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+--- Thread: AW Yet I’m reminded of my beating heart (/showthread.php?tid=9123)
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RE: Yet I’m reminded of my beating heart - Nutuyikruk - 11/26/2025
Who did not know what an aana was? Likely someone like Aivar, who did not have one, running away from whatever home life he dealt with in what Nutuyikruk imagined were large mountains with monstrous bears. A kind with tall bodies, adapted to outrun beasts that were not their own selves.
“You do not have an aana?” It took by surprise first, mostly how it left her own mouth after she concluded her answer! “If you did, she’d have taught you a normal man’s ability of at least cleanly ripping skin from flesh like a feral.” Imagining the boy grabbing ahold of a caribou and pulling wildly to get terrible quality pelt patches off.. was terribly easy! And quite very, very funny.
“The mother of your mother? Mother of my mother.” Older, wiser. Less dumb than their own selves watching fish eat for fun. But it was so interesting! “Ah,” a realization. “A grand,” questioning, “mother?” Yes, that was of most people’s terms.
Aivar likely knew not of an aana, but a grandma! “I’m so sorry! I am sure you have many grand-mothers!”
RE: Yet I’m reminded of my beating heart - Aivar - 12/13/2025
She looked so surprised that he did not know what an aana was, and Aivar could only scoff when she in turn was surprised he didn't have one.
Well maybe I did, I don't know!His voice was light, then turned to laughter. But no one had ever taught him such a skill. It was so foreign to him.
Mother of his mother…
He realized then,
Oh,he shook his head.
No I didn't have an aana, then. Just my mother. I mean, I'm sure I had a grandmother but I never knew them.His ears pulled back, and he looked both contemplative and sheepish as he thought about it.
My mother, though,he said.
She was a very wise wolf, and I loved her—His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat,
very much.He took a deep breath.
Will you teach me how to take the skin off like this?
RE: Yet I’m reminded of my beating heart - Nutuyikruk - 12/13/2025
A pull of a crooked smile, a shoulder nudging in his direction to lift up that thinking head of his. “Sure.”
There was pain there, she noticed. And for just a moment, she wondered what might be more behind him. How many stories went untold when no one cared to ask? And for someone who had come so far such as he, with no one but a slave girl and a friend who was now far, far away, did he desire for a slate wiped clean of all past self?
Perhaps being like many others would be better. To let the past be forgotten and wound in tight strings.
And yet she kept wondering.
“Well, if she was anything like you, she must’ve been a pretty good woman.” Aivar could be a pain, considering all the charged attitude and the spitfire words, but Nutuyikruk imagined a mother as spitefully stubborn and forward. Forthcoming, and yet kind.
“My aaka, my third mother— was a feral mountaineer who raided many tribes. But she treated me as her own for all I can remember. I never met my birthmother, but I imagine she must have been as crazy as I am.” Or perhaps less so.
The concept of cleansing a pelt seemed not difficult in her eyes, but when met with question of it, Nutuyikruk did not waste a second on doing anything other than showing him. They could do it together.
One step out into the water, small fish scattering from the teeth which leaned to grab a fleshy pelt. Being lazy with them came useful. Spreading it out in front of them flat, she laid down near his side and nipped at flesh carefully with her front teeth. “We first need to get most of this flesh off.”
“Was your mother a hunter?”
RE: Yet I’m reminded of my beating heart - Aivar - 12/16/2025
Aivar smiled wistfully, seeing the face of Athena in his mind. They'd fought, sure, but both of them had a great love for the pack in their heart. Two stubborn wolves with good hearts. “She was,” he said.
His head turned and his eyebrows raised. A mountaineer raider. “No wonder you're a mountain goat,” he teased. “I never met my birth mother either,” he added quietly. “But I never thought of Athena as anything else.”
His mind was drifting like a leaf floating downstream. Too many memories that made his heart ache. He'd always felt too strongly. About everything. Still, he focused on Nutuyikruk, watching as she pulled a pelt out in front of them and began to nip the attached flesh with her incisors.
He laid down beside her and began to copy her actions carefully. How annoying. He wondered if there was a different way to do this, but could think of nothing. Well… maybe.
“Yeah, she was. And she was the alpha,” he added, flicking his tongue over his teeth as he tried to pull a stringy piece of flesh from between his teeth.