Ouroboros Spine chugutul ⦕

the sickness had not gone away.

it weakened her at all times of day, and she was forced to be reliant upon those around her.

this shamed kukutux, and when she could chew the edge of the fawn-skin no longer, she tilted back her head and called for @Lótë. sister, come to me; she did not know how she could face such alone. surely those in moonglow had not seen her face for so many moments that they had come to understand, or to question.

the duck lay her wan chin over pale paws, sighing quietly as the malaise seemed to settle into her very marrow.

The greenpaw straightened, bent over a juvenile bloom of chervile, fallow-skin crown swiveling across the green and brown blur of her thriving garden as she turned in the direction the call had come from. There was no mistaking Kukutux's voice, nor the meaning of her message, and so it was with little prompt that the dove jolted into a steady trot -- grimacing as the movement caused nausea to blossom in the pits of her stomach. Thankfully, she hadn't been suffering from morning sickness too dreadfully; Lótë had only lost her stomach once, shortly after realizing she was pregnant. She accounted that to nerves. Even so, the feeling plagued her, springing up any time the herbologist attempted to eat or even just smelled food. It seemed even the movement of flitting about the Spine as she usually did churned her queasy stomach. 

The duck was at least partially right in assuming that the village was aware of her condition -- as they were surely becoming aware of the bird-watcher's own. Lótë had a hunch as to what the wisewoman wished to discuss, having been given no indication that the Alpha had changed her mind about deciding to have more children this year. It could not be coincidence that Kukutux had called for her after both moonwolves had emerged from the sides of their chosen men. 

Though she had no reason to be, the artisan found herself growing nervous as she broke from the dark pines and spotted the prone form of her pale confidante. It only worsened the ache tearing at her swollen stomach so the cloudberry tried (and failed) to bury the sensation as she padded to the Ostrega's side, wuffing softly in greeting. Her tail gave a faint, friendly swish as she reached to touch her dusk-rose nose against Kukutux's ivory chin before settling herself aside of the northerner -- perhaps made more submissive by her nerves, an instinctual need to ensure that there would be no conflict between the two expecting mothers and their unborn children. 

"I greet you, sister," the doe demurred with a small tic of her lips, not so reserved about adopting the former Moonspearians' customs. Kukutux hadn't seemed offended by her intrigue so far, and Aiwë figured at this point the matchmaker would be comfortable enough in her company to correct her on any missteps. "Are you alright?"

her body had become fecund and with curves despite herself, and kukutux was pleased to see the same in her sister. she lifted herself up, passing muzzle with a gentle kiss to lótë. "i greet you." delight against the pallor of her own delicate features.

"the children, they are strong. too strong for me." kukutux meant it happily, but the words were quiet, hushed, and eventually she was driven down again. she lay upon her side, panting softly in the horrid heat. "the sea is in them." for it had been aiolos' spirit swallowed, and with the sun man, he had brought this fire and the salt that clashed in her veins.

"the sickness, it continues," kukutux said by way of explanation, believing that the cloudberry woman would understand, having been touched by those silent spirits herself.

"Aya," the dove agreed with a whisper of a chuckle, soon finding herself joining the Moon where she stretched upon the ground -- as if pressed to the earth by the humid heat clinging to air. "I know exactly what you mean. They fight me already at mealtimes," she quipped with soft admiration for her unborn children's strength, glancing back at the slight curve of her abdomen with adulated eyes of pallid jade. 

"Do you think your cubs will be of the sea? Fire-pelted like Aiolos? Or do you think they will be borne of the winter, like their mother?" She asked, curiously glancing at her tribe-sister's own bump with a sweep of her tail -- overjoyed to share this with the Moon, especially since this was her first pregnancy. For a moment, her evergreen optics returned to her own distended stomach, trying to picture her own pups, wondering if they would be northerners like their sire or woodlanders like herself, before flitting back to Kukutux as she waited patiently for an answer. 

kukutux suddenly wished to speak to her sister of how much she had lost in these past weeks, how her body felt as though it were harshly being swallowed by some treacherous spirit.

many times, kukutux thought of what nuak had taken, and what had become of her sacred disk. it was bound to her totem in a powerful way. and now it had perhaps been touched by a tupilak.

the children; yes;

"i wish that one is a son for aiolos, a son who wears his parka. but for me, i want a daughter of my island. like sialuk. when she is angajuk, she will teach much to a new girl."

the jadestone eyes were intrigued. "will you have sons and daughters of ice, or children who know the high places, as their mother?"

