Ouroboros Spine sinnigik ⍼

perhaps she had brought this to them both, lying with the redsun that space of time ago. but aiolos belonged to yuelong, and to the empress. they could not belong to one another. kukutux considered that this permanent boundary-line had been the stepping-stone to the fulfillment of their own desires. but it was not what she felt for raimo, it was not the thorn-broken thing that curled in her with want for his hard body and revulsion for the perfume he wore.

the fish eye was round, staring; the duck gazed steadily into the dark circled pupil and then back toward the shadowhunter. "adrastus brought this to me when he came down from the mountains to be sivullik," the woman uttered quietly, pinning back toward his allusion with something of her own. a gift, then, but perhaps it was more than that. after all, he had not responded to her; adrastus had asked, instead, of the separation between the firsthunter and the moonwoman.

raimo, kukutux thought bitterly, should take a wife. there was no reason he could not. it would keep him satisfied within moonglow. but maybe no one part of this village could satisfy him. certainly she had not. the leaves were cool beneath her small paw. a sense of dread was beginning to sweep icewild across her bones. "he walks in the forest," the duck answered at last. she was unsure of his true location, but suspected he hunted. 

and she wondered if now would be the hour that raimo went to share teeth with the cloud-man. it was not her place to deter or dissuade. "bring home the one you have chosen, raimo," kukutux said softly, directly, her jade-gaze finding that of moonglow's spear. why should he not give her a place in their village? he flaunted her body upon his own pelt even now, and if they had come together in a sense of season, his children should be provided a safe place.

planning for him, even as her soul peeled back in bark-strips.