Moonspear uuliutik ◯

next spring.

kukutux too let her thoughts course to the future, wondering if tiuttuk did not think herself ready until she was able to become anaa. this was a noble thought, instilled by the nuiruk practices of marriage no doubt, or so the ageing woman told herself.

"i first lived in a place beside the sea. the islands of siqniq. i came here alone and after some time, i came to a place which had the name of courtfall."

courtfall, where she had met aiolos.

where she had met agana.

she paused to crack an oyster as she spoke, demonstrating the seafood for her mountain-runner grandchild. "i wanted a husband, always. the ruling woman of courtfall, she brought me here, to this mountain. i was not yet a woman in the way of Sedna; Her fire had not come to me. aurewen gave me to pay a debt. i did not know this."

carefully she put the shells aside.

"i have not said these names in many, many years, tiuttuk," kukutux murmured, worry suffusing her heart. "but i will tell them to your ears now. hydra was headwoman here, and her brother jarilo beside her. it was he, who i called blackfox, who accepted me as wife."

she remembered him now, his laughing greenstone eyes and the impossible darkness of his coat which made his teeth gleam in whiteglow. he had been beautiful, this grandfather of the girl seated with her now. "soon i grew with child. your anaa and her brother, who is now called mauruk."

that name; that name she would not say, not when it had heralded the end of samani.

"here they were born. we lived in happiness. there were two more brothers, sons of ostrega. one is only called grey brother now. but the second was arcturus. i do not know where he has gone."

"a great star fell to moonspear and destroyed much of it for a time. large stones rolled into firefly glen. i woke away from the mountain. it was arcturus who found me and brought me here, where i waited for your anaa. i did not know if she breathed. i did not know if blackfox or the moon hunter who was my son lived."

"of them, only sialuk returned."

for a time kukutux was quiet.

"we built moonglow in waiting. we sang the death songs to our people, for nine nights, and then we made the village."

her smile was soft.

"much strength lives in you, tiuttuk. when you are ready, it is there."