Ouroboros Spine adakite

he had caught a rat (if by 'caught' one meant, 'singled out within an ulaq', and if by 'rat' one meant, 'indescribable creature his young eyes had not yet seen before'). it was at least the length of his torso—not including the tail. did it even have a tail? he hadn't seen one. maybe it had been lost? didn't matter. it was huge.

the boy paced outside of an ulaq in wait for it. he was not quiet with his steps like other hunters; why bother? this ulaq was not owned as far as tautukpik knew, and commonly they held one entrance, which he now stood astride of. when he grew impatient, he bayed, and the sound hit the back of the ulaq and was silenced.

where was @Akmaaksi? he should seek her out; they could kill the thing together, and carry it through the village. it would be proof that the two orphans could fend for themselves, together. tautukpik looked down the path and quickly up the other way, but saw no sign of his sister. he did not look for too long or too hard, in case the rat* ^{*not a rat} escaped.

firegirl had carried her fox back to the village and skinned it alone beside anik lake. to eat the fox was not something that appealed; she buried its bones and its flesh in mamattuk grove, leaving the pelt for someone else to clean.

akmaaksi had become a killer, a huntress, a silent thing that stalked predators around the village who might raid a cache or steal meat from a drying-rack.

and still she had not spoken.

and still tautukpik was the only voice which spoke home to firegirl's heart. 

brother had cornered something here. her lips twitched, her tail lay still. slinking, she coursed around the ulaq, ready at once for him to drive the thing out.

Something slunk in to his vision: red and white; he did not look too long or hard for it, and knew it was his sister. He smelled the musk of fox upon her which drove his killing instinct in to overdrive; but before long they were twinned against this trapped thing, and Tautukpik could not wait much longer.

He plunged in to the ulaq without any understanding of what it might be; only thinking it was a rat, because that is what he knew. When faced with the creature inside, he saw it was very long-bodied, and it reeked of fish, and it gave high-pitched screams as it brandished tiny teeth. Its body curved upwards as its short fur spiked, and with a nearly hyena-like laugh of his own, Tautukpik drove forwards with snapping teeth.

The creature huddled quickly to the back wall of the ulaq, and when it saw how sloppily the boy came for them, it dodged and wove its way towards the entrance where awaited the second wolf. The otter didn't realize how profoundly unlucky it was until the next instant as the floor of the ulaq was, undoubtedly, stained.

they tore it apart.

tautukpik drove it screaming with his power; akmaaksi responded in resounding ferocity with her own.

the rat-thing was slaughtered wholesale;

even when she ran red with blood did her heart continue to pound, teeth clenched as if she wanted still to rip and to tear.

what was it? she did not know, did not hardly care. what mattered was that it was dead, that this unseemly change to their life was gone now.

Caught in the trap, torn to pieces. There was only the lifeless body ribboned beneath Akmaaksi now; the crimson of her face dripping. Tautukpik stalks to the other side of the rat-thing and investigates, but all he smells is copper. He nudges the shape, expecting more fight. Hoping for something he is unsure of. The creature is very, very dead.

He grips the other end and lightly tugs, eyeing his sister. A game! They are still children.

she thought of his laughter and wondered if a blackness lingered inside him too. akmaaksi pictured it in her stomach mostly these days, shards of ash curling to transparent flame.

her heart thudded. akmaaksi did not want to play, and for a moment it showed in how she hunted through the ulaq with her eyes, watching for another rat to kill.

but he was her brother. he was the stone that held the warmth which her quiet found necessary.

for him she growled, seizing the other end and shaking it hard in backward pulls.

It took some cajoling before Akmaaksi relented, but even as they tugged at the thing from either-end Tautukpik could see how disinterested she was. He played a bit, because he had asked for it and because it was good for them both; but he did not go too far or for too long, and eventually let the long body of the dead thing drop again.

She was focused on the ulaq. He turned to look at the face of it, at that yawning mouth, as he passed his tongue over his bloodied lips. No sign of another target—no sign of anyone, really. That was their normal lately.

With a chuff he lunged for Akmaaksi again. This time to grapple at her cheek the way a baby brother might, although they had already both reached their adult size. He tugged at tufts of her fur and murmured playful sounds until he was too disheartened to continue. Maybe they could find something else to hunt, if that was what made sister happy.

akmaaksi was more pleased when the game ended.

she wrestled him fiercely, throwing all focus and thought into pinning tautukpik with her teeth until she pinched too hard.

and then this game too, it ended.

shaking out her ruff, she touched nose to brother's cheek and bent to lick the blood.

slowly the girl began to clean the ulaq, a sense of shame encasing her in slow ooze.

it was not proper. they had not even saved the pelt.

They wrestled until he felt the pinch of teeth, and gave a small huff, and that seemed to end things. She cleaned up what had been broken and went to the ulaq; he lay there a moment longer and as he righted himself upon his feet, looked to the ruined rat-thing but saw nothing of interest about it. A meal, maybe. He was not hungry.

He saw the way Akmaaksi seemed to pout and hide in the mouth of the ulaq, and he moved to grab the dead thing as a trophy, to wave about and cheer her up; and when that inevitably would not work (as it would only further tarnish the coat of the thing) it was thrown without fanfare at the wall.

The resulting puddle of bones and fur reminded Tautukpik of the beaver pelt he had once ruined, and then the man, and then the lake, and over time his mood soured.

Grabbing for the thing one last time, he used all of his power to throw it as far from the ulaq as possible before settling beside sister.