Ouroboros Spine ikimak ⋦

at last she called for the girl sorcha.

it was a day of gentle breezes. moonwoman worked upon the hides again, scraping them a second time. in the folds of deerskin here and there, the children lay or played.

she looked up when the girl approached. "you are called chickadee. our word for it is atsatâtâjuk."

kukutux had already decided the girl would stay.

whatever resistance she might have mounted to the name melted away when kukutux addressed her. chickadee assumed her first name meekly and gave a nod, swallowing as she glanced around at the scene of mother and children.
would maia have more, she wondered. would she be there for it?
"yes, uh. thank you, ma'am. kivaluk found me." she tried to be stronger. "i know your son, stratos."

chickadee was filled with a grief that kukutux felt she recognized.

"stratos told me of you. he spoke of your sister," moonwoman said softly, moving now to the heart of why she believed the spirits had led the brecheliant girl back to the place of her once intended husband.

that hurt. chickadee's ears splayed and she found herself looking very hard at the ground. "yeah. well. she's gone. she just — disappeared. didn't make sense. so i've been looking for her," chickadee continued, venturing to glance up into the kindly face of the village mother.
her heart ached for her own, but shame kept her rooted now.

"you meant to marry my son, with your sister. now she is gone, but you have come back here."

kukutux was patient.

"where did you go after you made your path from brecheliant?"

it felt like a fucking interrogation. and yet it didn't. kukutux gave no indication that chickadee couldn't refuse to talk.
she just felt — compelled, somehow, to word vomit to any mom in ear-reach.
tears stung her eyes. "found a friend. we traveled together, got lost. i don't know where he went." she had another sister, dwin! she had another sister and here she was running after ani.

a sister lost, a sister grieving. chickadee chased shadows and her heart was filled with the misery of a long hunt.

she needed to rest.

kukutux, who had raised many daughters, heard in the hesitant interlude with three different names that chickadee sought companionship, but perhaps was confused by what that might resemble.

"so stay here, in this village. learn to be still. i will teach you, chickadee."

learn to be still.
somehow that splintered something inside chickadee, some recognition that she was full of it, this eerie frustrating restlessness that she was realizing she wanted to put down.
how could ani ever find her if she was always gone?
she dashed away angry tears and nodded, trying not to sniffle like a baby. "okay." weird how someone she'd known for all of three seconds could unravel her like this. did moonwoman mean she was some kind of witch?

"aiolos said that you would learn our ways."

kukutux produced a piece of dried fish she had kept from the biting milk teeth of the pups and offered it to chickadee now. "you will learn them from kivaluk. he will show you all of moonglow and help you to find a den."

he was son of her hearth. kukutux had few reservations sending him for these things. she would like a friendship to be between them. he had lost his mother, his brother, his father. she had lost a sister and a companion. let them know one another in that.

chickadee felt resistance rising, only for it all to escape her at the idea of seeing him again, that boy who had found her at her very worst. her ears flattened again, but she did not think she could get out of it.
she ate quietly and quickly, relishing each bite with a little sigh when she had finished. "should i like, go find him now,"' chickadee asked in a mumble, lifting her feet as one of the little ones nipped toward her.

moonwoman nodded.

"come to me again, chickadee. you are becoming woman, and sometimes your words can only be for women."

no more to say then. kukutux nodded toward the girl and turned back to the skins, feeling that she had heeded the spirits and set the paws of the new one upon the path they had whispered to her.

that was strange. weird. what did kukutux mean? chickadee felt utterly confused and dissected. grateful for the opportunity to leave, she seized on it and moved away, spine straight as she faded among the trees around the lake.
only when she was alone did she think about how long she actually wanted to be here, and how long she had before guilt ate her alive and sent her back to brecheliant.