Ouroboros Spine kita ∻

kukutux ground grass fibers along her back teeth.

with her daughters turned toward meat, the duck found more time to begin the summer-end gathering of roots and closing leaves, before the ground became hard and the snow fell. she sat before her ulaq, three small piles of different long-blades before her.

moonwoman thought of the storm-man she had met outside their mountain-circle, and blinked.

"@Sialuk," she murmured, when her daughter had come near again. the raindrop was devoted as angajuk, never far from the den for long. "the moon of your birth is suvlugvik. the time of ice-breaking. something new will happen to you when the rivers flow again."

Sialuk knew she was well into her second year now. When summer came next year, it would be time to begin searching for ugi. It was not something she had given much thought to until recently when the striking Foxfur had come to Moonglow. She was glad now that she had fewer responsibilities. It left time to herself, with the bones, and to contemplate her future.

Something new? she echoed. Sialuk was not completely unaware that her mother had changed at some point around the time Aiolos had come to stay with them. Her deducing skills were not so dull that she had not picked up on her mother's changed scent during that time. Nor was she ill-educated by her mother, knowing much of a woman's ways. Still, she asked.

kukutux nodded, and switched the bolus of chewed leaves to the roundness of her other cheek. "you know the stories of sedna. she is also the one who brings love. the love before children." sialuk saw many things, but kukutux had remembered the same words from her own mother.

they must be said.

"you will feel something like sickness, but not in your stomach. it is much pleasure, in all of your bones. your head will spin. your body will feel as if stars are beneath your skin. you will gain the secrets of a woman then, and for the first time, this knowledge will not come from me."

"it is said that this is the first time sedna speaks to a woman's heart. you have been woman for a long time, sialuk, but these words are for the time of breaking ice. you will have a new power."

"this power will call men to you. all men, not only young hunters. and not only good men."

kukutux leaned forward and pushed the green from her lips onto a flat piece of bark. she took up part of another heap, beginning the endless ground once more. "this power came to me and that was when your father made his choice. i would not have you wait so long."

the jadestone eyes were soft. "i have made a meeting with a man who is one of my people, from the long snow. he has the name of issorartuyok. he seeks a land for himself, one that is of the cold. i told him that a man who seeks to begin a new village must have a wife. but i did not give your name."

a quick smile. "i told him to go to the place of moon songs, and offered him meat if his path brings him to moonglow. will you make a meeting with him if he comes back, sialuk? it  must be your yes or your no, not mine. and you do not need to choose now who you will pick when the sun returns after the snow. there is yet time."

kukutux was silent.

Anaa spoke, and Sialuk's ears pricked forward to listen. It was much to take in, especially the bit about the one who wished to make a new village for himself. Though her mother had not given Sialuk's name, she intended for her to see this man. Could she really do such a thing with a man she did not know? Be wife to a man she had never laid eyes on? Sialuk knew her mother was not asking her to choose now, but in a way, it still felt so.

And there was Foxfur, too.

She remained quiet for some time, chewing on the words her mother had given her.

I will meet with him, she said at last.

fade after another round? <3

she let out her breath, nodded. she kissed sialuk and smiled. these were times not so easy of which to speak. but her raindrop must be set upon the proper path.

"did i tell you the story of the red flower?" she asked, turning their words onto another trail.

She was certain the story had passed her ears a thousand times, but that did not mean Sialuk no longer wished to hear her mother's voice.

Will you tell it again? she asked. A familiar story would be the backdrop of her thoughts on this stranger she was to meet.

"i will."

the duck's smile was broad.

she began to tell the story of the first fire, and how it had been brought to the world by mother lightning's anger. it was a tale for all ears. but it was mostly a story for women. they held inside them a flame that could not be touched. sialuk had come to know it.