Ouroboros Spine taaqtumi ≜

for @Vairë (sorry i know we have one!) & @Shikoba; PPing @Aiolos <3

ariadne and kaluktuk are gone. they left before anyone went back to moonsong. dutch is in charge now, i think. he's asking what you want to do. he asked if you'd send someone, as their numbers are low and they may disband and join the other villages. he asked for me and kivaluk, maybe. but he wants you to know that no matter what, he'll try to keep them going.

the message had been recited haltingly by chickadee, who had looked more and more regretful at each shift of moonwoman's expression, even though she knew the anger and sorrow was not for her.

at last she was sent away, with warm thanks; she ran for @Kivaluk and their ulaq, gasping out all that had happened since the women's circle and her visit to moonsong, though she kept secret her own small hurt that kaluktuk had seemed so eager to mend things with his son and had not.

moonmother kept to herself in silence, the deerskin upon which she had been working now fallen away in folds that gathered cold. 

so.

it was an old story.

man who wants takes as many wives as he wants to rebuild what was lost. in her mind, she felt that kigipigak would take ariadne right back to natigvik, the source of his first failing. men kept to what they knew.

and what he knew was the use of women as a vessel for his personal ambition.

sending away any children who might be gathered at her hearth, including little quiet nasamiituuq, kukutux called for a council of their leaders and vairë, who would soon join them, she had decided.

"ariadne has gone. they left while the camps were still at winter hunting. she was angry after the women's circle. it must have been then she made this choice."

aiolos; to lose a daughter of his people's namesake. she placed her paw upon his own and went on.

"dutch asks that we send more in number. kivaluk and chickadee will welcome children. he has suggested their names. but he will work alone if he must."

it was not the way of the sunshine people.

"valiant and his sister minnow now live among us. i say that firsthunter choose a hunter to replace him if he wishes to go. but first we must ask him. before we bring him here, i must know: if a moonwolf abandons her home, do we carry it for her? she is my daughter and i believe she will come back. should her ulax be kept or should her choice to leave moonsong be honored by its people coming down from the ice?"

sun man was silent.

kukutux sat beside him, waiting for star hunter and moondoe to say their words.

she did not speak the story of grey brother.

Moondoe was quiet. Contemplative.

Old Doe seethed.

Abandoning herd! she shouted, stomping her hooves into her ears. Abandoning everything for what? A buck who will leave! A weakling who will turn tail when he is not sated! The slash of cervid teeth near her head. She will not be welcome! She will weaken the herd!

Ranting and raving, but Vairë was still.

It was selfish, was what it was. Leaving with no word, leaving your village and your people to starve in the cold while you went to go play with a man twice your age. 

It is not right, what she did. It was cruelty, it was something Vairë would never do. She had something so good, her eyes closed, and she threw it away for a man who wanted her to run from family.

If Dutch believes the village can be mended, can return from this, we should allow the village the chance. It would not be fair to them, to dissolve if that is not their wish. The want to seethe, that angry little girl she once was screaming behind her eyes that it wasn’t right, why Ariadne had gotten everything and left it behind.

But she did not say this.

Her decision to leave should be respected. But, it should also be known that it was not an act born of good will. It is not a leader who leaves their people with no word, alone in winter with no direction.

It was not a leader who threw a fit at a question, and ran away from the answer.

she listens, and shikoba cannot hide the disdain from her face. for a woman who proclaimed she knew the man she loved, she has yet to even notice how he pulls her away from her home, her family! she must fight off the low thrum in her throat for a moment as she takes care in her hearing.

her eyes are upon vairë, and for a moment, shikoba could swear she thought back to the moment the girl was born. she has grown, and perhaps the very soul within moonglow ages another moon. shikoba ponders the changes quietly, the wisdom she hears is pleasing from the young doe's mouth.

"there is forgiveness in my old heart," she says once they have fallen silent, "but a strong woman, a strong leader, does not abandon her family, her village." her mother, her father, her tradition. for a man who changes himself into a walking shadow to hide the true beast.

