Ocean's Breath Plateau taimma ➻

it was not the growl now that kukutux remembered as revui swept her close: it was the remembered echo of his heartbeat, now reverberating in her spirit. for the smallest of moments she allowed herself the respite of his hardened warmth. laced into the flintgrey furs were the fragrances of many things, many wolves, but through it the ostrega himself bled.

and here she filled herself with the scent of him, faltering palms pressed against the jagged rock of a scarred temple wall. her heart flailed as if it were a bird within a bone cage, and kukutux tasted seawater glinting in a thin rill along her pallid cheek. closely, eternally; her inhale was on the knife-edge of a sob and finally she pulled away, clutched the end of her hareskin, failed to cloak the anguish of her gaze.

"i am your ukuaqtaaraapik," the duck whispered in a mingling of confusion and misery. but he must know. he must not allow himself — "i am with child," kukutux stated, waiting for the contortion of anger upon revui's face. "you will be their family." 

a twist of her mouth, the inability to keep the deep sense of ruin from her soul, and the duck was turning, thin shoulders hunched against the storm gathering over the sea. if he spoke, she would hear, but kukutux did not expect revui to stop her this time.