Ouroboros Spine suagutsik ⏧

Perhaps it was good for Aiolos to be among them, with his different views and his different ways, but it would take time for Kigipigak to understand him. He liked what he saw after their initial meeting and that alone was a good thing. It was not often that Kigipigak disliked other men, certainly, but he did not see Aiolos as someone he could spar with, or act in the boyish, rough way he was used to. It would take some time to figure out.

Kigipigak watched as the woman doted upon her children. Talk of the upcoming moon and the aggression of the caribou, which was of course a time of great adventure for any man, especially so for an enclave of hunters. It had been some time since Kigipigak had hunted alongside brothers — the chance would come for him, should he remain here with his kinfolk.

In my village we held festivals for the men at this time. Kigipigak did not know what else to call them; they were brawls more than celebrations, a time when men could find comfort in physicality, even to make the aokatti bonds with their blood-brother of choice.

We would fight one another in mock battle. One against one, or in pairs, if the man had an aokatti to call upon. The winner would eat freely from a feast, while the other men would band together and hunt the strongest beast they could find!

He became carried away in the telling of this, remembering what it had been like as a boy before his naming, imagining what it would be like to be a true warrior of Tartok and being praised in such a way; but his energy waned, remembering that he had never been given the chance to truly experience this.

After his naming, he had been sent away.