Hoshor Plains pavva ≖

backdated to ~jan 9

it was time to be gone from this place.

kukutux had not gone after ariadne once the women's circle had dispersed, nor had she departed the camp beneath the willows. herbs were rolled into strips of leather; she wound bison sinew into circlets and pulled drying meat from their makeshift racks.

her mind was alit with a thousand thoughts, but not all of them were for speaking.

those that were; she crouched near to @Vairë now, carefully gathering chips of bone from the golden plain into a square of deerskin she had brought from the village; "your sister holds herself as a woman but has a girl's tears when questions are given to her." ariadne was a leader; she had proven that this was her choice. that he was another. it had been her own wolf who had asked anything of her. it was a moment to be firm, to say she should not be questioned. 

"it is in my mind that she is pregnant." there was much to be hurt over with the lack of acceptance for her husband, but such a quick and tearful exclamation was the work of other energies, kukutux believed.

"she did not stay to listen to our way of spirit names." ariadne had not stayed to learn her own, and to the duck this was a far deeper loss for her own journey than it was for the sunshine people who lived by these taboos. "it is time that your children had their own, deerwoman. and we must give them to panuk and rolayne as well, so that they are bound always to the spirit of their mother."

there was a great urge within kukutux now to rise, to go to the camp of moonsong, to demand if ariadne understood what she meant to give up in her youthful anger over a man who had already been granted his time and failed with it.

but she did not. her daughter was a woman and would be a mother. women did not question the words of one another where men could see.

"i am ready to go home."

She is young. Foolish.

Perhaps harsh, as an opening word, but Vairë soured to Ariadne’s display the more she replayed it. In a moment to step up, she had crumbled, with the women’s circle as witness. A question could not topple you to lead. The part of her that was leader, that was moondoe, agreed with this sentiment.

The smaller, softer part of her that was sister disagreed in a soft, moaning aside, that she should find her. Let her know they still loved her, no matter what she did. The part of her that was leader seethed at this notion. Vairë was a mix of these two arguments.

She chose this path. Now she must learn to stick to it. Old Doe blew out breath in a snort, side eyeing her from a skeptical angle. Were she mine, doe spoke, I would have drove her away from him with teeth at her heels. I would have struck blows. She turns her back on herd, it should be a punishment she gets, not this quiet acceptance.

Vairë did not respond.

It is a good thing she is not yours then. She is mine. And I will handle this how I see fit. If Ariadne wished to run to a man who had already proven he would not stay, she would be allowed it. 

May she learn.

May what happened to Vairë not come to pass for her sister.

Give me your suggestions, moonwoman. What should my children be known as, in their heart of hearts? Spoken not as Kukutux’s daughter, but as a fellow leader.

It was time moondoe stepped into the shoes left for her.

if there was surprise in the duck to hear the tone of moondoe's voice. she hid it well, arranging bits of antler by size in their carry-skin.

it was in times such as these that the scarred voice spoke; the deer who had possessed vairë before she had come back to them. "we were all foolish at such an age. it is natural." and had a proper husband been found for her, a younger man closer to her age, it may not have come to pass in this way.

you are moonwoman, she wanted to say. but it was not yet time. her daughter did not wish to wear this mantle so fast. and so while kukutux had come to think of herself as moonmother, she gave her answer in the way that vairë had asked.

"for salaksartok: tiritchik. snow-dragon boy." fire lived in that little hunter; it was not only his mischief, it was his calculation, his far-seeing, as if he viewed the world from high above.

she considered;

"for ipiktok: sivukkiksuk, boy who makes a straight path." the boy was dedicated to the moonvillages and to the sunshine people; he followed the tradition of well-trained hunters and boys who did not leave their paths.

and lastly; she thought on her granddaughter for a longer time.

"nalunaktuk. secret-holding girl." even this name would not tell what nasamiituuq might become. she held great mind in quiet; there were many thoughts behind the shy eyes.

"these names; you whisper them to your children before their ears waken. their spirit hears. when your daughter is ready to be anaa, it is only then that you tell her this name."

"your sea-sister did not know hers when she went to sedna."

a breath.

"but sedna knew her face for she had seen the new spirit given the name i whispered into that ear."

a shaking breath. she composed herself.

"there is great power in a name. that is why i am so angry that kigipigak has changed his many times. half of him will be in ariadne's children, hidden from the spirit world."

A lesson, wrapped in a name that still sat behind her eyes, under her tongue, behind her teeth. She did not forget the name whispered to her on her wedding day, so long ago, and the grief settled again over her shoulders. It was lighter, now, but still present.

Vairë cast her gaze away, then back to her mother. There was sorrow there, for the sea-sister, for her family, cast adrift with no anaa. Moondoe reached over to place her paw on her mother’s, trying to radiate steadiness.

She is among the dancing lights. She knows this now. Trying for comforting, but perhaps falling flat, Vairë’s face shuttered at her mother’s next set of words.

If Sedna does not know them, will they go to the dancing lights? Will Kigipigak? Or did the tradition that mantled him have its own deaths? Vairë did not ask this, nor would she. Old Doe still wished for her to bring him to heel, like he was nothing more than a spring buck getting too frisky around an older matriarch. So in this, he would win.

"i do not know his ways."

this was her own failing, though the warmth of moondoe's touch upon her settled the motherheart somewhat. she knew that she had chosen well in vairë, her choice that this daughter should follow her.

"if sedna does not know a spirit, they are caught between. they are not alive but they are not dead. if a spirit stays too long in this cold place, they become twisted. evil. they become tupilaq."

and all this! all this ariadne did not know because her mother had not seen fit to enforce; she had only trusted.

her self-aggravation was harsh in the quiet that came next.

Moondoe was quiet, for a time. Just watching, waiting gently until the agitation in the air settled to a simmer. She breathed, in and out, working through her own thought.

Then, she swayed to one side, leaning against her anaa in a way she hadn’t since she was a child. She tucked her forepaws beneath her, her eyes locked onto the underside of Kukutux’s chin.

She reached up to lick beneath it, once, before settling again.

When we return to the spine. Here, she paused. Her mother looked so tired, so downtrodden by this, and Vairë felt a bolt pierce her very heart. She should not be this way.

But she would not usurp her before she was ready.

What will you do? Half thought experiment, half desperate wanting to turn the conversation to lighter topics. To turn their thoughts away from tupilaq, from the dark spector over their heads. From Vaire’s own thoughts, distant now, thinking.

"i will go to ask the spirits protection over ariadne. but then, my daughter, i am making preparations to become a healer-who-travels."

she held the moondoe close, remembering the times in which the beautiful young woman had been a child at the hearth of moonglow.

"we must walk forward. always."

Ariadne.

Vairë’s stomach twisted to even think of her sister. It was still too close, the pain fresh against her chest.

Liar!, the little girl that still lived within her screamed, as loud as she could, in the hopes her cloud water sister would hear. But she did not, for a winter breeze had already turned her away with the flight of a hawk.

Vairë scored her little sister's name into the list of people who left, and tried not to let bitter salt rush to her face. Instead, she pressed close to her mother.

What is done is done, there is nothing I can do to change it. A mirror of the very words she had spoken to Ariadne only a few days ago, but they felt like ages now.

I will help you pack.

together they would gather what was left of their supplies, along with those things collected upon the plains.

upon their journey would moonmother impart new wisdoms to moondoe; the shape and color of infection in a claw, the difference in the reek of different pus, when to know you must amputate a limb.

the wisdom of moonwomen was in their healing, not only of body but mind, heart, spirit.

and the moonwoman who followed would know all these things.