Ouroboros Spine He's heading out the door

kukutux felt as if she would be very ill. she felt as if she were transpiring against raimo after having only just come from his arms. he comforted her pain; he sated the wild hungers in kukutux that grief and freedom and their overwhelming convergence had started. and here was adrastus. he would obey her laws. he would respect her ways. he meant well for sialuk. he honored her by speaking of bride-price and not possession. he would go up into the mountains; he would come back as firsthunter.

 adrastus raised her up; she felt her heartbeat quicken, and this time she did not look away from him. wise-woman, he had assured. the place upon her visage that he had touched felt smooth, cool.

he made himself too good. too pure. too kind. she did not trust it, and so she would send him into the teeth of sedna. let her devour adrastus' pelt and test his spirit. it was not a test to which she had put raimo, and now the ripple through moonglow would be realized. sialuk would be angry with her; the raindrop would not understand. by now the hunters should have been united, and through her desires they were not. they had divided.

and yet for all of his faults she was not ready to put away the shadowhunter. the cold mountain before her wished to take his place, and she did not think raimo deserved it now. but it was not a choice she would make. briefly she thought of the place the snowhunter had described; belatedly a pinked nature flowered beneath the short pale fur of her face, and she ducked her head.

why did he tell her of his sleeping place in such a way?

but she was pleased that it seemed he might want her despite the fact that she had chosen raimo first. and she was not sure why even now she fought against the idea of him as sivullik. she did not wish to seem greedy, unsated; she did not wish to be the one to upset moonglow with her body. so she must choose wisely. if he came back as she expected he would, then it would be so. "you choose a widow who will be wife first to the needs of moonglow." had he not wanted a wife? children of his own? he wished to live only in this arrangement? she did not understand why.