Ouroboros Spine kita ∻

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.