Ouroboros Spine ugguanik ⏞⏟

THE THIRD SONG

do you hear it?

caribou running.

do you hear the sound of their hooves?

they are calling you home

hunt us in the world of the spirits, they say

go to them

go where the caribou lead

we call them to the dancing lights for you, beloved spirit

the duck found that the words of her mother began to become muddled with the ones she had heard as a child, floating skyward from the shaman's ulaq.

her mother and the tradition of women had kept the duckling at bay.

it is not for you.

why did her heart remember them now?

why did she sing a prayer sacred and only for men to say?

the inner spirit spat.

you and your daughter will be cursed.

but we are cursed now.

the death songs lifted the bleakness from them as well. they sang their love to the dancing lights. they gave all to those who walked alone. and when the nine days had passed, they would be cleansed. but not now. they would labour beneath the dark in their travails for now.

it was third day. this was the first of the secrets; a curl of her tongue. "pukak. if a spirit comes now, after three days, they are not who they say. they wear the face of one who has gone. but they are not them. our voices go on for the rest of the days. they walk the narrow place between the edge of the moon and the start of the lights. sedna swallows them slowly."

mourning upon mourning.

kukutux sang again.