Ouroboros Spine kunikruk ∄

the new pastime of @Kausiut was not wasted upon kukutux.

it was why she climbed to her high altar and found there a piece of weathered elk ivory.

and it was why she returned with this sacred gift in tow for her daughter. 

aware of her status as spirit-talker, moonwoman was quiet, deferential, as she lay it down by the young one's paw.

Calling Kausiut a "spirit talker" and treating her as such was probably a tad bit too early. She was gradually growing aware that for whatever reason her mom's attitude to her daughter's antics was different. The reasons for this were obscure to her, but she was very observant, carefully testing, which actions brought forth that particular set of feelings that spoke of being revered.

Playing with the bones was one such thing. It was a nice pastime - she was fascinated by the shapes and forms she could create by rearranging the bones and other treasures she had collected - but there was no deeper meaning to her. Eventually she would outgrow this phase too and find herself a new hobby.

Kau inspected the gift her mother had brought her carefully, picked it up and took it away, just in case she changed her mind and decided to claim it as her own. Without any sign of gratefulness, she yawned, pushed some of the rearranged items lazily with her paw and then lied down. With nothing better to do, she let her gaze rest upon Kukutux, as if asking, if there was anything else she wanted.

often kukutux wondered if she had brought some offense to her daughter. maybe while she carried kausiut, she had felt a bad thing and it had entered her child. this concept unnerved moonwoman and brought guilt, but she did not speak these things.

kausiut had been meant for a higher purpose, she felt. her youngest daughter moved the bones around and she saw sialuk there. but it was not the same. it was her own way.

"what did you think of the woman eldritch?" she asked softly. it had been a long while since those words were shared. she wished to know what kausiut meant to do with them.

Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

Same can be said for every child conceived and growing inside their mother's womb. Gods toss the coin and there is no way to predict, how it will land. Odds are same for all. What's more - the fate of the child carried, child born is out of mother's power. Perhaps, because of this choosing motherhood is one of the bravest decisions a woman can make.

It is the human nature to seek logic and causation in events that sometimes are entirely random.

Whether Kausiut was a result of a coin toss or a single negative thought of Kukutux during her pregnancy, it did not matter to her. She did not think herself different from other people. She was self-confident and happy. She had no idea that she had been intended for a higher purpose and that she did not conform to the requirements.

Just maybe the true challenge that gods had instilled upon Kukutux was accepting Quu for, who she was. Not regret, who she had not become. Not question herself on, where she as a mother might have gone wrong. The girl was a seedling - Kukutux could nurture and provide the best of it, but she could not make it grow any faster, nor could she will it to be anything else than it was.

Kau did not consider her mother's inquiry worth answering verbally. She shrugged and yawned.

nothing. 

kukutux tried not to be disappointed.

"when you are older, perhaps when it is spring, i will take you to the place of moonspear. it is an important place. and maybe you will find a new word there."

she was contented. she must be. "i think also, when the sun returns, you will be atauraga yourself."

the duck looked sidelong, wanting to see any reaction from her daughter.

it was because of this that kukutux had learned to fill their silences with speaking.

Kausiut had observed that occasionally her silence made other people uneasy and they tended to fill it with more words. Her mom was no exception, though there seemed to be something else there too. An emotion, which gave her speech a different quality. One that was hard to ignore and depending on Kau's mood made her either annoyed or curious.

She deliberated between letting the silence linger or cutting it out and chose the latter. The girl pulled herself to her feet, hobbled to one of the piles and after rummaging there for a while, returned to her mother with a round stone in her jaws. She put it down by her feet, looked up and said: "Calm."

ikulliak.

kukutux breathed. she allowed herself to be silent. her heart ached to speak with kausiut as she did the others.

she put her paw upon the stone and pulled it toward herself. kukutux saw how round it was, how smooth its surface. it was like the world before the creation of sea and river and mountain and forest.

calm.

kukutux brought the sound of gently rushing water into her mind.

Kausiut's hoarding of items and mimicking Sialuk's actions had begun as a hobby to entertain herself, when her paws hurt too much for her to do anything else. She had no understanding of, what it meant or why was it done. Mentors' attempts to teach her to connect with spirits in a particular way had fallen on deaf ears. She still treated it as a game and played it by her own rules.

Lately, however, the game had evolved. She observed that occasionally a particular item and a word chained together made people react in a particular way. Kau was unable to tell the many shades of emotions apart yet, but she was able to put them in two broad groups - positive and negative. Then her focus shifted from the items and formations themselves, to eliciting emotions in people. Push buttons at random and find a pattern in the end.

Kau had chosen this rock and name for it at random, but it seemed to have done its magic. Without realizing it, Kukutux had done exactly, what she had been told. After observing her for some time and going through all the things she knew about her mom that would come in useful in her mind, she picked out a white seagull's feather and brought it to her mom and pushed it carefully underneath the rock. In her experience, feathers had nasty tendency to be blown away. "Light," she told her, then sat back and watched.

light.

kukutux felt her face smooth into a welcoming expression, one that washed aside her reverence.

a white feather. she was thorough in her inspection of it.

"when i had the moons you have now, many white ducks flew over our ulax. it is part of how my name was then kukutux: shy white feathers in snow."

she wondered if somehow kausiut was speaking of herself in this moment.

It was a nice story - Kausiut did not get all of the content, but it had woken pleasant emotions in her mother. She liked to think that it was because of her. The more she looked at the white feather, the more it reminded her of Kukutux. Could items be people? Or people represent items? That was a new thought, but one that did not seem entirely impossible.

Inspired, she returned to her stash, searching for objects that spoke to her of, who mother was. A white stone, its surface smoothed and rounded by waves and sand. A white feather - light and gentle to the touch. Giving an impression of being fragile, but in reality nearly indestructuble (Kausiut had learned that feathers were nearly impossible to eat).

Words! She spoke. There was something truly unique - a small, sun-whitened skull of a groundhog. And by chance a bit of sand and tiny rocks had found their way, where once substance of the brain had been. When you picked it up and moved it carefully. It rattled. Made sound. Her mom was a formation of stone, feather and sound. There was a small slope between, where Kukutux sat and where Kausiut's stash was located. She put the skull down at the top of it and let it go. It rolled and rattled all the way down and bumped gently against her mother's paws.

Exciting, isn't it? Kausiut's amused gaze seemed to say.

kausiut brought her two more things.

kukutux felt she was beginning to understand. sialuk used the bones to speak with spirits beyond. kausiut used her items to convey a message in her own language.

it was one that her mother wished to learn.

she gently bumped the little skull, listening to the texture within. kukutux touched the stone and lifted the skull. she let it roll down the small slope a second time.

her laughter was gentle. her eyes were loving upon kausiut.

On one hand Kausiut loved form and structure, a strict order of things, but on the other - she was able to let go of that worldview and embrace change. That game of hers did not have rules set in stone. It was freeform - she made the conditions up as she went and as she felt in that given moment.

So, Kukutux may not have picked up that the little mastermind of hers had used her as a test-rabbit for a psychological experiment. But she had taken charge of the game with creativity. Her gentle laughter elicited an approving "huh" and few wags of the girl's tail. The sound was nice.

A moment later she brought a small piece of driftwood and placed it by her mother's paws, waiting to see, if she decided to do something just as creative with this one too.

wood worn smooth by water.

this would be the moment where kukutux might tell a story. instead she lifted the object and tossed it straight up, though not so high. she caught it with a snap. it was one of the only motions into which she had put such stock. 

moonwoman looked back toward kausiut with a grin, laying the driftwood close so that her daughter might have it again. perhaps it would be thrown a second time, or perhaps her daytime star would have another plan for it.