Ouroboros Spine siunnurak ⌽

i was named asivaq and issumatar.

whatever budding goodwill kukutux had tried to nurture in her breast, after that first rage — it died as if it were a willowbud in a flash-frost.

not only had he led ariadne away, he had even taught her to change her name, to reject the ways of her people. it was not enough for him to change his name each time that he wished to avoid a life-change he had brought about! he must also try and bend her from sedna!

and on the heels of this thought, ariadne — asivaq —

i will never call her that

never?

tooteega's grating voice was harsh.

do you wish her to be home or not? you are too old to be a fool, moonwoman. mother to many. matriarch. too old. be wise.

— asivaq spoke of sedna now, and kukutux felt shame flare in her own belly. it was so, and what a wrath it had been. she did not feel like lecturing her daughter about the nature of spirit names, the breaking of ties. it was enough that she was back. 

be wise.

"i am glad you listened to her voice and came back." she kissed the gentle forehead as if the mother and head of her own village — two now! — were only a girl at her paws. "and i know you have given much. you have lost much. it is a pain in the spirit that holds and glows like fire. and to lose a child, aya. you were with me when your sister returned to sedna. and still, i feel it, my daughter, every day. i have learned to walk forward. but i will never forget."

little fox.

"i understand why offense was taken. no one wants to see pain they can ease." 

the matter of the looming pack brought her mind sharply back to kigipigak, and why he had not been able to muster others. asivaq spoke as if she had needed his say to come here! issumatar! her daughter had not been carved from rock and granite; she needed a village, and he had not built it!

be wise!

"such things are sometimes only settled with warriors. i know that it was hard not to stand for napatuqvik. but you listened to your spirit, which now is anaa also. this is good." a smile, a pause; a breath;

i am angry because after everything else, i trusted him to do this. i trusted in his strength, in his long-seeing, in his hunting, in his teeth. i had no choice. he made it so i had no choice but to trust, and he has brought her back worse than when she ran away from the bison hunt.

"the death songs." she drew back to look into the eyes which reflected the pain of loss in the soul. "were they sung for little fox?" she did not want to ask, her own gaze glowing with this, but she could not go forward without thinking of her small grandson's spirit, lost to an ether. and she did not know what sunshine ways had been practiced in the tree-place.

"i only want you to rest for a time. sleep. eat. be with your children. walk with your husband. do not try to burden yourself with work to hide the pain. feel it. let it go."

a thought; "do you wish for us to hold a ceremony here in the remembering of little fox?"