Ouroboros Spine tapvani ⦲

As soon as Kukutux mentioned the word marriage in their tongue, Kigipigak lost his balance. He teetered a bit and felt his cheeks dip first one than the other in to the water, and when he gasped and raised his head above the water's wriggling edge, his cheeks had some color to them.

My people do not marry, Not in the traditional sense the woman held, anyway.

My mother being the issumatar, she could choose from the strongest of men each year. It is how the Tartok continue their conquests. They need strong sons and daughters. If that was the life I had wanted I would not have left, or — or returned there, perhaps in the coming years; or I would have stayed in the forest village beyond the winter.

Kigipigak could not see himself as a father, perhaps ever. He could not claim Sakhmet in such a way as she was not up to the Tartok standard, plus, they did not know one-another well. The thought of marriage spooked him greatly; he sloshed in the water until he found his footing again, and sank, crocodilian, so that his nose and eyes could be seen and the rest obscured in brackish water.