Ouroboros Spine it happened if i say it

sleep eluded kivaluk.

so, he spends the witching and early dawn hours patrolling the borders.

he considers slipping out of them altogether to check on one of the small deer herds he's been keeping a keen and close eye upon but decides not, ultimately.

he's spent many days trailing them, and many more days lost in thoughts.

of questions he will never have the answers to. letting his roiling resent, anger and uncertainty plague his waking hours.

determined to bury those feelings, as he does, kivaluk throws himself into the relentless patrol, pausing to strengthen the borders with deep earth cutting clawmarks or tufts of fur left in brambles and roughbark.

Sometimes, Aiolos was anxious during @Kukutux ' pregnancy, more so closer and closer to the due date. Many things could go wrong and fortunately it had never, but it did not mean it would not ever. Now, Aiolos has two mothers to be worried over- Kukutux and @Sakhmet. 

Like her son, Kivaluk, Aiolos was a reserved man, keeping the bulk of his feelings hidden away. He did his best to show no worries, no fears but Kukutux would often see through these things. 

This early hour, Aiolos' ginger ears pulled up high at the sounds of the young wolf's claws on tree trunk. Coming forward to investigate, he sees the young hunter and woofs out to him in greeting.

the woof of greeting breaches kivaluk's concentration. he pauses, mid-mark; a bit awkwardly to peer over his shoulder.

to see the sunking.

kivaluk lets gravity pull his paws back to earth, though one claw snags in a particularly stubborn bit of roughbark.

he tugs it free with a moment of struggle, feeling humiliation burn his cheeks.

sunking. greets the hunter, with a dip of his head in respect.

Aiolos watches the yearlings bit of struggle, one corner of his mouth turning up, but says nothing of it. But then, 

Sun King? His ears perk, a brow lifting. That is a new one, but I don't quite mind it. He says with a chuckle and toothy grin. He had been many things, all odd of name to him: Vísivai, Shaowei, Shàngjiàng and now Siqiniq or more known as 'Sunman' here. Being called 'King' was more familiar to him. 

I suppose that term is easier on the tongue then some of the northern ways of speaking. He shrugs and settles himself into a sit, relaxing a moment. He was not a man of the north, much like Shikoba, but had married into it. As Kivaluk's mother had to his father.

i, uh...— kivaluk struggles for a moment, thoughts collecting. i'm not real sure how to address you. it is no secret that of the alpha pair he's spoken more and thus felt closer to, kukutux.

sunking felt respectful. kivaluk offers the explanation with a small shrug of his shoulders, ears twitching slightly. we really haven't had one-on-one like this before.

There was an awkwardness in the young wolf, to which Aiolos nonchalantly rolled his russet shoulders. It does. I like it. Aiolos respond with a small smile. In Aiolos much younger years, he might have demanded such a thing from the youth, where the men had to fight among one another as a source of proof to any of their worth. Physical strength was everything, the top dog being the one to prevail. 

Here, Aiolos knew his place was set at Kukutux side even as he aged. Even if he would soon no longer be as strong as many of the other men under him. He had earned her trust, her heart. 

Aiolos nods then, slow, to the yearlings next set of words. It has been long overdue. A failure on Aiolos' part yet again. I imagine it's been quite an adjustment coming here, with how far in the north you were born to. He didn't know if the move would be a sour subject, but wanted to know the youth a little more, if anything. Coming here after living off the coast on an island for years... it was very different for me. He offers a bit of himself in turn.

kivaluk hadn't meant for his words to sound accusatory, hadn't meant them any way other than a simple statement of fact; and he feels a soft pang of guilt as aiolos mentions it is long overdue; quick to shoo it away though as kivaluk doesn't perceive the sunking's words to be defensive.

it was, at first. but kivaluk has been here so long now, most of his life in fact, that he doesn't really know any other home. still, he calls himself melonii-natigvik in honor of the home he'd briefly known and been born to. i honor it by taking it as part of my sirename — he mentions, a soft twitch of his ear given. but it was never meant to last.

this, kivaluk could see now.

moonglow has been a great source of stability for me. and he accredits the man he was growing to become to them solely.

you came from the coast? kivaluk inquires, head tilting slightly as he studies aiolos; feeling a bit silly that he had thought that he and kukutux and moonglow had always been here and had never been anywhere else.

His ears perk up, a kind of 'oh?' expression on his face of interest as Kivaluk talks about how he had implemented the pack name of which he was born onto his surname. Aiolos thinks of it, imagining his own name, Aiolos Yuelong. It didn't quite fit, especially given the clash or origin. Kukutux had picked the family name of their own, information held closely and she had picked perfectly. Of course, Aiolos was incredibly biased.

When the young hunter spoke that it was never meant to last, the man's ginger ears turned back and down. A sad thing to think but, it was not like Kivaluk was wrong in his words. After all, it had not last and with his father having abandoned his post as both father and husband, a pack often did not last long without strong, stable, figureheads to guide it. Moonglow was that for him, now. Aiolos felt an awkwardness in his gut however, with the knowledge that Kivaluk's mother was now pregnant with Aiolos' own offspring. 

