Ouroboros Spine Behind every tree is a cutting machine

there was a visible intake of breath as adrastus inquired, released with a purse of her lips. he had given her a reason to say no, and yet the duck saw no reason to withhold this. while the wound within her had not yet healed, while she did not truly wish to speak, she could not lie. the icewolf sought knowledge before her, recognized her as a wisewoman even despite the flaws she had revealed.

it would be a respect to utter the words. in her usual way the moon became silent, surveying within her mind all the ways she might explain, might illustrate, the world of the spirits and their connection to the ancestral lands in which they had left their children. "i will tell you."

a last glimpse to the lynx-pelt; kukutux was unfurling herself into a stretch that tensed her form; she breathed to dispel the bleakness that clung to her when she thought of why she had mourned. "when you do not see with your own eyes that a spirit has come out of the body where it once lived, you must wait. because i did not see — remember," the moonbow tripped, meaning each word and also together "— because i did not see the body of he who was my husband, i and sialuk went into the waiting time. this is not necessary if you have seen it."

with your own eyes, and her own had begun to grow wet, but kukutux would not tolerate any sort of stay from adrastus; he was gentle enough now to intervene, to back away, and yet she remained fixed upon the telling of it. "seven days. if they do not come back, you know that the death songs must now have their beginning. nine singings."

"it is nine days to pass through the throat of sedna. beyond that, kikuyat: the lights that dance in the sky. you must sing the spirits through each step. after three days, if the one that you sing for comes back, you must turn your back. it is only a spirit who wears the face that you know. on the sixth, you ask for healing. on the ninth, you say goodbye."

yes; the starfall of a tear along her cheek, but she wore it as a silvered resolution.