Ouroboros Spine liii. you don't remind me of you anymore

oof I have other toons who really need my attention rn but I have so much muse for Lote... AW!

there were no death songs to sing. the icebear -- his spirit was dead and she could no longer name him -- still roamed teekon. the dove could not fast, for the children still nursed. she was too thin as was and could not risk her health further for the sake of her former husband. but his soul had been wrenched apart from her own and he had forsaken her cubs. it was something she must seek the spirits for guidance on. 

aiolos had gone, patrolling perhaps, but others milled about in the morning rays of brother sun. she shared soft words with kukutux, a knowing glance, and left her little ones in the care of their ajâtsuk, anaa. lótë did not know which was truly proper, for the snowbird mothered them as her own. 

her sister had begun to teach her of the spirit places one should keep, though she had never seen how moonwoman's altars were kept. it was like the sun places of elennanórë, like the place she worshipped. where she had accidentally startled zane whilst watching the ptarmigan last year. the same glen were she had compared methods of drying meat with keyni. and where her children had been conceived.

it was a tainted place now and the doe could not return to it, not even to retrieve the plants she had grown there or the things she had left. a new spirit place would need to be found.

there was a fox fur, all that she had left from the ulaq she had shared with the corrupted sivullik -- a gift from shikoba and kigipigak. the cloudberry carried it in her jaws, rather than pull it over her shoulders for warmth despite the chill of autumn in the air. high into the mountains, she buried it between the trees where it would not be seen again. it tugged at her guiltily, thinking of her packmates' wasted efforts but it was the only thing that might still carry a trace of the nanuk's spirit.

before returning to her children, lótë stopped at the hot springs she had found some time ago -- where kiliutak had spied on her -- to cleanse herself in the warm waters. she would even go so far as to take some of the slightly bitter water in her mouth though she spat it out without drinking a single drop, purging the blemishes that the tundrian had left on her spirit.

content filled her as she dipped into the steaming pool. she had determined to make aiolos a good wife, even if they might never love each other. her children would not be shamed by what the icebear had done. they would have a father, another mother, sisters. they had been born to the hearth of a sivullik and would be raised to have the same status as sunman and moonwoman's children. moreover, they would be loved. accepted. appreciated. there was not much more a mother could ask for her children.

she had found a measure of happiness as well, her path now following closely alongside her sister's.