Ouroboros Spine innocence

the tears threatened to come. kukutux knew what sialuk spoke was true, but it was not something the duck had ever accepted. to work was her lot. her responsibility. her pleasure. she did not know how to be without a purpose.

pukak's next hesitant inquiry splayed the duck's ears. she sought sialuk's eye. "in your anaa's old home, we waited for seven days if we did not find a body," she said softly, nausea plying her gut. she did not want to think of how jarilo might appear to her if his spirit left his flesh. she did not want to think of saviguk's life cut so short. seven days. two more sunrises. two more sunsets. "we do not say their names again after seven. their spirits might hear and try to find us. then they will not be able to go to the dancing lights, and will become filled with anger."

but they had called and called. firefly had called. there was no answer, and no way now to climb the new jagged edges of moonspear and try to find the blackfox and her spirited boy.

"after that, we sing the death songs, which i will teach to you. when i sat vigil for your father's brother, i sang them for nine days." nine was a sacred number. "if we had a larger village, you and i would go into the forest and sing for a moon. but we are just us. and so we must choose nine again." the moonbow spoke hurriedly, not wanting to pause and fill that silence with a sob.

after that, sialuk would have no father. after that, kukutux would have no husband. she held her breath. "taataa will come down. we must fasten this in our hearts, that he will find us." she did not say that after nine days a spirit was untethered. she did not say that if either appeared after nine days, they were only malevolent things who took the form of loved ones and roamed to seek their families, where they would feast. sialuk bore too much to know this truth. 

and if there was no answer, her raindrop would come to know it all the same.