I'm glad... He then says, pulling himself out of that weirdness and continuing on. He even lifted up and taking a few steps toward Kivaluk and out to his side, a gesture that thry could continue on the border patrol that Kivaluk having been caught previously scent marking. I don't think I could do it without Kukutux. She really is the heart of these lands. He spoke with a happiness at the thought of his wife. It had been the same for Yuelong. After Hua left along with the rest of her family, though Aiolos tried, he was much the supporting-role leader. The backbone and force behind its leading women. It had always been this way for Aiolos and he believed it was only correct. 

I lived on an island north-east of here. It was once a place where the Yuelong wolves lived and ruled by Hua for quite a time. She chose me to lead at her side and when she and her family left, I chose Maegi to be by mine, your grandmother. He did not know if he was aware of his grandmother by name. The way in which Sakhmet had reacted to this same story Aiolos told her before, she seemed a bit out of sorts as though that relationship was quite the complicated one.

kivaluk is quiet as aiolos speaks of the place he lived before moonglow: along the coast. the sunking speaks of a place called yuelong and a woman named hua, and then stranger still a woman named maegi who was apparently his grandmother.

kivaluk is immediately taken aback by this.

my grandmother? he asks, hoping for elaboration.

Yes, He confirms with words and a nod of his head. On your mother's side. She is a little white woman with one orange and one blue eye and heavy scarring on one side of her face. So much so, that her teeth shown from inside of her mouth. Not one easily mistaken. He tells, should Kivaluk ever come to run into the woman down the road in his life. Unknowing to Aiolos, she was dead- not even five years old.

his maternal grandmother, the sunking tells kivaluk.

which, makes sense. in truth, he knew very little of kigipigak but from what he did know his family was outside the wilds.

not that sakhmet had every spoken of her cubhood much, as far as kivaluk could remember.

a sort of unsettle pools in kivaluk's stomach, steeling his heart as he comes to a consideration that while his parents knew everything about him they were practically strangers to him. and everything about that seems so twisted and unfair to kivaluk.

he does not wish to resent the wolves that gave him life but the older he grows and the more he realizes he doesn't know ... the patterns of instability ... the more he feels it lurking like a chained beast beneath his flesh.

he offers a noncommittal noise; trying to process why learning of his family, of where and who he came from, was feeding that beast of resentment instead of enlightening him.

when did you meet, anaa? kivaluk asks, hoping to steer the conversation away his blood family.

They continued on their path, one which Aiolos had walked time and time again. Kivaluk changes the subject to Kukutux, which puts a smile on Aiolos face. His head tilts sideways, muzzle up as he ponders, Ah... the first time was, just before winter, three and a half years ago. He nods then, turning his head back down and looking to Kivaluk. He was a very different man then to what he was now. She and I both help to build a new pack called Courtfall. It was a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountains. Come to think of it, it was not too far different in the way Moonglow was. They had come full circle, he guessed. 

It did not last. However, He informed. I went to the coast and Kukutux was given as wife to a prince of Moonspear. And then, It was quite some time before we saw one another again. We reunited at Ocean's Breath Plateau. Where his daughter now ruled. Again, full circle. Then, she was pregnant with Sialuk and I had a son on the way. It seemed almost like quite the scandal, speaking it aloud! 

It was great sorrow which brought us here to Moonglow, to try and rebuild and regain what was lost even if could not replace. Moonspear had been struck by a great burning star from the sky and its members scattered, if not buried in the crumble of the mountain. The family which built my home left it, leaving little of us left to continue on. 

A sad ending, it seemed, but, Kukutux and I have been here together ever since. Within one another, they were able to live fully still and happily.

the sunking's history is great ... and not without it's sorrows.

and kivaluk hangs on his words, trying to form the images of the places and people and situations that aiolos tells him of.

wow, kivaluk breathes when the sunking finishes. i ... kinda always thought you and anaa were always just here. he admits with a soft, humbled chuckle.

but then again, he hadn't really known any better.

Aiolos smiles, giving a little shrug to Kivaluk words. Perhaps things would have been easier on us if we had been. But, had it been so, we may not be the same wolves we are today. Sialuk would not be here, for one and had Aiolos not learned to grow as he had in Yuelong he might not have been the man he was today for Kukutux. Both good and bad, there needed to be balance in life so not to take advantage and more so cherish life's blessings.

it was fair, that observation.

kivaluk knows very intimately that life was a scale and there had to be a fine balance between the good and the bad.

life wasn't always easy, it wasn't always rose petals and candied apples.

it was hard. sometimes it was pain and poison.

at any rate, i'm glad that things are as they are now. he speaks, partially off his own trials and partially of the ones that the sunking and his anaa had endured.

without them, it was hard for kivaluk to conceptualize where or who he'd be right now.

As do I. Aiolos says with another small smile before going quiet, content to continue on their little early-dawn border patrol until duty called them elsewhere in the later hours of morning.