"we will support moonsong, for they do not deserve punishment for decisions they have not made. send either firsthunter to them, or perhaps someone else of our own if it must be. she may run with him, and perhaps her ulaq is left untouched. but her village will remember this day. and perhaps they will not welcome her back."

they did not walk the same path as the sunshine people. and even now, shikoba remains still an outsider. "i will go, if kivaluk wishes to remain with chickadee here." her children were grown, they would not need her.

their words came, each heeded by the direct gaze of moonmother. their collective anger was a boon. she knew it would truly break them from ariadne, yet in her anger considered hunting down kigipigak.

but what had he done for that?

keeping her bloodier thoughts quieted behind silent mouth, kukutux nodded toward vairë and then shikoba. her sister had said something unexpected: that she would go.

"then it is set. village moonglow will help moonsong. but before i call to sivullik, shikoba, i must know: do you wish in your heart to go to the ice mountain?" did the star hunter go only for the sake of the villages or did her own want stir her in that direction. "if you go, then i have the thought that ajei will have the choosing to walk with you, and that will be two for moonsong."

her jadestone eyes were soft; any desire of shikoba held sway over that of the younger pair. would this bring her joy, to be in a new land?

"vairë, you are right. whatever is decided, we must have the word of the people that ariadne left behind. it may come to be that they no longer wish to follow beneath the name of moonsong."

Kukutux is contemplative.

Shikoba is angry in a way that makes something in her grin a cruel grin. It is not nice, her anger. Vairë boiled with it in ways she had never before. Even the angriest she had been did not hold a candle to the incandescent rage that kindled in her. But she did not speak it aloud. Her anaa did not need to hear her harshest words.

Even she did not want to hear them spoken aloud, in fact. The last severing, a final cruelty shot at the back of a sister she was sure she’d never see again. She took a deep breath, letting it simmer in her lungs, then breathing back out.

If Shikoba does go, I wonder if we should give higher roles to firsthunter and his wife. Kivaluk has proved himself many times. Came her soft suggestion, putting the mated pair before herself in the hierarchy. Vairë would hold whatever role was necessary.

Her eyes flicked to Kukutux. Was she ready to become grandmother alone? Was Vairë ready to step into the place of moonwoman? This, she did not have words for.

she looks upon the other woman with a uncertain glint in her eyes. "it is only for the benefit of them. my heart will forever remain in the spine, here." her paw tenderly pats towards the ground beneath her. "kivaluk and chickadee are younger, and i grow older," there's a softness in her tone, "perhaps we speak with them, see where it is they wish to go. i will follow what their wishes are."

she looks upon the doe daughter with a sense of pride, as if she was her very own kin. moon woman has created her own legacy, whether through her sisters or through her own blood. "kivaluk has given what he could. if i am to leave, he should take my place."

if they were to go, she would remain here. but if they wished to stay, then shikoba would take up her arms and offer what she could in this day and age. and perhaps her daughter would walk beside her, and see just what it took to keep a village from collapsing.

her words have lost their jagged edge, and perhaps this would be shikoba's final sacrifice.

there was a resolution in the voice of shikoba that kukutux comprehended, and then wished she had not, wished she could not.

he was firsthunter.

but she was not yet ready to relinquish her star-sister.

and still; "i will go first to speak with dutch, to tell him what we can offer from among us. then i will bring back his answer."

her eyes moved between them both. "i am not against kivaluk joining as firsthunter. but we must have a second one chosen before the first leaves his role."

she nods in response, seemingly pleased with the sense of direction this conversation has taken. the divine female rage seems to be sequestered for now, and shikoba can let her old bones quit their rattling. they would need another in kivaluk's place at some point, after all. shikoba could think of her children, and she knew that ajei excelled in her hunting and was learning to communicate better. but she knew her daughter to be delicate, and perhaps it was selfish to suggest her own kin. still, moonglow would need someone to follow in kivaluk's steps.

"ajei walks the path of a hunter, but she is like a flower." shikoba admits with a soft chuckle, "perhaps one of your sons or daughters is a bit more... firm?" she would ask the moon woman, eyes shifting the doe woman to keep her included respectfully.

finishing here <3

their talk closed eventually, and kukutux gathered a list of names.

she spoke in hushed tones with the others, and when they parted, a sense of relief had come over moonmother.

tooteega now would guide them all.