Ouroboros Spine tatamnaktuk ⨸

there was a scream building in kukutux.

she was at one filled with the only stories she had ever been told of twins.

her aunt had told the story of a lonely spirit which entered the womb of a mother and into the heart of a life not yet born. there, it split into two parts. one became the former sorrow. but because they had come from one spirit, twins could not be separated from the misery which followed one of them always.

her forelegs tightened around the daughters of aiolos, as if in protection. sialuk loomed close, a terrible pale hunter who was so close, and whispered their name.

maggulikak.

moonwoman's jadeite stare traveled carefully each new contour and limb, twice, four times in the end. kausiut held her gaze for a long while, and she sought fervently to still the child's screaming.

the blood of sun man ran in them. they were licks of rosy flame against the snowdrift of her pelt.

she loved them at once. it cut across all the planes of her heart and she felt herself moved by a low and raw protectiveness over the daughters which had just come from their body.

she loved them at once.

and yet she feared — 

her mother had told her that one of such a bond would be evil. they would commune early with tupilaq and the ones who spoke to the undead spirits, those souls who had never once lived within a hide.

her mother; she had told kukutux it was impossible to know. there was no showing that a child was the wicked one.

moonwoman shut her eyes.

it is the choice of your husband.

but aiolos knew not her taboos, and the ones she had broken. he did not know of the ivory piece or how the red tupilak had come to have it as a gift. was it she who had led their sivullik away?

sun man would not understand how wickedness had touched the duck while their children grew inside her bones.

sun man would not understand that to give one to the spirits of the earth might save all of moonglow from what she had allowed to happen.

she drew a breath, then another. surely only @Sialuk for now saw how kukutux had become. she turned a tearstained gaze toward her eldest. "paniga," moonwoman said with a calm she did not feel. "bring aiolos here to see."

the duck's lips moved across each velveteen back. salt fell in droplets among their tiny limbs. "i cannot know," kukutux said to them. 

and then a thought came to her, one which dried her tears and set her jaw in a shocked sort of determination. "i cannot know," she whispered softly. in her mind, the words of a guarding chant that her mother said had come down from the first of their kind.

if aiolos had come to her yet, she did not know. kukutux spoke swiftly in the words she shared with sialuk, the words that she would share also with these ones.

"quamaniq." and she touched the forehead of kausiut. "it is your spirit name. speak it to no other ears. i will tell you again when it is time."

"unnujaktuk. a brush to the same upon samani. "it is your spirit name. speak it to no other ears. i will tell you again when it is time."

but the last was for them alone. she did not know it. yet the name grew in her mind. kukutux hoped that the wicked spirits would be confused by the secret name she would give to these twins which had grown within her.

"nakitâgutik."

"you know the spirit name you both will share. say it only to one another, and no one else. i will tell you again when it is time."

if moonwoman could not save one of her daughters through will, then she would seek to do it through atuutluk.

"look, @Aiolos."

kukutux was ready now.

"samani. girl who looks out to the sea always. kausiut, a star which walks in the day with the sun. they are your daughters. they are twin."