Ouroboros Spine foxfire

Thinking the topic of their similar losses was at an end, Nuak did not see a connection between the sorrow in the woman and the tale she began to share. There was weight to her voice.

Nuak did not connect the figments from the tale to beings in his own life until she was finished. The largest creature he had ever seen had been a true bear but next to that, Avicus; the closest thing to a white bird on the other hand, Averna, or perhaps the moon woman.

He could, at least, identify that it was a story couched in reality to some degree. That it was about her own losses. Something Nuak had said must have drawn her to this story, implored for her to share; or maybe she was aching and needing to vent her sorrow somehow, but why to him?

Perhaps being no one made him a good candidate. A void to fill up and then abandon.

I have left my children in a valley, she had said of the gray man.

It meant nothing; although it brought to mind home, and up went the defensive walls around his heart. It wasn't his home any longer. He would not be missed by anyone there, he thought.

Was he your husband? Why else would she fixate on him, make him the center of her story?

Eager to put thoughts of Bearclaw behind him, Nuak questioned the relevance of this telling. He glanced towards her through the reeds, his face difficult to see, impossible to read either way.