Ouroboros Spine tapvani ⦲

The thought of leaving Moonglow was almost too much for Kigipigak, but he knew he could return, and he would return. They would not be so far from the village; he soaked in the pond and thought of the distance Sakhmet must travel in her six days to visit him, and grew warm despite the tepid brew he lounged in.

She surprises me, Kigipigak went on to say of the girl, while idly he buoyed himself against the pond's bottom.

Sakhmet, as if he needed to clarify (he liked to say her name), we spoke of what she wants of her new home, and she does not know. Only that it be a home. But she is no issumatar like my mother, Sedna. It would not make my mother happy to know her. There was a pang of hurt in his chest when he said this, as Kigipigak had not really thought about it before — but the thought came to him as he was speaking and so it was voiced.

She is not a warrior like my mother. Sedna would say she is mikiruk nigatchiak. She would not be welcome in my village. It was fortunate, then, that he was not either. Were he to return to Unnuakvik — with or without Sakhmet — he would be turned away; such was the nature of his people, and this too was not something he thought of.

He considered his own mother as a boy might consider the future, unaware that Kukutux thought similar things.