Ouroboros Spine lv. i'm trying to find all the love that you lost

hoping for someone Lote hasn't interacted much with but AW. :) (maybe @Aventus, @Foxfur, @Morte, or @Kigipigak if anybody would like a thread?)

the artisan had been sheltered in the whelping den, regaining her strength.

her children could count almost two moons now. the chill in the air seemed to settle into the very marrow of her bones, despite the deerskin she'd donned around her frail shoulders. it was her sister who had taught her to use the furs of animals for warmth, the extra insulation appreciated over her thin frame as the trees turned and the evergreens' cones closed protectively. the cloudberry was relieved she had decided to stay. already the ground had grown hard and cold, the leaves carpeting the floor of the forest in a wet mulch of decay. it made the bite of the wind even fiercer to think of her cubs travelling in such cold. 

there were new faces moving amongst the ulax and those that had vanished with the summer. keyni's absence was one she felt keenly most of all and she hoped her village-sister had found somewhere safe to winter. she tugged the skin closer over the peak of a misted shoulder as she moved through the community with vairë trotting alongside her. 

soon her nestlings would be old enough to flit about the trees but for now they were always accompanied by mother dove, anaa, sunman, or sistraa. 

the herbalist's jade gaze danced over the assembled dwellings, searching for a less familiar face to acquaint herself with.

Kigipigak busied himself most days with the usual antics of a man about the village, though on this day, in this moment, he was crossing near the ulax with something heavy hanging from his teeth. It looked a bit like a ground hog or muskrat but far larger, with enough excess weight to strain his neck in a visible way. He did not see Lote; he was so focused on keeping himself aligned with the mountain trail that Kigipigak did not see much going on around any particular ulaq or any person really, waddling in a wide stance around the thick leather tail that fwup fwup fwup'd against the earth with each stride.

He came to a stop and let the giant rodent sag against the dirt. His forelimbs kept it from rolling anywhere, not that it was at all likely to happen, while he stretched out his back and proceeded to shake the tension from his shoulders and neck. The fur that once grew thick across his body had not returned in the places the cougar had mauled him - thus his scars were thick and pink, networked by his ribs on one side, his groin on the other, and made more obvious if one studied him long enough. Kigipigak was not the kind of person to hide his scars and he had not yet learned of how ugly and twisted they made him. The light was just right, however, to make those marks incredibly obvious - he looked vaguely unhealthy for all that missing space.

kigipigak was the first she came across. his pale fur no longer gave her a start — she could not truly confuse him for the northern tupilak with how brother sun cast his spinal scars in vivid relief. her peridots danced away from the marks, lest she seem rude, but she could not help but marvel how anyone could survive having so much flesh gouged from their body. 

the morning dove had half a mind to stop and converse but he seemed in the midst of some activity, transporting the game he straddled no doubt, and lótë was loathe to disturb him. 

when she was close enough, she slowed, reaching down absently to nudge vairë closer to her side with her chin — not unlike a mother taking hold of her child’s hand to keep them out of the way of passerby on the street. ”i greet you, kigipigak,” the bird-watcher murmured, pausing for a moment. if he wished to converse, she would linger and oblige. if not, they would part ways and she would leave him to his felled game.