Ouroboros Spine tusaaruuk ⟭

Lótë had no words to share, as enthralled with the tale as the other women around her. Again, she felt transported back in time to the land of Elms where the sage-woman had sang the stories of their people. 

The creation of her former village told of a different fable regarding the origins of their kind — a fallen star, not unlike the one that claimed the ‘spear, striking the land had brought with it First Woman. The first she-wolf had to teach herself the ways of the land, of survival, and in doing so, discovered the gift of new life. Her birth waters had filled the sea, her efforts giving rise to all the creatures of the earth — her bones, the mountains, splitting asunder. But it was a lonely existence, her spirit longing to return to the stars where it had been born — where her pale lover, the moon, called. 

She had returned to him and in time, their children of the stars claimed the Elms of this realm.

But perhaps the people of Kukutux’s isle had not been born of the stars but of the sea that gave them their sustenance. Her heart soared and plummeted with the story, recognizing with the youthful Sedna held in the clutches of her villainous father — though Lótë had never known her own father and had always imagined him to be a kind man. 

When the tale concluded, she was struck silent — gaze flicking to Sialuk and then Kukutux, also desperately wanting to hear the answer.