Ouroboros Spine ted

Backdated one day. @Kukutux

Whatever had happened to Moonspear, Sialuk had been on the other side of the mountain when it had happened. Her bones were almost certainly gone, and she had not seen a soul since then. She did not dare to return, worried that something horrible had happened. The sounds that had come from the mountain were not sweet sounds, and she had vivid dreams (when she could manage to sleep that night) that some gods in the sky had struck down her home. She could not bring herself to return, so she did not. She would not.

Her movements were stiff as she finally awoke in the cold light of the morning. She stared at the spear, willing herself to go toward it, but her body would not respond.

Sixsix! she gasped when she spotted the raven flying toward her. One of his wings was singed, and he landed at her feet. Gently, she inspected the wing. It would heal, but he would need to rest.

Why have the spirits done this to our home? she asked him, even though his only answer would be an unintelligible crowing. We can't go back, can we? And the bones... the bones were all gone, too. Her heart hurt.

caribou, running through a cloud of snow. red droplets upon pristine drifts. a child's crying. the yellow eyes of her brother, stricken.

kukutux came awake with a gasp and then a moan. pain sliced through her skull; she dropped back down and raised her forepaws in agony. it throbbed into a sharp ebb, and the duck lifted her muzzle.

a bank of white, and she tucked beneath its overhang. smoke still hanging in the air. kukutux licked her dry lips and forced herself upright, stumbling out of the snow and into the frozen light of day. it hurt her head again but this time the woman did not cringe. she looked toward moonspear, and began to claw a path through the paleness, the names of her husband and her children rising unsaid to her tongue.

she must go back to find them.

They were gone. She was convinced of it. Anybody who had been on Moonspear when it had fallen was no more. Her whole life. Her whole family. Her whole everything was gone. Sixsix was the only remaining part of her that had survived. She thought of the dancing lights. Of her mother, father, brother, aunts, and uncles there.

She couldn’t breathe.

White movement on white snow, and all at once, there was hope.

Anaa.

Sialuk forced her feet to move, and Sixsix clutched to her shoulder blade, perched there and weary. Wordlessly, weary, she found her way to her mother’s side.

She would not speak of the dead. Was this anaa or only her spirit. Sialuk could not say, but she wished only for the comfort of the woman who had carried her for two moons and all the moons since she had come into this world. She pressed herself against the pale fur of her mother.

anaa lived. she blinked and her raindrop was there; sialuk's scent was strained with stress and fear. kukutux sank down into the snow, nursing the fore-ankle on the right, broken within. 

she lived. her raindrop lived! "sedna be praised," kukutux gasped out, clutching sialuk as closely to her as she was able. 

there was only the scent of soot and ash between them. everything, gone. the ulaq that had nourished her family. the cured furs, the dried meat. the medicine. 

and out there on the ruined mountain, perhaps saviguk lived. perhaps jarilo lived. she had called and called and had not heard an answer, but then again, kukutux had walked near to the spirit place in her sleep. 

the duck glanced around, voice weak as she whispered, "we must find a better place and dig an ulaq, my daughter. we must stay here. we must wait here."

The words in anna’s voice soothed her somewhat, and Sixsix relaxed his clutch on her shoulder blade, though he did not move from it. Whatever had happened to the spear, it had spared the three of them. They would live. They had to.

A part of her did not yet believe that it was Kukutux that stood beside her, but it was the only thing she had to cling to, and so she did. If it was only her spirit come to guide her, Sialuk would be her pupil until her dying day.

Being given instructions was a godsend, and Sialuk immediately put her mind to work. Where on this small ring of mountains would make the most sense for such a thing? They would need access to hunting, water, and herbs.

This way, she said, moving stiffly in the direction of what she hoped to be a suitable spot.

sialuk turned away, and it was only then that kukutux noticed the large black bird perched upon her raindrop's shoulder. she did not start or balk, however; relief filled her belly that her child should be so chosen.

kukutux limped after the raindrop until she was forced to pause and to rest. upon the mountain she looked again, but by now her throat was too dry to call out more than she had already.

sialuk must dig their ulaq and find food. plants. kukutux could not do so much as fish, and the enormity of her weakness brought her upright again, weaving after sialuk and fixing her green eyes upon the blackbird that accompanied them.

After a few paces, Sialuk realized anaa was worse off than she had originally thought. She paused when her mother did, worrying over her, reminding herself of the words she had given Elke.

Elke, who had lived on the mountain. Who had been meant to go on a journey to find peace. Sialuk wished that her peace was not the dancing lights, so young was her cousin.

I will build an ulaq from the snow, she said. That would give them more flexibility. The ground was much too hard and frozen to dig through. The snow would keep them warm, would keep them safe. Rest. Eat snow to soothe your throat and keep water within you.

It felt so strange to have their roles reversed like this, but was that not what she had been raised to do? To care for her loved ones?

Sixsix removed himself from her shoulder, perching on a branch nearby as Sialuk went to work tirelessly in the snow, digging out a small, compact space where anaa could regain her strength.

her chin trembled. "you are a good daughter and an honor to your mother," she murmured lowly, ears splaying in relief that sedna goddess had at least brought the raindrop back to her.

crouching low to the snow, she did as the girl bid. as the walls rose from the effort, she limped closer, breathing upon them so that ice crystals formed, hardening the edges so they might withstand the wind more easily.

"aiolos in village yuelong is that way, toward the sea. you know his face. if no one comes, perhaps we go to him." but even as she spoke the words, kukutux knew she could not leave this place.

she lay down, a gritted sound of pain sounding as muzzle bent to soothe the sore flesh of her leg. if she did not rest, it would not mend well. it took many days for a bone to be ready for long stands, and two moons to be healed. but kukutux did not know what sort of time she and sialuk would be given.

She wished to shoo anaa away from helping, but it would help her spirit if she was useful, so Sialuk did not intervene. She thought of their conversations past, of grandfather bear, and of the offering they had made to him. It was not he who had come down upon them, though. It was strange thunder that had done this, and Sialuk turned the events over in her mind again.

It wasn’t until anaa spoke that she halted her work. I will not leave you alone to find him, she assured her. I will go only if somebody is with you. She did remember him, and the boy Huojin who had been presented as a possible ugi. But she could not think of anything so joyous right now. There was too much pain, uncertainty, sadness.

it hurt to be thought of as weak. it frustrated kukutux to suddenly be trapped within a body hardly strong enough to move, a body that had up until these last days done its share of the work. sialuk did not truly believe her weak, no, but the duck felt its truth settle heavily upon her.

she wanted to tell sialuk of how she had lived alone and communed with the spirit-man, but it did not matter. then she had not been so injured. now she could barely walk.

"we will not go until i am able to travel," the moondrop agreed. "i hope that others join us here."

Wrap here? Another?!

Sialuk touched her muzzle to anaa's neck, then curled up inside the temporary ulaq. It was not as roomy as the one on the spear had been, but it also needed to hold fewer bodies. She thought again of taataa, brataa, wishing they were here now.

Tomorrow, I will find food.

Having barely slept the night before, her breathing began to slow, and she tucked her nose beneath her tail, eager to let her dreams take over from this nightmare.

kukutux brushed sialuk's forehead with her muzzle. thank you for leaving her to find me, the duck thought again, though for a long time after her daughter had slipped into slumber, the duck watched her breathe.

how would they stay alive here? it would not long be safe for them. they were only two, and she injured. no hunters. no warriors. poor sialuk must be both. 

a somber thought that kept kukutux awake until she could no longer hold open her eyes.