Lótë smiled, enraptured, feeling she could almost picture them — that she loved the future nephews and nieces of her heart already. Despite how tired and sick she felt most of the time, like the very life was being sucked out of her to nourish her unborn cubs, part of her was unbearably ready to meet her children — Kukutux’s too. 

Her evergreen gaze dipped back to the slight swell of her stomach, wondering — trying to turn her thoughts inward, as if she would be able to tell by intuition alone. “I picture them all as pale, like their father…or maybe like the color of my mother. She was softer in hue than a newborn fawn.”

”I think I might hope for one to look like me,” she murmured, feeling her very world shift at the thought alone of looking into down into a pair of eyes so like her own, or even her husband’s. 

kukutux felt her mouth swell into a beam as lótë shared her own secrets for the faces of the children she carried. "aya! but you are aullaksrugniaktugak." the word poured from kukutux as if she had not left the island. "it has the meaning of 'woman who picks berries with sun upon her head.'"

"i think that you will have a daughter who wears your eyes," moonwoman said quietly, brushing shoulders with the cloudberry woman. "and she will be to you as sialuk is to me."

The dove’s lips curled sweetly at the thought, head ducking as the Moon bumped shoulders with her — as if still a young girl despite being a woman grown, wed and carrying children of her own. ”Aullaksrugniaktugak,” she repeated, likely butchering the foreign word, in a soft musing of wonder — finding she rather liked the musical term. 

”I would like that,” she murmured, spring gaze meeting Kukutux’s own vivid orbs of borealis green. ”It will be good to see my children beside yours, I would very much like for them to be taught Moonglow’s ways — your ways. If it is allowed, of course.” Perhaps there were only certain things that the wisewoman had imparted upon the moonwolves and some things could not be shared outside of her bloodline.

kukutux brightened into sunglow over spring grass. "aya! yes! this will bring my heart joy. i will speak to them the tales that my mother gave to me. and our words," moonwoman added.

"and you as well! i will teach a string of them to you now. anaa aniqduun yaxtal kumsitaku." she said it again, softly, slowly. "it has the meaning, 'she holds her child with love.'

presently moonwoman stretched, gathered herself slowly together. "i always have hunger. sialuk has brought me a fat squirrel. come to my ulaq, if you wish."

It was good to see Kukutux so alive, so vibrant. Too often had Lótë seen her filled with sorrow. It was not to say that the northron was forlorn but she had had great cause to be downtrodden -- Lótë was amazed at how the Alpha had shouldered her grief so well. So many others, herself included, would have been destroyed by the loss seen within Moonspear. Warmth glowed to life in her heart like the blossoming of a firefly's light in the dusk to see her friend so happy about her pregnancy and the future. 

"I would be honored to learn; your tongue is beautiful," she complimented, cheeks warming beneath her beige fur to be accepted so readily. She wondered to herself if the phrase regarded the way a woman carried her children during pregnancy or after their arrival before deciding that that was part of the tongue's beauty -- its duality, in that it could likely mean both. Either way, the words touched some maternal corner of her heart. 

"Anaa aniqduun yaxtal kumsitaku," the dove reiterated, hoping to commit the words to memory. "In my mother tongue, one would say, 'Se hin se hinya as mel." She offered this, a fair trade, so to speak. 

The Gamma dipped her head gratefully at the offer, chuckling beneath her breath when her stomach grumbled as she rose. "I think that my children have already agreed to your invitation," she quipped lightly as she fell in alongside Kukutux, already envisioning how succulent the squirrel would taste now that her nausea had passed.