse of white — she expected to see him. Lótë couldn’t find it in her to believe that he would ever fade from her heart. 

A wet, trembling smile was offered. ”Aye,” she sighed, unable to hide for a moment just how weary she was. ”He was so happy to become a father, Kukutux. I was so proud to give him that. I just…I don’t know how I will do it without him.”

She would persevere; she must. For the sake of Adrastus’ children. 

The dove would not — could not — fail him. She would make the spiritbear proud, no matter where he was. 

kukutux nodded. she had been able to raise the ice crystal and the raindrop with her blackfox. he would not see their lives after, and this was a certain sort of pain. "we will help you. your sisters, and the hunters. you will have meat at your hearth and your children will be taught the stories and words of my people. we will give you all but sivullik."

a sympathetic breath. "he cares already for the children you carry. his eyes will see them no matter where he has been led."

moonwoman clucked her tongue, pressed close to the cloudberry woman for a moment, moved aside. "come to my ulaq. i will give you berries and doe fat. then we will sleep for a time. he will come to you then, in the place of dreaming."

She had known on some level that the village would not let her or her children suffer, that they would help her when she was unable to hunt her own meals -- confined to the ulaq she had so carefully painted with the story of brother sun and sister moon, hoping it might draw the pale hunter back to her like it had drawn the sun's ivory lover, and her children's bedside. It was still a relief to hear this affirmed aloud, however, and the moonwife's kindness offered some conciliation. 

She would not be wife but widow.

But there would still be joy. She would bring Sivullik's children to her hearth and Moonglow would see them raised as part of a second generation -- a testament of how the moonwolves had grown and flourished since the star struck the land. Like Kukutux and Sialuk, she would rebuild here in the Spine and draw stength from their example. 

"It is good that they will have family -- even if the spiritbear does not return," she did not want to give the horrid thought any weight but she could not cling to disbelief and allow it to become delusion. She must prepare for the event that Adrastus never came home, that she must do this alone. 

Lótë nodded, rising to follow after the wisewoman. If dreaming was where she could see him again, then Lótë could bear it -- at least until the day gave way to nightfall and she could sleep again. That was all she could ask for: to get through it, one day at a time. 

Even as they walked side by side through the dens of their village, resolution sank in her heart like a stone in water. 

If he had not returned by the time she healed from the delivery of their litter, the death songs would be sung.