Moonspear alianiilik ≡

blood on the surface of dark water, spreading out like melted seal fat.

kukutux shut her eyes.

evening on the tenth day that she had come back from her vigil beside the trader's body. he had begun to return to the earth by the third day; the snow-wife had closed her senses to the devastation of him. it was the odor of death that drew down the ravens, and kukutux looked away as they entered the death ulaq.

she had scarcely eaten during that time, aided by @Keres; though in her numbness she had no words for the guardian, her heart held gratitude. by the fourth day, kukutux, having sung all she knew of his life, lost her voice, but kept the winnowing breath in her lungs. shoulders stood out angular from her pale pelt, hips had lost some of their gentle roundness. 

kukutux had not thought of arcturus, nor her flagrant anger with wraen. that rage seemed so very distant now. illuktuk. 

eddies of water around the woman's shoulders. his bones would go back to the womb of the earth from which all things were born. sedna guide you, brother. sedna, who takes all anarniit beneath the ice with her into peace, and lights their trail skyward. a breath of her own, trembling in the living world to which she must now return. to @Jarilo, to whom she had forgone her oath as wife with her disappearance; to @Saviguk and to @Sialuk. back to life as mother and as mate. 

rain softly sweeping through where she lay half-submerged at the edge of the stream, gaze drifting shut again as water coursed through all of her, washing away the ochre that is in the veins of all things, the end of a spirit.