Ouroboros Spine I'll watch the night turn light blue

Warmth came to their ulaq in the form of three young pups.

Ariadne's children, anaa had said. Cousins. She had tried to like them at first, tried to join in their games, and even brought them each a small welcome gift in the form of a dusty feather or a freshly plucked spring flower. 

The day the snow-man came, the girl had hidden stiffly beneath the soft furs of anaa as their voices rose all around. Through wide eyes, she had seen the tears of the red girl and heard her distress, watched helplessly as @Nantahala too left the safety of anaa in favour of the strange man. 

Confusion and fear had grown and accumulated in a messy displeasure for their new denmates until, finally, she decided that they must leave. As dawn broke, Yuralria prodded her nose sharply into  @Nutuyikruk's ribcage, a low, vibrating growl in her chest.

To what may have been the surprise of many, Nutuyikruk slept all night when the crying and the shaking became too much. For half of it, she would spend with Tautukpik and Akmaaksi. For the rest of it, and then some, she spent pacing, and then waiting at the mouth of her aunties ulaq. Staring, silent, even though she had fought very hard to stay awake. When her legs started to sway, and the weight of the sky pressed down on her eyelids, there came a point that she was back against the wall and sound asleep. Sound asleep.

A blunt force hit her ribs, and the babys head sprung up. Dizzy, tired, and puffy eyelids while she stared forth at one of aunties children. Nantahala's sister. A more permanent frown on her groggy face, and squinted eyes, her worst fear now was waking the others. Nutuyik was quiet when she responded, broken. "Yes?"

Her cousin stirred and spoke and Yuralria pulled back momentarily to stare wide-eyed into the girl's face. It was not the bright expression she was used to seeing on Nantahala, no, this one's eyes were dull and narrowed as if the snow-man had sucked the very life from them. She could not allow that to happen to her sisters.

"Big man. Big an' bad," she tried to explain, a scowl forming as she pictured his face. From her perspective, the longer these children remained in their ulaq, the more likely he was to return.

"Go 'way!" Yuralria remained transfixed on the girl, volume raising to a shrill squeak as her upset came to a head. She was too young to understand the nuances of the situation nor the emotions that ran through her and her cousin, unfortunately resulting in kicking poor Nutuyikruk while she was down.

Vaire is mostly asleep and will fully wake up next round!

One of her ears flicked.

It was early still, she had not yet woken, but it appeared the children did. Vairë didn’t know entirely what was being said, she had spent most of her night trying to console the children of her sister and now former brother in law. Under her breath, she wrote curses to the entire situation. To the man so inspired to hate them simply because they were not like him and didn’t want to be, to the young woman now who had run away with him in the first place.

But, what was done was done. She could not change it.

Vairë’s voice rose in a soft murmur, a plea for quiet from the voice of her child. It was only a minute or so later that she grumbled shortly and began to open her eyes.

Not warm eyes. Not warm eyes like her brother's, or even her sister's when she was feeling good. Not warm like her aaka's, or her aapa's. Not warm like Nantahala's. Not warm like auntie's.

Yuralria looked tired, instead, and.. A small gasp from her mouth, Nutuyikruk tried to listen, and tried to understand. Big man. Big an' bad. As if, of all the men she had seen, she had not seen a bad man. The only man she even knew, in fact, was her aapa. She couldn't have been talking about her aapa. Not at all. As if there was no other man now that could've been mentioned, the settle of horror struck her stomach.

Shrieked at, she shifted back and her lip frowned horribly. "I sowwy," she tried. "I sowwy, un--un-," standing upon weak legs, she stammered, repeating stupidly. Leaned away, with wide eyes and cowering ears. Hoping for a different answer that Yuralria might repeat to her. "Nn-unn.. nn- goo 'way?" She wanted her to go away?...

Despite her baby babbling and sentences that didn't entirely make sense, Yuralria watched satisfied as Nutuyikruk backed away on trembling legs. Her confidence grew as the distance between them did, and soon the little girl sat firmly on her haunches as if to block her route back into the ulaq. Perhaps the presence of her mother or sisters would have rained on her parade, but without that feedback, she had no reference to the wrongness of her actions.

Her cousin's apologies sparked an uncomfortable feeling in her chest. "Bad man come back. Make Nan'a sad - he sneaky an' scawy." And now it was her voice that wavered as she borrowed words she had learned from Ajei; confusion and fear projected onto poor Nutu. "Dun' be sorry. Jus' go 'way."

She caught the final sentences, and near immediately her head snapped up.

Yuralria!

Almost immediately, she was on her feet, surging between her daughter and her cousin. Her ears were back, her tone scolding as she spoke to the child before her.

This is no way to treat your cousins, and no way to act at all! She turned to the little girl on her other side, offering a smile she hoped was reassuring.

