Ouroboros Spine gently nudging your soul

Wilwarin didn’t see Shikoba at first, having become invested in the vertebrae of a deer. A toy of sorts for the children, they clattered and clacked like blocks as the shaky pale nestling batted them about. At her mother’s words, her pallid head poked out of the den before she left her napping siblings behind. 

She raced out to the women on trembling legs, already winded by the time she got to her mother’s side. No noise escaped the girl but her lips parted, forming the words, ’Anaa ‘oba!’ In truth, she viewed the woman as an aunt of sorts but her young mind must have been more confused than she let on, for the runt thought of all women — save for her older sister — as mother on some level. She did not yet recognize the distinction between aunt and mother.