Ouroboros Spine ikaaktuk ⌿

she would seek out each of her sons now. 

leaves fell across moonwoman's path as she made her way toward the three sisters. before she touched the carpet of satin grass, she called for @Massaraq.

they would speak.

Massaraq heard a call, and angled his path from the borders inwards. His ears flickered and curiosity quickened his steps. "Anaa?" He approached, standing near brushing lightly against her before standing at a distance to converse.

"hello, young hunter."

he had grown tall. in the motion of an eye he had become a man. kukutux invited the strong-arm closer to herself.

"our pain is great. i have the want to know what is in your head, my son."

He hesitated. His doubts felt easier to voice to the cool darkness of the night, which received his words and enveloped them, veiled them from sight, than in the stark light of day where they could not hide so easily. "i...am unsure." He looked to the side, to the forest, to the ground, to the sky.

His voice expanded. "Sometimes I think that she has gone nowhere." And even there his words slipped between meanings. "That she is simply not here anymore." His two sisters, his other mother. Death was a marker, there was a body, and yet at a loss for body or spirit the disappearance still left him at a loss.

kukutux did not like to think of that, but she understood why massaraq had the thought.

"she has gone to sedna. ariadne and i sang her through the long dark throat of the sea to the dancing lights. she is not here, massaraq, but she is not gone."

it was a harsh place in which to stand, but the duck did not want his beliefs so shaken.

"i think it is time you became a man, massaraq. i think it is time you asked the spirits for the answers you seek."

In a way the surety, the confidence, of Kukutux was comforting to him. His anaa had always known all the answers, or at least where to find them. And yet the absence hung over Massaraq as surely as the grief and her words only brought more trepidation. "She...feels gone. It feels like she is gone." He tried again, trying to shape his words to capture that ineffable ephemera. But it slipped away from his tongue in a way that Moonwoman's beliefs did not. 

His mind whirled. Curiosity, fear, need. "How?"

kukutux only nodded this time. their words were not made so perfectly and could not convey the meaning of the spirits. those who lived beside the dead, beside the bones; those who kept themselves there for many days were powerful enough to know these things.

but she was not spirit-talker. she was anaa. and now she guided this son toward the first journey he would take alone.

"you must leave moonglow. you will take with you a plant that i give. you will listen to your blood and to your heart, and go where you are led. massaraq," moonwoman said softly, bidding their eyes lock, "you will know the place where you will find your answer. and there, make a hunt. shed blood. give thanks."

she straightened. "when you come home, it will be as a man."

You must leave Moonglow. The words wrapped around his chest uncomfortably, like a second set of ribs, bruised from a fall. But his anaa's voice was sure and confident. Full of promise. He met her eyes and thought of spring and summer which surely came after winter, a season he had not known before. He swallowed and nodded his head. Already, he knew, he would go.

And yet fear wormed its way around his ribs. He had wandered before and yet always returned home, the last time he had followed the herds too far he had been lost. But home waited there having to leave. "What if I can't find my way home?" The words lodged uncomfortably in his throat and came out in a rush. He might not have spoken it at all had it been anyone else.

"nuutuittuq. star that does not move. it is the brightest in the sky at night," kukutux said quietly, lifting her gaze upward. "put that star in front of your path when you are ready to come home. it will lead you."

all boys must go out into the wilderness. all boys must meet the spirits who made them men.

some did not return.

kukutux must believe that her sons would.

"I will remember it." He said, following her gaze. The star she spoke of he knew in the night sky, and yet if he could really follow it, if he would make it home. Perhaps that would be a test of faith in it of itself.

Make a hunt, shed blood, and give thanks. There were sitll things of which he could be thankful for and yet that felt difficult. "This plant, what do with it?"

for massaraq, she would give him a piece of pale fungi wrapped this time in soft leaves.

"go out. journey until you are told to stop. eat this. your spirit walk will begin then."

her eyes were both worried and confident.

"you will come back, massaraq."

"I will go and do as you say, and then I will return." He took the fungi, carefully, for he would not eat it until it was time. He knew it would be difficult for him to make a kill, but he was resolved. When he came back perhaps he would have answers, or perhaps not, but he would be home again. To return though, he needed to journey.

he would journey.

sons sent to be men.

she reached her arms for him.

"walk with sedna."

a smile to bless his face, his path.

"Be well anaa." Her smooth smoothed something in him, like a creek's tears over a riverbed, but he returned it and her embrace, letting that warmth settle deep within his bones, enough for a journey in the autumn time.