You do not have to leave, Nutuyikruk. I’m sorry Yuralria spoke to you that way. She will apologize to you, but you don’t have to forgive her right away.

Vairë looked at her daughter for a single moment, before looking back to her niece. Internally, she sighed and resolved herself to trying to clean up this interpersonal conflict.

At the tail-end of this exchange, Valiant arrived with a rabbit kicking weakly in his jaws. He'd taken great pains to bring it mostly alive to the children, but now he wondered if it hadn't been too much to expect them to play nicely and share. It put a bit of a wrench in his plans for the day.

"Everything alright, here?" he asked them, his voice low and kind but clearly asking something else: "What happened this time?"

He placed a paw over the rabbit, not yet relinquishing it to the masses.

can be a one post appearance unless she's wanted! don't want this to get too crowded lol

there was so much yelling! nantahala had been playing in a puddle just beyond the ulaq when she heard her new friend's familiar voice, her sister's shrill shouts, and aaka scolding her — the full name even came out, and the full name meant business. so, nosy as she is, nantahala came barrelling back into the ulaq with a wet belly and feet, ready as ever to defend nutu.
stobbit! she shrieks, stomping her way over to lariat and putting on her best pouty face. she my fwend! yer bein' mean. she gives an apologetic look to her buddy, chest puffed out in front of her as if she were as valiant (haha) as her father. not her fawl her famlee sucks butt.

"Aaba good man! You no know m'aaba! He no scawy!"" Rearing her head and shaking it, she snapped back and recoiled away! Flaring, gnashing teeth and wiggles of her face to keep Yuralria away, because her words alone mauled her. Huddling, knowing these were not the fights that made her spirit leap. This one made it sink very far down.

Her tongue could not form words the way that she wanted it to. When she moved to speak, she only fluttered out nonsense and upset. Nutuyikruk did not mean to yell. "I'b sowwy," and with all the little hisses of noise between that tried to turn into whines, "I'b sooo-so-wwy." Auntie was upset, Nantahala was frustrated! Yuralria told her of how her aapa was unwanted, and it did not take much for Nutuyikruk to understand that she was not either. Deep sniffles, and she stared to auntie with watery eyes. "Where I s'bosed to go? No know where I go-o," and her head trickled down tongue ground.

Aapa went places that she did not know. Far, far away she could only imagine, and Aaka never came to see them. Maybe she was gone too, and that was why they were with auntie now. Did they perhaps all want her to leave? She tried to imagine leaving, and finding her own meals and own water, but it was very hard. It was all very hard. This was all very hard. Nutu didn't know where she was supposed to be anymore.

Nutu's rebuttal stings, because how can Yuralria believe that someone could cause this much upset and still be seen as a good man? "He no- no good. No goo' to you!" she shook her head adamantly, recoiling visibly from the outburst as tears welled in her eyes. 

At the shout of her name, she flinches again and gazes up at her anaa in disbelief. With each scolding word, her head sank lower and lower, until she cowered shakily upon the floor in a flood of tears. Anaa was upset - with her? She didn't understand; hadn't she been doing the right thing? White noise roared in her ears as the conversation swelled, her chest heaving in big, gulping breaths as Valiant came, and then Nana with her big, loud words. Everything was too much - too much! - she shoves her sunshine sister away and stumbles towards the ulaq's exit with a sob.

She would head down the path towards the rock overlooking brother lake where Ajei had taken her under her wing, keenly aware that she had done something wrong and let anaa down, let everyone down. They hated her now, they had to. Nutu would not accept her apology, even if she tried to make things right. She was a horrible, horrible person.

exit yuralria - maybe, potentially, unless someone follows her! sorry for the chaos lmao

Nutuyikruk was still upset, and Natahala rushing to her defense did nothing to help Yuralria. Her daughter pushed out of the den and rushed away, and Vairë shared a glance with her husband. She tipped her head to the door, trusting him to handle the mess this day had already become.

There is strife in your herd, moonwoman. Old Doe’s laugh rankled her as the spitting crone decided to throw in her two cents. She drove off her breath with a swing of her ear.

Nutu, you do not have to go anywhere if you don’t want to. Yuralria is..she’s hurt. She didn’t mean it. She quietly nudged Nantahala towards the door, where Lightfoot looked on in confusion.

I’m sorry on her behalf. Would you like to go see your grandmother? Maybe Kukutux could handle her sister’s children while Vairë tended to the internal strife of her own.

Internally, she flung curses. Was it teenage rebellion that brought these children, or a fleeting love as Ariadne claimed? She wanted to pinch the skin between her eyes in frustration, but she didn’t let the emotion touch her face.

Why do you hide, moonwoman? A doe should let her anger flow, keep the herd in line! Again with Old Doe, the hiss of her breath hot against one ear.

She ignored her, but the snake in her belly struck a ready pose.