Ouroboros Spine kinuk ⊹

patroclus came awake, and kukutux lifted her head from where she had been resting the sore curve of her jaws. "you are awake," she observed nonsensically, but crept closer all the same, carrying the fat and the fruit with her. "do you have strength to eat?" the duck asked, nudging the offering closer. "it is from outside the stomach of a deer. and here. the common name this plant has is 'raspberry."' 

were a waterway closer, she might have offered him a cold tea, but this could come later, when he was able to walk again. the swelled flesh around his leg perhaps had begun to subside, but even now the moonbow found her stores of wet moss and began to lay them gently upon the hindlimb. "you do not feel, ah, warm? in the skull?"

by which she meant fever, but the word was ugly to kukutux, and reminded her of demonic things.