Ouroboros Spine pijannituk ⩅

kukutux let out her breath. a sunlit sound was upon her mouth. "i am glad that you will stay for a time. we will put flowers upon my altar. we will ask that the spirits guide the ice hunter back to the place where he was." it was all she could say for now. she believed truly, after seeing him so silent and gone from even his wife or the children she had borne to his hearth.

lótë inquired again after the way of two marriages. kukutux was silent for a short while. "i will be his wife. and you will be his wife. he will take your children to his heart. they will have the status of sun man and also moonwoman." she paused for a moment, the jadestone eyes glowing with a low and delighted affection.

"there is a woman called eldritch. she is spirit-talker. inkalorë and kausiut — i think that they have been chosen to learn these magicks and the secret words. i think i will send my daytime star to her when she is many moons older. when she is ready to be taught." the duck meant so much to say that the child so spurned by the ice-heart had a path forward that was true and possible.

"aiolos would have two wives," she said softly, returning to their first point. "each with rights to his sleeping-place and to meat from his kills. i will tell to you, lótë, that he has much love for me. you are tied to him by kinship. it is for protection we make this marriage."

kukutux fell quiet for a handful of seconds. "the matter of children, sister, is only for the ears of you and aiolos. that also is the right of a wife." there were other things: the right of first wife over second, but she saw no reason to use those things against lótë. aiolos gave her the sacred places of his heart. she was confident in them, and loved lótë fully.

it had not occurred once to the duck that the cloudberry woman spoke also of being her own.