Ouroboros Spine tatamnaktuk ⨸

open to tagged! no posting order <3 any not tagged are welcome to make a howling cameo when the news is announced :D

welcome, babies

her children, born into rain.

daughter. the monster lurks.

kukutux came out sleep; she gasped to consciousness and looked around for the form of @Alduin.

but it was not of the boy the inner voice had spoken. a cry, breaking in surprise from her throat.

the jadestone eyes lifted to the skies outside the ulaq.

they will be born today.

but it is not yet time!

the grinning teeth of the qualupilik, which had taken its sacrifice from sialuk. sickness swam in her throat, and at last moonwoman pulled herself into the storm-darkened day. "but it —" and then a true and lashing wave sent a blackness across her vision.

"alduin. napvak;" she faltered. a breath, and another. "@Aiolos." the veins of the earth flowed in drumbeat-sound beneath her paws. moonglow fell away, and the duck felt herself untied. beneath her, loam turned to waves, and she found herself in a vision of the churning sea.

kukutux was set adrift as her body separated from its mortal anguish, drawing the moonbow up and toward the skies lashed with rain.

it is too early.

it is not so for these children.

but kukutux did not understand.

@Sialuk and perhaps @Lótë, if her time was not so close. if they had come to find the duck outside her ulaq, spine bent against a granite sky — if they too tasted the salt of the rainwater — if aiolos threw aside the edict of the woman's circle to be now with her, kukutux did not know it.

for these children

voices; she groped for that of @Keyni, of @Shikoba, of @Lunaria.

a woman's circle to bring forth her children; their protection would keep the long claws of the salt-hunter from grasping at their new spirits.

she had gone weak with her crying out, and now the fear rose to clutch at her.

her vision expanded, swallowing her own consciousness as if it were the tail of a serpent. and before moonwoman alone, the skies rent celestial skies above the towering sea, and it felt as if her bones moved to form a passage from the stars to this world.

@Kausiut, second daughter to the line of moonwoman's mother.

kukutux blurred once more, delving into the velveteen unworld.

daughter. do not forget your path back.

the sea answers another ocean in your blood. you must suffer only a small time longer.

a breath pulled from nowhere, and kukutux caught fervently hold of the wheeling ground beneath her shrinking figure, growing smaller and smaller. the moon lay in the long dark, an island. the remaking, the last of her strength poured into the girl @Samani.

lynx, suddenly near, and her face was solemn as she watched the duck in her joy.

these children?

look upon them, moonwoman.

in her embrace, two children who bore too close a mark of resemblance. mouth drying to sand, the tupilak's face whirled first into her mind. and then that of nuak, and what he had taken from her. the gift from her totem, tainted, and now, it had —

"twins."