Ouroboros Spine takluak

After the datura and the women's circle, Tulukiri had been out-of-sorts.

To say she had been drained of feeling, or not herself, was an understatement; she had withdrawn beyond the usual work-focused, antisocial behavior that had plagued her initial inception to Moonglow - in the days and weeks to follow, as she sifted through the events and processed them, she was not seen by many. Certainly her duties went unfinished; if Kigipigak came calling for her she would not respond, and likewise she was resistant to the attention of any of the women who had witnessed the ritual.

The girl processed in her own time. She found herself thirsty for answers more than anything, but did not know who to speak to, or how to ask, or even if she wanted to delve so deeply in to her own spirit (the spirit being a concept all Tartok abhorred, and mocked, and otherwise found impossible to substantiate, and in this Tulukiri was on-brand).

When she did feel more like herself, she worked. Her patrol routes were stymied by drifting thoughts or sudden waves of intense emotion that Tulukiri was not accustomed to feeling; she was reminded on more than one occasion of a sense of dread, or a fleeting worry, and sometimes would cut her work short to wallow in something close to guilt; or she would fight against all of it and hide herself away.

Today was only slightly different. The sun was setting earlier and earlier, and only a couple hours after the midday mark, she could see bands of murky bruise-pink across the sky indicating the departure of the sun and its warmth. She climbed to a high point upon the spine and settled there to witness it, and drew a weighted breath, which pulsed back out of her as a fine cloud as visible as smoke.