Ouroboros Spine avaalaruk ⋕

backdated to june 24th, mostly for reference <3 no posting order, optional responses: @Aiolos @Callyope @Panuk @Kigipigak @Vairë @Valiant @Peregrine @Nasamiituuq @Faele @Kyrell @Tulugaak @Tautukpik

grandmother, i cannot do this.

not again.

ariadne did not stir as she was carried, her arms limp, her eyes silent.

grandmother, i cannot do this again.

aiolos, stricken, silent.

kigipigak; she felt the strident tangle of his emotions.

kannoyak was voiceless.

that they had lost their lives together did not escape kukutux.

grandmother, as her body ached entire, as she felt only numbly the earth of that hard-packed trail, i cannot do this.

you can. you must.

lynx's eyes, flashing.

long shadows cast by many figures. ariadne and kannoyak lay side by side on fine caribou pelts outside the ulaq.

kukutux could not stop herself from staring at the empty face of her daughter, remembering another.

another daughter. another time. a spreading pool of blood dried to cold. a death ulaq built beside the sea.

no blood this time, in thankful chance. this time. this time.

there should have been no more times.

for a long time kukutux said nothing, hardly aware of what went on around her. she forced herself back from the land of shadows for the sake of tautukpik. a sister gone. now a mother. her heart broke for this boy more than for herself, for the children ariadne had left behind.

at last her voice sounded, hoarse, shattered; "we will bury her beneath firemother, so that little fox may know that his mother walks with him." and she would build a death ulaq there for them both.

a soft paw touched the cold foot of the man who had been kannoyak. "i did not know all of his ways and not the ones for death. we will let him sleep in the grove, near to shikoba."
weakness grasped her; sickness; dizziness; rage, rage, an endless black rage which suddenly shimmered under her skin; "i will begin the death songs for them both tomorrow."

a thousand more years descended upon kukutux, crushing her; she laid her head upon ariadne's shoulder and closed her eyes in utter desolation.