Ouroboros Spine salummaun ¤

Kigipigak had followed his nose to where he thought something foul had died or been improperly stored, left to rot exposed, when his path led him to an ulaq. There he discovered many pelts piled high, reeking, and at first thought it was indeed a dead thing unearthed - nothing smelled as strongly nor as bad as what he found there.

The fading scent of a male wolf lingered where urine stained the pelts and soaked beneath them, to the earth. If he could light the pile aflame to clear the air he would have, but barring that, Kigipigak could only think of one way to undo the unsightly mess: he hiked some distance away and began to dig, so that this refuse could be put to rest somewhere.

It took some time before the pit was deep enough for Kigipigak to be satisfied, then some mental fortification for himself, knowing he would have to drag each layer and grasp each ruined thing, but soon he set to work dismantling the ugly inukshuk.

she had returned lómion to the ulaq and placed him in aiolos' care for a time, taking a moment to wander the familiar path back to the den where she had whelped her litter. peridots swept over the ruin as she stopped, flickering to kigipigak in trepidation when they caught a flicker of white within. the tension eased from her shoulders when she recognized his scars, shame bubbling up in her chest.

silently, the cloudberry moved forward and began helping him scrape through the ruin of her former home. it did not feel right to leave it to her sister's kinsman, her own through kukutux, to let him clean up her mess. she would make her way to the lake to wash away any evil left on her skin and fur by the iceman's destruction later. for now, she set about grabbing one of the desecrated pelts and following kigipigak into the forest.

Unable to fathom how this mess came to be, Kigipigak did not lay blame as he worked. It was just another task to complete for the benefit of the village. Some pieces of bedding were more destroyed than others - yet each festered where they had been discarded. The rich stench of a man pervaded much of these things. White hairs clung to brownish smears across one pelt, yellow stained the palest sections of another.

Through the woods Kigipigak went. When he reached the place he hoped to lay these things to rest, he finally took notice of the wolf working behind him on the path. Had she been within the ulaq this whole time?

Tossing the object he was carrying to the dirt, Kigipigak pushed it as far off the path as he could before dragging his face through some dry grass; thus combing some of the mess from himself, though he had begun to yellow in an ugly way across his cheeks from the work.

her eyes met his golden ones for a moment but darted away just as quickly again. she could not guess if he remembered her from the few glimpses they'd had of each other around the territory but hoped he did not recall the night he had come with kukutux to the very den they were cleaning out. the dove slunk past him, dropping the ruined pelt where he'd lain the others. she did not speak as she followed his suit, scraping her face against the rough bark of a nearby aspen -- which became stained like the hunter's pale pelt -- for a moment before finding her way back to the path.

she glanced to kigipigak for another second, before deciding against saying anything and turning back. it was a custom of her birth village not to speak or act familiar when laying a dead thing to rest -- lest one draw the wandering spirit of the deceased towards their own essence. she had seen some scavenging animals go mad when they disturbed the village's burials and feasted on the dead flesh of spiritless bodies. 

silently, the woodlander made her way back to the iceman's abandoned ulaq. she was not sure if the pale kinsman followed or if he still lingered behind. inside, she scraped together a pile of dye-stained bone fragments -- the paints they had held splattered against the walls, the shoulder and pelvis bones she had used as platters for the medium smashed to bits.

When he returned to the empty ulaq Kigipigak saw that they had done away with the two largest pieces of pelt. There were smaller pieces scattered across the escarpment, some would-be toys for the children that looked purposefully cracked (and not by their teeth, as they were still too young for them). Kigipigak tended to the toys. He gathered them in to their own pile and then, one by one, took them to another place. It was different from where the skins were put to rest in the dirt; he found a knoll with loose, gravel rich soil and took his time to plant each of the toys like separate seeds in a row.

He looked back, then began to move again, and came to where Lote lingered over broken bones. Kigipigak was not comfortable with stooping to look deep within the ulaq (he had never slept within one except during his recovery, they were eerie to him, as any hospital patient might be avoidant of hospital smell in the days after an accident); he could see something splattered across the walls but could not determine what it was.

More excrement? Such desecration to a once-shared space.

Most of the objects had been removed by now, leaving a stained earth and ruined interior, but there was nothing that Kigipigak could do about that. He stood watch over the doorway while Lote took her time, wondering if she would speak, or if he should perhaps leave her to tend the rest.

when the ivory he-wolf returned, she knew she had spent too long staring down at the bones. deftly, she gathered them — ignoring how their sharp points poked and scraped at the sensitive flesh of her lips and tongue — and moved to bury them. with the last of her things cleared out, there was nothing left to clean. save for herself.

the dove turned back to kigipigak, though she still hadn’t found any words to say. ”thank you,” she wisped at last, thinking this to be safe enough. she waited a moment longer, to see if he would say anything, and then moved to depart. already, her skin itched to be cleansed of any remnant of the tupilak who had donned her husband’s skin.