Ouroboros Spine we would skate when the ice would freeze

near the borders, but has not crossed. backdated to roughly the 18th (maybe 19th if that works better for whoever joins!)

She pushed her boundaries each time.

A little more, a little more, a little. . .

It was hard to stop herself from roaming far when she thought of him.

Of @Kigipigak , her mind whispered.

Don't forget him.

This area was the only place she could think to keep up her investigation for him. She had met him near these lands. What if he had returned to the cursed woods? Or perhaps she had just wished she would meet him all over again there.

Instead she found a place with signs of life. It almost made her stomach clench and churn. She should have stayed away.

What if there were women like Lane? Signs heavy with pregnancy. Maybe they already had little ones running around like Vesper and Blueberry.

Before she could even call for someone, she froze. Some tangle of worry and fear marred her features.

they could not keep nuak forever.

he had shouted that it was not his title, but kukutux held firm to it. she was adrift. her cloudberry sister had once hidden somewhere for the time being with sivullik. a smile touched the duck's features. perhaps the spirits would bless moonglow again with new life, and that was why the angry boy could not stay.

was that coyote brother upon her doorstep? moonwoman quickened her step, only to slow when she saw the lavalick of colors that hued the woman, the pointed look. suspicion in her heart, but it did not change the soft way she blinked curiously at the stranger. "i greet you."

Oh,

She breathed out as if the pale woman had startled her. As if her approach had not been at least somewhat visible.

Thank you.

Soft and muted, timid as a whole now. She was not sure what to say next. She should have prepared something. Some sort of list of things to say or ask.

I was looking for someone. . .

A weak starter.

the green eyes remained warm. "there are many here. what name do you have?" for she had grown guarded in her patience. her shoulders naked again from a fur, but it was becoming more natural to kukutux. in this a taboo. she had been too long unmarried, and had become hardened perhaps.

above her scars, she watched the other. she did not like the ruddiness that clung to the woman, broken by ash. but it was not the color of blood, not the parka of the tupilak.

still. her wariness sharpened.

What name did she have?

For herself? No, surely the one offer in her searches, it was what she had come for.

Kigipigak.

How many times had she spoken his name? How many times had others stumbled over it and not seen him even when described?

Too many times.

Yet still her chest squeezed each time she had to await an answer.

a flare of her nostrils the only response. "he is kin to me." a pause. kukutux thought of the ulaq in which the winterhawk made his mending. but she was not yet ready to say that he was among them. that he was theirs for a time. that he had come to live in moonglow.

"were you the one who called the name of this man?" moonwoman inquired instead, recalling the howl that had risen above the spine, and the way that the pale hunter had called back. how he had become distraught in the interim.

She could almost feel another oh slip free from the depths of her chest, but she contained it. Holding things in like she had become so good at doing.

I. . . yes. She did not know the wolves he did. She did not know if he had anyone else who might call for him the way she had on her searches.

Yet she felt hot in the face for such a confession.

Revelations!

a smile quirked the woman's mouth, a true one, filled with a genuine wisdom. "i found kigipigak many steps from here. a cat," she explained to the other wolf. "he finds healing in moonglow."

a pause.

"it will be another handful of days before he is well enough to walk. but he will live," she assured the fire-edged stranger, pale auds sweeping forward in intrigue.

Her heart stopped in that moment. Worried that there would be no more to be said of him.

A cat.

So tremendous, so terrible. She had almost been ready to mourn him until the pale woman spoke again. That he healed in Moonglow. The dead did not heal. He had to still be alive!

Oh, thank you. It bubbled over in heavy breaths. Her back end crumbled beneath her, finding herself seated. She did not even know it herself yet but tears rimmed her pale eyes.

tears.

a friend.

mere companions did not shed such salt, or become weak with relief.

kukutux stepped closer. "you have the name of sakhmet." her jadeite gaze was studious. "he speaks of you. he has a great wish to be at your side again." the look of knowingness between women, and moonwoman desired for a moment that she might hurry kiggavik's healing.

She might have grown heavy with shame at crying here upon this kind woman's borders, but the relief of everything outweighed such shame.

Although her face did heat further at Kigipigak kin's words. That he spoke of her was one thing. That he did wish to be back at the plateau with her, was further relief.

She smiled sheepishly at the woman's look, even as her throat tightened and her vision blurred with the tears she was evident of now.

How childish she felt.

Uncertain feelings blossoming in her chest.

Can I. . . can I see him?

a shake of her head, but regret was open upon her features.

