Ouroboros Spine suagutsik ⏧

He placed the bolt of red carefully upon the earth and took care to arrange it, not looking to the children until he was pleased with how it lay, and took perhaps too much time to make it right, to honor them.

They were so small that Kigipigak was startled when he saw them. Tucked against their mother, who seemed tired but in a good way, and proud not just of them but of her kinsman, towards whom she tried to hide her own misgivings.

Atausiq, Malguk, he said.

First and second; as my people would have called them. Curious, that you name them differently. They will grow in to their names rather than earn them. He considered. What if the mother's intuition was wrong? Kigipigak smiled anyway, and drew closer.

They look like you. As daughters so often resembled their mothers.