Ouroboros Spine uluktuk ⧝

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moonwoman had brought them all to the grandfather stone.

it reared high above the grass and the wolves, a granite sentinel with sunwarmed surface. and kukutux knew it to be older than the sky itself.

they had felled a deer and consumed much of its flesh. now the duck sat with @Aiolos and @Ariadne, @Stratos, and @Callyope. surely one or all of them would soon run to join @Mojag as @Shikoba and @Inutsuk brought him up to their meeting. @Qadira she saw as guardian-woman, and her gaze meant to favor the woman today.

she had asked @Sialuk to come, but her heart would not be be heavy if her daughter chose to stay in the cool green of moonspear. her soul was tied to it. and @Samani, her heart filled with love for the daughter of the second year.

@Keyni and lótë next, sung from the village and the forest. @Wilwarin and (@Hermes) and inkalore, asked along to join their family once more. @Makan, a croon.

kukutux would look for each face in their gathering but soon she passed her words into the air.

"i want to tell you a story about love as the sun returns to his bed."

twilight sparkled in navystone over the village, starlight chasing the fading glow upon the horizon.

"there was once a hunter named seeking owl. they called him this for he was not a good hunter in the daytime, and he was never satisfied with what the village gave him." kukutux sighed exaggeratedly and rolled her eyes. it was the part of story-telling she loved the most.

"if a man offered that seeking owl might marry his daughter, and become settled owl — well, there was much laughing." her teeth glimmered in a wry grin at the teasing of the other hunters. "but seeking owl said no, and he went hunting again."

"he lived on one side of a great island. and on the other was another village, where goose down woman shared an ulaq with her family. seeking owl hunted farther and farther from his people, until at last he was lost in a storm of snow."

she grew somber.

"he was lost for many hands of time. his village did not believe that he lived after a while."

"one day, goose down woman was searching for kuajautik, but it was seeking owl that she found, covered in new snow. she helped him back to her ulaq, and her mother gave him medicine that forced his spirit back into his bones."

"of course he only saw goose down woman when he opened his eyes. and he loved her at once." another small grin. these parables of affection satisfied her greatly to give. "she saw in his eyes that his heart was set upon her, and she found in her own that she felt in the same way. they were married and their faces were full of light."

"such light can cause one not to see." she looked toward her near-grown children. soon they would seek their own ways, and in the following hand of moons, might begin a new iteration of the blood-kin in the village. "in the cold of the next new snow, goose down woman went out with her people and leapt into the sky and became kanuk, the snow-feather. and seeking owl could not follow. but it did not stop his love."

"that is why you hear him calling for her. you hear him ask many things in the darkness, which is where he is a great hunter, and where it was that goose down woman found him."

"if you find such love in your heart for the one that fills your eyes, it will be a lifting in your spirit. a marriage might have the need that you will answer hard things, but one of them should not be love."

"it is the time of ice being broken and the time of long rivers flowing. these hours are sacred. they are yours to choose."