"i have learned to know more caution." the scars across her face still held a shameful rose-pink.

"in six days he will be well enough to come here." six, a number that was equal on both sides, a branch laden with berries. or perhaps leaves of peace, which she extended now to sakhmet, a dove who must put her people first.

"come back, and i will bring him to this ground. until this time, i will bring any words to kigipigak that you will say to me. and if you call for me here before this time, i will tell you his own words, if he has them to give."

and kukutux thought that he would.

Her chest squeezed and try as she might to blink away her tear-blurred vision, it never seemed fully clear.

She could not see him. Not after all the land she had roamed to try and pinpoint what had happened. Now, when she had stumbled upon his kin, she could not see him.

Six days, she was told. Six days until she could see him once more.

They could not see each other and speak to each other. This woman would speak on each of their behalf's.

I. . . Her breath felt held away from her. Will you tell him that. . . that I looked this whole time? That others find home on the plateau now too but that. . . She struggled for the proper words. Unsure what was the right thing to say.

I need him to come back. She did not know whether this was a plead to the woman before him, or something she needed him to know. Both perhaps.

She had felt he had seen so much protentional there when she had brought him back, she wondered if he still thought of it.

"i wish to let him go, sakhmet. but he slept long hours as the evil spirits burned under his parka." 

"he is restless. his body grows strong. but he must not leave this village until the hotness cannot reach him again. if i bring him here before this time, if you are before his eyes, he will leave. and i will not hold him here."

kukutux did not know how long they had known one another.

kigipigak churned within the ulaq and sakhmet mourned upon the side of moonglow.

was it right that she say these things?

daughter.

you are moonwoman of one village.

"but it is not yet time."

she had sung her husband's spirit through the throat of sedna for nine days.

sakhmet had strength to sing for six.

"i will tell this to his ears."

it was their way, to wait. and to lament, for the hunters that they loved.

and it must be so. why else did the woman cry so? plead so?

"i see that your binding has no weakness. he will come back to you."

Evil spirits.

She wondered if she had cursed him. Spoke of a home she had long left behind, cursed woods she was born into. Maybe it had been the woods they had met in full of rotten things that he had ushered her away from.

No, her mind whispered.

The cat. Remember.

Or maybe selfishly she refused to believe that she had cursed him. Otherwise all this work was for hatred and surely he did not hate her if this woman's words were true. That he wanted to come back to the plateau — to her side, as this kin had said.

I understand. Hushed and weak, creaky like wind through old trees.

Even if she understood, she still did not like it.

Yet she could not yank him away from family that healed him.

I'll come back to him too. A promise between the two (or three) of them.

A pause, a considering of her next words.

What can I do to. . . help? Prepare?

She thought of gifts she might bring the woman when she returned.

prepare? prepare for his return? "he would not want you to have worry." others upon this plateau, a strange word she felt she must have heard before. it felt like clear water upon her tongue.

sakhmet promised to return to kigipigak.

a friend, he had told her. aya! men do not know how to say the things in their heart. but women know these words.

"return to your village. tell them their hawk-in-the-snow is healing. that he walks to learn more of himself."

a velvet look.

"eat meat. rest in your sleeping place. he has food and medicine in this place."

sympathy welling in her jadestone stare as if river-water returning.

"but i will not turn away meat from a hunter." giving this for sakhmet to decide what she might do.

Hawk-in-snow, she called him.

She weighed such a title against her tongue. How she might tease him with such a name when he returned, or perhaps she would keep it to herself. Close to her heart and only shared with this woman.

I will bring something for you when I return.

It was the least she could do for all of this trouble.

Who will I call for when I come back in six days?

She knew not this woman's name, only that she was kin.

i think, because of the date on this, six days would be tomorrow! let me know if that works for you :)

that works perfectly! <3

"kukutux, of village moonglow."

moonwoman. duck. leader. 

but her name was what she gave. her eyes watched sakhmet quietly over the scarring, and she wished greatly again that she could take the woman to where kigipigak lay healing.

six days.

sakhmet would return, and moonwoman would bear the man to the borderland. 

in answer to the offer of something, a gift, a token, kukutux only dipped her head.

Kukutux of the village Moonglow.

She chanted it over and over in her head, eager to place it and this place to memory. She would need to return in six days. No sooner than that. Otherwise she would not see Kigipigak.

Six days.

Her head dipped with a respectful politeness as she tried to pull herself together. It was time to start her journey home and rest as instructed before she returned.

can close here! :D