Ouroboros Spine kuagak

kirgavik healed.

@Peregrine had been brought home among the wolves of moonglow, and now he mended alongside arrluk.

peregrine.

one winterhawk gone.

a new one at her hearth.

"and what sort of man will you be, eh?" the duck muttered in sunshine as she bent over a strip of bison sinew.

nothing made sense. the passing days — weeks? — had been all but a blur, vague images filled with static intertwined with inkblack nothingness. he had lost weight, he knew it. his head still hurt; sometimes agonizing and piercing, other times tender and raw. he still heard only from one side.
and he still didn't quite fully understand where he was. moonglow. something something bison, kuku, ulaq. he thought he remembered seeing his dad, at some point, but he wasn't sure.
and this brought him to now, blinking away the salt from his eyes and glancing up to see that strange woman. something in her features reminded him of a girl he once knew. she says something in a tongue he does not recognize.
wh--? his mouth is painfully dry, and to see he must squint. are you, um--?

the snow hawk stirred, asking in questioning where he was. "i am kukutux. this is village moonglow. you were hurt upon the great hunt. we brought you home with us, my people."

his stomach was not ready for rich food. moonmother offered strips of trout which had been soaked in a tea of dried thyme. "you are peregrine redhawk. your father, phox, is in village moontide."

the green eyes blinked thoughtfully at the boy, and to her age he certainly was a boy.

she knew him. kukutux. moonglow. moontide. a great hunt. this was a lot to take in while his head still felt as if someone was scraping at the inside of his skullcap. peregrine blinks incredulously.
i assume he knows i'm here, he drawls, expression softening at the offer of food. the smell of fish reminded him of his youth. t-thank you, though, um. sorry.
why did she save him? did she not know he stole valuable molecules of oxygen from her people?
he begins to tear at the fish in small bites. he cannot remember when he last ate; it may have been yesterday, or last year.

he ate. kukutux continued to watch him in the way of ageing women guarding their secrets. 

she offered more fish when peregrine had finished. "he knows. he has been here several times. he stays at your side often."

the duck put aside the sinew to work another day and pulled instead an old caribou hide closer to her paws. aged as it was, the skin was good. it did not smell of rot. she would cut it into sleeping-blankets for new babies.

moss was given next, soaked with water from the lake. "you have been walking between this world and the next for many hands of time. many, many days, peregrine."

he stays at your side often.
something about the phrase broke peregrine. he felt the tears forming before he had a chance to stop them and silently they formed a darkened trail down his cheeks.
he must be so disappointed.
moonwoman's next words made him feel as if he was choking; the boy strains, muscles clenched, squeezing shut his eyes and forcing himself to inhale and exhale. he was almost dead. the universe had handed him right to the pearly gates, and god had turned him away. or perhaps it had been satan, or some other unworldly, unknowable force. whatever it was apparently disregarded him in the same way the mortal world often seemed to.
but why? he could have, should have just —
why did you keep me alive?

"should i have left you to die?" foolish boy, foolish questions. "maybe i only like your father," kukutux teased, "and i do not want the anger of his village on my head for allowing you to die."

he wept. she turned her head away to give him his moment, busying herself with a steepage of something to calm the leap of his emotions.

he longed to say yes.
she did not understand. she did not get it. he was never meant to be born at all; he would not have been if it wasn't for maegi. momma.
but he doesn't say that. instead, silence settles over him for a while as he snivels and recollects himself. at least let me repay you, when i'm-- not like this. the tangerine gaze now began to plead with her. i can hunt. and fight. and-- i can work with plants, kinda.
advertising himself. how pathetic. and i don't have anywhere else to go once i leave here.

"i have hunters. i am healer. many of us are warriors." but her mouth was pleased, and her eyes said she would do this thing. she did not like the idea of repayment, however. "i wish for my village to be a home to you. not a debt."

"you will have a place among us all." a consideration came to her mind, but she looked closely at peregrine. "you will not go to moontide?" but then, what man at his age wished to live beneath the eye of his father? yet she wished to know, and her eyes bid the younger wolf answer.

a home! a home; peregrine wanted to spit in her face for not demanding anything of him. she had no use for him and yet she tended to him anyway. it made his heart thud and bile lurch into his burning throat.
why? what good was he? what was the catch?
but all he can muster is a soft utterance of okay, sinking back down until his head is cooled by the denfloor. kukutux asks of moontide. maybe one day. i don't know.
he didn't think he could bear the scent of the ocean again. he finds himself craving the bittersweet of poppy seeds, and how quickly they could drag him back to blissful nothingness if he had some.

there was something between them, this boy and phox.

kukutux did not ask. as if sensing his need, she brought to him a prepared cup of bitter tea. 

it was not the black seeds he desired now, but a strong infusion of willowbark would help to settle him for a time.

when he had drunk, kukutux drew the skins around the strong young shoulders and went back out into the cold sunlight.

her soft chanting would carry him into sleep.