Ouroboros Spine ilukaan ∔

set after this <3 got carried away, do not feel the need to match!

when night fell, after kukutux had persuaded her wearied and beautiful sister to finally lay down with her children and sleep, the duck settled her own into the ulaq. she kissed their small heads and pulled away, leaving them nestled together in the soft sleeping furs.

the moon was half-encircled with shadow. two brothers, one sacrificed to the darkness. she looked up at it for a long while before she slipped just beyond the ulax, to where she felt her sun man might be.

for a moment kukutux wanted only to go to him. but it was a great thing that she would ask of @Aiolos, when he had already given so much. and so she took two heartbeats of time to pull the old words into her mind, and settled before him with downturned head and veiled eyes.

"uiga." he knew her. and he knew when she meant to be formal.

"it has been two moons since the icehunter left our village." by now the knowledge of what he had left behind had come to the eyes of all moonglow. "i say to you now the words i would have spoken before."

kukutux lifted her eyes to him at last. "lótë is my sister. we have a kinship between us. take her as your second wife, uiga. give to her the honor that sivullik did not. give a name to her children. it is your right as sun man." lótë had helped them to build moonglow. she would not see the cloudberry woman so downcast after the words of a man changed by evil spirits.

aiolos had brought meat to the woman's hearth before adrastus. he thought of the woman as his kith. kukutux saw no reason why he should refuse, but kept her tones demure. it was his right. she would not say it was his task. "show to her the same kindness that you have showed to my eyes. i told to her your words, that she is your kin." aiolos had not wished to be a husband in all things to another. it was not her choice to make.

it was her secret hope that when aiolos saw how dutiful and lovely the cloudberry woman was and always had been, and when her sister had seen the soft looks of aiolos and how gently he spoke — that these things one day placed them upon the same path.

"i told to her that this marriage is for protection. she says she may take another husband, one day." kukutux meant to impress upon aiolos that if his heart was against such a thing, she would be silent and accept. but that he would not be tied in a partnering he did not wish.

"she says if it is your wish, she will be second wife to you and second mother to our children."

moonwoman was quiet now.