Ouroboros Spine i babble on until my voice is gone

Anaa languished in fevered spaces of sleep. Her children clustered again upon the Spine, the older and the younger.

Lightfoot was there even still. 

She looked to the distance sometimes, because Valiant wasn't here to see them all come home, to listen to her mother’s fevered whispers. Vairë spoke names, places, wept sometimes, and she sat witness. She was cared for so avidly here.

Then why did Lightfoot feel that itch under her breastbone? Like she was losing her legs, gaining wings with which to soar over the nearest peak. She dug her foot into the soft space behind her ear, hearing going in and out with every itch against the floppy surface. Eventually, she turned to bite at the fur between her toes.

Over and over again she did this, almost in repetition for thought, just outside her mother’s den. It wasn’t until a buffed murmur from Vairë made her realize she was probably thumping the ground like a rabbit, and Lightfoot guiltily moved to her feet, trundling a small ways away and flopping into a laying position.

tags for ref!

with @Towhee among them, kukutux arranged visitings from herself and from @Nasamiituuq, to see that the redhawk woman was given milk-medicines and routine meals. often she allowed @Nantahala, @Yuralria, and @Akmaaksi to help their elder cousin with things to carry, or to aid @Meadow in what the sun-mote healer might wish to mix or to have.

for @Tautukpik, when he could be persuaded, she suggested he join @Ipiktok and salaksartok for their various patrols and their hunting, though she did not forbid him from the healing-circles if he wished to remain near akmaaksi.

when she was not with towhee, she remained near vairë. it was where she found lightning-girl, set off from the pack. "ikniqpalagaqï," moonmother sighed, settling close; she tried to tempt her daughter's stomach with an offering of fresh-killed wood dove, biting a peace of meat for granddaughter as well. "you must run with the others in some days, dear one," the grandmother murmured for lightfoot's ears when she had finished.

she gave the dove-flesh over, springjade eyes encouraging the girl to eat.

Her name settled on her ears, and those shot forward in a prick as grandmother walked through the trees. Like a hound by the door, her tail thumped against the dirt of her resting place, though she didn’t raise her head. Hazel followed the white pelt of the woman, before she brought coltish limbs beneath her and she hauled herself up.

The dove flesh was taken delicately, then swallowed whole like a snake. Not the most delicate of ways to eat, but she hadn’t exactly realized how hungry she was. Lightfoot licked the remnants from her mouth and teeth, settled on her haunches.

She was saying things, grandmother. I wanted to listen. Her mother normally gave sage advice, why wouldn’t that be the case when she was lost in dreams too?

"this is true," kukutux admitted, glancing to where her daughter lay.

not for the first time the fear rose, the fear that doe woman would be taken. sedna had been unrelenting — the chanting at her altar did not seem to be enough.

dread, dread — please. please.

"what she say today, kinnaum?" already her eyes saw; her ears listened for what lightfoot might speak.

For Lightfoot, life was almost idealized. Hazy. Despite the deaths that marked her youth, she could almost look past them. Even now, with her mother’s whistling wheezes hitting her ears, she could only see the light in it.

A lot of things. She admitted softly, dropping back onto her stomach again to stare into the mouth of the ulaq.

Hawks. Salt. Ravens and crows. Deer. A lot about clouds and water. She looked up at her grandmother.

She wanted the clouds to come back.

the clouds.

"your mother once lived beside the sea. it is where ipiktok and salaksartok and nasamiituuq were born. the salt lives inside all nuiruk wolves. it calls to many of us, to come back."

a breath; drawn; "i think soon i will hold a women's circle, before the great hunting. speak for your mother, lightfoot. she is also moonwoman."

her eyes drew now to her sickly daughter; she trembled at the thought of another death ulaq.

oh sedna! i cannot build another! not another!

she clutched at lightning girl's arm for a moment, sodden and wordless with desperate grief for something that had not come to pass! would it be this way always now?

Grandmother clutched her arm, staring at her mother with something palpable that Lightfoot had no name for.

Me? Why not Nantahala? Yuralria? Lightfoot couldn’t do that, speaking to a circle of women in lieu of her mother. She looked back to the woman when she huffed a hard breath, then settled.

Grandmother, I don’t think I can. The sky itched at her bones, calling to her. If she tore out her own ribs, could she fashion them into wings? Could she chase the horizon.

I want to run. I itch for it. The rest of her words died into salt on her tongue.