Ocean's Breath Plateau avappasugjuk ⏧

there had been no time to tell her sun man and the star hunter of what had happened. not until rodyn went off with ariadne, carrying the new lives which must be given milk and warmth.

when they were only two figures in the distance, kukutux rose wearily and called out to @Aiolos.

our island daughter has gone beneath the long dark, to begin to sedna. she takes a daughter with her.

kukutux felt her throat emit a long hoarse sob, one not easily controlled.

two sons have been born to rodyn's hearth, and watched over by ariadne, i have sent them all to moonspear.

her voice was a pouring cry; her heart lay open and rent and torn with such an anguish that far surpassed any suffered thus far.

the others must come. @Vairë must be told, though she lay now resting after her own birth. it was why kukutux had not sent rodyn to her hearth. three children, a first birth, to lose a sister — too much. sialuk too was first mother but she was older and with only two to nurse between she and elentari.

moonwoman felt it was the way things must be done.

@Shikoba, @Ajei, @Massaraq, @Kassuq, @Arrluk — all she bid to arrive, to gather for the death songs.

she called out to @Kausiut, even if her daughter was not close; her spirit must sense the tearing.

and for @Saviguk, now called mauruk, too now a song.

once she had done this for those upon the mountain, with sialuk only at her side.

now would the nuiruk clan pour their strong spirits into forming a way for their sister's return among the stars.

kukutux had seen the preparation of those dead for burial.

she knew the words.

had she not made a death ulaq for her grandfather?

moonwoman had buried before, but now as the loss of a child pierced her gut, she turned to her old words and her old ways. reaching back through a memory tinged all in grief and fire, kukutux found the birthing chant of her daughter's first breath, and it was this she sang softly in muted ululation.

the bundle she had brought was unrolled, her things laid aside. kukutux brought her child from the den and lay the quiet body here, arranging limbs in sleeping movement and placing a soft piece of rabbitskin over the silent eyes.

here kukutux did stop now to cry, to weep aloud against the unmoving form, to clutch for what essence of nature remained to define her daughter now. that cloth she had meant for a newborn, some firstgift of a practical item for a woman come into motherhood. that it should be now a shroud —

in time she went down to the sea, and brought up warm water from the surf. the chant found her tongue once more; she washed the body she had formed within her, sluicing blood to the ground outside the den and drawing great draughts of breath, for if she did not she felt she might die.

the young woman who had only just lost her spirit looked more serene to her mother's hurting, red-rimmed eyes at last, at last. kukutux rocked back upon her sore haunches, tucking a last bouquet of wildflower and dried rosehips under one soft arm.

her child would go with many things into the throat of sedna. she would be known as healer, sister, daughter.

mother.

the daughter who had not lived now lay too in the arms which had birthed her. the sea girl would not be alone in her journey; kukutux had wrapped the child in another soft swaddling-skin, placing her beside the silent heart.

would rodyn wish her buried? she would build a death ulaq all the same.

kukutux sat for a long, long while, gazing almost unseeingly down over her daughter she had not thought she would lose, and the granddaughter she had hoped to know.

her mouth was silent. her eyes empty. she slowly aged through those hours, waiting for @Ariadne to return, for her family to join her in moontide.

the songs must be sung, and the girl returned would do the singing that sialuk had once done for those lost to the falling star.

history; a chapter pained to close.