Ouroboros Spine ommatik ∻

Unfortunately, though their cultures shared some similarities or so it seemed, the word was foreign to the girl. She had heard others like it before, and knew of the tundrians that lay further to the north than her former people, but she had never learned their tongue. Still, her fallow shoulders of sandstone inched inwards, curling as she leaned forward with interest to drink in the words -- jade gems bright as something familiar, like kinship, curled at her lips ever so slightly.

"I knew a man like that once. But he was not spiritual." And that was all that she would say about that. Her uncle was not like Kukutux, the rabbit's spring eyes flitting from the frosted edges of her to the ice that clung to the earth. She did not say so but she was relieved that the woman had her own shadows dancing across her tongue -- those of this world and others unseen to the simple artisan.