Ouroboros Spine Névé

The days had become warmer and longer - Kausiut found this to her liking. The joy of sunlight was enough to forget that moving around Moonglow's snow-clad forests and walking the icy, stone paths was a challenge to her. Few days ago she had slipped and fallen (not the first such incident), hitting her shoulder and thus making nearly impossible for her to move. You can't be a functional cripple if both weight-bearing legs are incapacitated. She had dragged herself back to her den and unable to reach anyone, who could help her, had lied there and waited for the pain to go away.

And with nothing better to do, she had slept and dreamt. Usually her dreams did not have any particular scenario - just a badly cut video of the events of the previous day. Interestingly enough, when that previous day was just the same as the present one and the one following after that, Kau's dream world changed its quality. She revisited the Walrus hunter shores, heard the rush of the water, the particular smell of sea air and how sand had felt beneath her paws. It felt so much more real than anything she had experienced before and there was a bit of disappointment to wake up to the silence of the forest and trees that towered over her. Again the feeling that this was not exactly the place she should be arouse, but there was nothing she could do about it.

If as a kid she had been convinced that nothing could stop her, then in her second year she was learning that the real life was all about limitations and very little about joy and what you wanted.

@Kukutux

the death of tulukiri had put a pain over kukutux.

but the knowledge of new life held within kept her strong.

kausiut had not come from her den. moonwoman moved in that direction, carrying good pelts and sticks of meat.

the walrus hunter woman was girl no longer and yet she was daughter to her mother.

kukutux set down her things. she sang to the ears of kausiut, hoping to be invited closer.

Kukutux's voice was a welcome distraction from the creeping desparation of the situation that Kau saw no way out of. Wincing she pulled her paws beneath her and pushed herself up, first stretching and shaking the stiffness of her limbs away, then casting an apologetic look at her mother.

Curious at, what gifts she had brought her, Kau hobbled closer and leaned her head down to sniff at the furs and the tasty morsels hidden within. Her tail wagged happily, saliva filled her mouth and she drew back to a sitting position, watching her mother's face closely. Waiting for her to speak first.

"kausiut, strong-snow," kukutux said softly. "i have brought new furs for your sleeping place," rabbit, ermine, and a large squirrel-pelt. "i have brought dried fish and dried deer-meat, and the fresh fat of his belly also."

now she looked with motherly concern over kausiut, moving these items closer. "there is a place on village moonspear, a place of hot water. it moves the pain from the body for a time."

but it would mean climbing, though the duck's mind knew that those in both villages would find a way to bring kausiut to such a place if she wished.

Kukutux had meant well by bringing furs, but she had forgotten that Kausiut was more of a wildling that had got through the beginner's guide of the civilized world only. So, where her mother viewed the skins as something to make the den floor softer and warmer for Kausiut to sleep in, her wayward daughter saw them as sources of food. Sure - a juicy piece of fresh meat was always preferable to a furry hide, but she would not have survived living among Walrus hunters had she been a picky eater.

Therefore Kausiut stored all the gifts inside the little pocket of earth she called her home, squatted to mark the doorstep of the den and then hobbled back to her mother. She had suggested going to the mountains - and she was not the first to do so. All of them quite conveniently forgot that Kausiut was not able to do that. What was more - she would not let anyone help her to go anywhere. There she drew a firm line. Therefore she shook her head, refusing the offer.

"You?" she sat down, shifting her weight from the crippled foot to the good one. "Good?"

kausiut put these things into her ulaq. kukutux welcomed her daughter's return.

a walrus hunter woman had pride. she was not surprised when her child refused the hot waters of moonspear.

kukutux would not suggest it again. "i am well," she said with clucked tongue. "you will be an older sister again soon."

Kukutux was very good mother in the sense that she knew intuitively the workings and mechanisms of her children's minds. She knew, what would work and what would not. When not to pressure and when to push in the direction she desired or thought was useful for the kid. Kausiut did not have the capacity to fully appreciate nor the experience to realize that this quality of her mom's was truly a rarity among people. But her mother's tolerant approach to her made Kau comfortable to be in her company.

"When?" Kau asked in a puzzled way, as if having children was something you could predict by the alignment of stars and moon.

"another moon or so," kukutux said, shifting so that kausiut might see the churn of her belly. "do you have the wish to be called when the time comes?"

her daughter had never evinced such before.

but time had a way of changing many things.

Kausiut shook her head. No, she did not have much use of sealion babies - they looked odd and alien-like. And the mothers of the walrus-hunters had not wanted to have her around anywhere. Plain language of bared teeth and snarls had been enough to deter her and not wish to mingle at all.

Besides, what use would witnessing birth be to Kausiut? She did not have the slightest aspiration to becoming one (had she, of course, been aware of the process itself). There was silence between them, while Kau figured out, what to say next. "Spirits?" she asked, wondering, if Kukutux had reached out to the celestials through her own means and connections.

"they live in me. i dreamed of the ocean. of the ice. of the long salt where i was born. all in here."

she touched her belly.

"their dreams are mine."

she looked to kausiut now.

Kukutux's answer confused Kausiut. Up until this very moment it had been rather solid fact of her life that spirits were an outside influence. She did not consider the chatter inside her head during her first few months of life as a spirit that might have tried to take control of her head.

"Eat?" she finally asked, wondering, if mom was possessing a kind of magic that enabled consuming spirits.

kukutux shook her head.

"only what is good to eat. dreams are powerful, kausiut. this is why the spirit-talkers of my birth island used plants to do their walking."

she eyed her daughter. had the walrus women taught this to her? kukutux did not know all of their ways, but they had produced ghost speakers of their own.

Kausiut may have learned a bit more of the shamanic traditions of the Walrus hunters, had she shown any interest. Instead she had been all too happy to rid herself of the unwelcome chatter inside her head and embrace all the simple and normal things in life. She had so very little control on, what life around her was, that being in charge on, what she could do, was important. The voices inside her head had made her feel unsafe and disconnected from the real world.

"Ground," she tapped her forepaw to the solid surface they were standing on. "Good," she added, meaning that she preferred the Earth to the spirit realm.

sorry for the wait! <3

she smiled.

"may the soles of your feet be firm. may your path be straight. this is a prayer given to hunters from the sunshine island, and now i give it to you."

walrus woman her daughter might be, but the island was in her heart also.

Mother spoke beautifully, but Kausiut was unable to fully appreciate it, because while separate words or pairs of them made sense to her, the full meaning did not. Therefore she simply dipped her muzzle lightly to acknowledge that she had heard and then let the silence set between them again.

"Sleep," she finally told, indicating Kukutux that she was tired and did not wanted to end their conversation.

"sleep."

her muzzle rose; she touched the air.

"i will watch over you, kausiut."

a mother's love, shimmering in all her heart.