Ouroboros Spine You won't know your worth now, son, until you take a hit

High on the mountain where he was kept, the air was shimmering. For the past few days, at dawn, Nuak could be found testing the lip of stone which served as the doorstop of his captivity. Someone was always there and ready to warn him away with the flash of fangs, or merely through a show of their presence. However, as each day passed and grew warmer, he found them more sluggish to respond to his testing each time.

By the end of the week the air tasted scorched. The shadows Nuak had sheltered himself in through the night had become hot, with a claustrophobic pressure all around. The direct light kept him cloistered as far back as he could manage. He did not test himself or his freedom with sunfire heating the rock; each step burned at his feet, and he knew he was trapped until a verdict was reached.

It was nearly time for the day's end when he woke next. His head felt as if it were full of tumbling rocks. His mouth was dry and while he tried to pant and cool himself, he could not. Was this the witch's doing? Nuak was thirsty, weak, hot, dizzy — was this all because she had cursed him anew with her words?

sunfather was blistering. 

kukutux weakly toiled her way to where nuak was kept, waving away the guard at the entrance. she wanted no wolf to suffer in this wretched day.

not even their captive.

in her jaws, a pile of soaked moss that was by now half-dried. nausea choking the woman; she breathed in the scorching air and motioned to the tall boy. "drink."

"i will bring you down. to the water."

her voice was muted, but the glint of jadeite gaze promised that nuak would still come to harm. in some way; it must be so. her eyes watched him, and then she motioned ahead.

the boy would come down from the stone. she would follow.

The arrival of the woman went ignored until she dropped something near him, prompting the boy to cast her a withering look. The moisture in the air around the moss lured him out from hiding, and with a quick reach and grab, he brought the soggy mound out of the sunlight before it could dry, and sucked at it greedily.

It was not enough. She knew this, and so she offered to lead him to the water.

Kiliutak was too tired to protest. He leered at the sun-baked stonework that he knew would burn at his toes and then, sullenly, rose to do as he was told. His quickstep hastened him to the shadows of the nearest trees and then he skirted under them, stumbling to where Kukutux indicated.

kuktuux watched nuak carefully. he would walk, and she would come after, shale crumbling beneath their paws.

the sun beat upon their backs. the lake shone ahead, a curled and shining pearl among the snake-clutch of the spine. the duck drew a breath, then another, each cooler than that before it.

finally they came to the shallows. she looked up as if to gesture his bearish form into the shallows, but collapsed to her knees on the softmud shoreline, retching horribly as a strangled whine of surprise rose from her throat.

He stood at a distance from Kukutux, nearing the water. As soon as he was standing at the edge he dove for it, then messily began to gulp from the surface. It went down the wrong tube immediately and so he sputtered a bit but did not stop; the cool touch to his dry tongue did not bring relief but a stinging, and then it hit the back of his throat and the boy grew content.

The sound of sputtering from behind him drew his eye, and he whipped his head around too fast; a glare set upon his face as he watched Kukutux, thinking she was enacting some spell maybe, only to pause and frown after her. Water dribbled from Kiliutak's chin and rained to the surface of the pool.

Was she sick? The boy wasn't concerned; he told himself she was fine, that it was a trick. What such a trick might lead to, he did not know — but he was skeptical, and merely watched.

she forgot nuak in the cacophony of vomiting; she lowered her face to the coolness of the earth, eyes screwed shut as sickness came in another twisting wave.

kukutux dragged herself weakly into the waterway and lay half in, half out of the lapping lake. some curse upon her, and presently she set her eyes upon the large boy with a look that wanted to be stern but was only hurt.

"you took what you stole to her," the duck whispered, though there was no intensity there;

only fear, and frustrated affection still for the boy.

The sickness came and went. The witch drew away from the mess she had produced and lay there, cheeks dirtying from the soil, and for a moment nuak thought of how easily he could strike at her; but he did not, still too overheated and too withered by the humidity.

She came to lay in the water next. Nuak almost lifted a lip, but he peered beyond her to where the sick puddle sat absorbing upon the stones, then back to her when she spoke.

Her voice was weak.

The tilt of his head spoke for his silence: so?

She did not care for it. He answered a moment later; thinking of how Avicus had looked upon the trinket, almost with disdain. Disinterest, more like. It is hidden now. Buried, where only the boy could find it.

buried. in a grave, as it felt some part of her now resided.

the duck's mouth tasted of dirt, and she sought to rinse it away with a cascade of water.

buried, as he should have been. as the tupilak should have been, but kukutux would have had her bones scattered far from moonglow.

"she is your family," came the resigned whisper, repeating what the boy had once said. 

too angry, suddenly, filled with horror that the red demon had somehow harmed her womb.

Why did it pain the witch to speak of Avicus? Perhaps it was in remembrance of the cuts across her face. The way she gasped, nuak wondered if the red daughter of the bears had somehow lain a spell upon her instead - a curse - but that was not Avicus' way.

