Ouroboros Spine pijannituk ⩅

she had not considered this -- that adrastus might just follow her. if it were so, then was there truly any place she could go? helplessness crawled along her flesh. her children were too young yet to travel very far and by the time they were old enough to make a trek to one of their further allies, the season would set in and make such a journey impossible -- with children at least. another group could not provide better protection than her own loved ones. here, at least she would have kukutux. sialuk. shikoba. aiolos. keyni, should she ever decide to return to the spine. the twins. kigipigak. in another place, they would be surrounded by strangers and just as vulnerable. she would be naught but a disowned woman, fleeing in fear of her husband. 

"i promise you, i will not whisk them off rashly," she reassured softly, leaning into her friend both to provide and draw comfort. it felt she was being cleaved in two. she hated hurting kukutux but she needed to protect her young -- even from their father if the need arose. "it will be some time before they are old enough to leave the spine though i hope we won't need to." however slim it was, there was a chance that the disgraced first-hunter would see the error of his ways. that he might be willing to put the children's feelings and needs before his own. 

"the union you speak of...how can you be so sure it will work?" her voice had thinned, dipped, until it was tiny. the mother couldn't quite raise her eyes to the wisewoman's own. "i have come to think of you as sister and aiolos as brother through you. i don't know if i can make him happy," she admitted. the sun seemed a kind patriarch over his family and pack but then, so had adrastus. and she was sure that he saw her in much the same familial light -- she could not imagine that he wanted her as his wife nor that he would ever be able to view her as such. 

a sliver of her also feared for the future. she was young yet, she would count the same number of years that kukutux did now when her children were yearlings. what if their hearts never warmed to each other and someday, the artisan fell in love again -- however unlikely that seemed in her current state -- with someone who was not aiolos or kukutux?