Moonspear for the weary and the lovestruck

backdated for jan 3, morning time with sunny conditions atop of moonspear

moonspear.

the dark spirit seemingly no longer called this place his, as his scent has been gone for quite some time. instead, all shikoba can smell is blood. smeared over her forehead and eyes as if trying to encourage the spirit vision, the woman offers on her cleared altar of stone the body of a red fox, freshly culled. beside the fox lay a dried rainbow trout, the scales seemingly glittering in the rare sunlight exposed on the mountain. she hoped both offerings would be enough for Sedna.

but now it would be left up to prayer. with all that shikoba could muster, she now speaks in the tongue taught to her by Moonglow. "Mother Sedna," she would whisper, as if afraid to disturb her, "I ask for forgiveness for straying. I come before you, humbled and no longer ignorant or blind. I ask for a vision, to guide me as a woman, as a mother, and as a wife in your path of honor."

she can feel the breeze blow against her, and just when shikoba fears that it is Sedna refusing such a gift, shikoba can feel something urge her to close her eyes. 

the vision would come to surround her and she sees herself with inutsuk on the high ground above the sea. she is blindfolded by a shadow,  and the more she tries to question him, the further away inutsuk pushes himself towards the edge until he is teetering--wheeling--inches from falling. with one final advance, something that would forever sting her own tongue for saying, inutsuk felt the ground break underneath him. he falls, his screams gut-wrenching and blood-curdling. her body could hear it, yet chose to ignore it and continue forward with anger and guilt and sadness until it too fell into the ocean, where the blindfold finally flew and she realized her demise.

shikoba opens her eyes and nearly falls back into the snow, breathing heavily and tears rolling down her cheeks. the vision was so very clear and real that shikoba could hear the screams ring in her ears. it made sense, all of it. she was blinded by the anger she refused to let go of, all of it. despite her many attempts to prove and admit that nothing was wrong, everything was still wrong to her! and she was too angry and too cowardly to admit this.

but now she knew. the more she would allow herself to be blinded and consumed by these feelings, the more she would push her husband away. both of them would continue to suffer so long as she held onto the trauma of being left behind and abandoned. her vision was not complete, for when shikoba blinked, she found herself staring at her body again. 

she was not above the roaring sea. instead, she is within her ulaq, bundled with enormous furs and pelts and seemingly wrapped around something. and as shikoba steps forward to see what it is, she can hear the cries of a newborn in her ears. something so wonderful and tear-jerking, so different from the last sound she heard. a single child, same as mojag, rests with her body. and beside her is her husband, offering his own comfort and warmth to his family. and mojag is there, now a man, with a gift for his newest sibling. there are words, and a name she couldn't recognize. when she meant to observe her little child, the vision was swept away again.

Sedna had answered.

Shikoba would not ignore her. after praying for her thanks, she would return to the base of the mountain and purge all that remained in her system. everything would leave her until there was nothing but her own flesh and spirit. shikoba was reborn with this vision and felt lighter than when she first came. doubt sat heavily on her shoulders when she first climbed, yet now all she could feel was sunlight within her body. and it would be sunlight that she would bring back home with her, radiant in all of its glory.