I know no other.

Kiliutak grew tired of the lamentations of the woman. He turned his attention to the water, wading deeper. Deep enough that his toes could no longer touch the bottom. He paddled a few moments until the formlessness of the sensation grew too confusing; scrambling somewhat, until he found the bottom again and rested there, bobbing and gray.

A worried flick of his tongue snaked through the water, over his snout, and then returned from whence it came. The water tasted sour and he did not like it much — but it was better than the cliff face where he had been baking previously.

"i traded with a spirit-talker, to know if you belonged to the clan of ostrega."

kukutux would not allow the grey bear of a boy ignore her.

"she made a path to the world of spirits, to talk to the one i once gave the name of brother."

kukutux, fading, exhausted, placing herself upon the shoreline. she could not make him see. she could not bring him reason. 

and so she said nothing more, letting the wall of silence that nuak wished to grow and expand between them.

Seeing her ill, weakened, and now struggling to draw information from him, gave Kiliutak a sense of superiority. He liked the feeling. It was rare for him to come across moments of it, and so his petulance would continue - worsen, maybe.

I don't know that word. Ostrega. he didn't even pronounce it right. Spat it. Let it drip from his lips with the water.

Engaging with the witch was foolish. She could have been weaving a new spell for him. Imbued this precious water with her will, to draw truths out. Something.

Kiliutak was feeling bold regardless.

My mother's name died with her. My father -- only Merrick knows. Kiliutak had never thought it an important name to remember. He did know one thing: They were friends.

merrick.

she did not know the name.

a boy who did not know his mother. a boy who did not know his father.

"ostrega is your name. it is the name of your clan. i knew to call you nuak before i knew that you wear the spirit of he who has walked on."

she drew a breath, lapsed into silence, sides quaking with the threat of more illness.

You sound so sure. And so sick; he did not miss the sneaking of breath or the shudder of her sides. Had he cared for her at all Kiliutak might have offered to aid her. Not now; not this witch who held him here and continued to work her spells. Trying to trick him.

Maybe she was right. She could have known his father at some point. It was not something Kiliutak wanted to entertain or acknowledge; doing so would make his father a real thing, dead or alive, and his abandonment was something Kiliutak had never let himself deal with.

I have had many names by now, he remarks cooly, before lapping at the water again. As a thread of water drips off his chin he goes quiet, as if thinking. Call me what you want. Your words mean nothing to me.

It would have been nice to accept this new name, he thinks. To belong somewhere, rather than to someone. Avicus came to his thoughts then, livid and red and dripping blood rather than water from her grimaced teeth; a flash.

Where is the girl? He asks finally, looking sharp upon her face. Tracing those wounds with some pride.

"dead now."

her words struck with an adder's curse.

tupilaq had many names. she refused to allow nuak to be claimed by whatever fetid curse the red demon had laid upon him. 

theirs was an impasse, and she felt anger burn strength into her sun-weak limbs. "speak no more, kiliutak. i will bring you back to the stone soon." the gutter of an order, flickering green and acidic in the dark places of her voice.

kukutux, more determined than she was aware of herself to be;

and nuak, the same, the same hard and cold stone in him that the trader had borne!

Dead, now.

Whether that was the truth or not, Kiliutak could not discern. He did not feel bad for the loss of Avicus in any emotional sense; taking the information calmly. Watching his wriggling reflection from overtop the water.

If it were the truth then he could not return to the valley. To Merrick. The storehouse — which did not make him sad either, exactly. Disappointed to some extent. Glad, too, for it would keep him out of range of Aventus.

I will bring you back to the stone soon. The woman ordered; her voice went to familiar dark places, hard and cold. Kiliutak would heed her after a pause, drawing himself from the water so that he could stand and drip upon the stones.

They freckled beneath him.

he would walk before her, and she would direct him up into the hot stone recesses.

but he could not remain here forever. the icehunter had gone after the tupilak. she would not survive if the great white bear caught her.

kukutux turned her eyes away, toward the breadth of mountain left to climb. their pelts would dry upon the path there.

for what purpose had nuak been brought back to her?

Slowly he came to follow the witch. He did not notice if she slipped behind him or kept in the lead, only that the air was heavy until they began to scale the cliff edge, then how lightheaded he felt after.

When the rookery came in to view Kiliutak hesitated. He did not like the sight of the sun-baked rock or how sharp the shadows cut across the corner of it; but the sun was no longer directly angled overhead. The time he had spent in the water had been long enough to save Kiliutak from the worst of it.

He moved to the chasm and pressed himself inside of it, so that only his tail's grizzled end hung limply at the door.

last for me! <3

kukutux watched nuak for a long moment before she turned away.

there was no bone shard of hatred lodged in the sinews of her heart. there was no fire of anger in the hearth of her soul.

only hurt, that she had sought to love him, and had instead watched him be carried away by a demon.

moonwoman's first true stumble in keeping peace within their village.