Otter Creek with love so sudden and so sweet,

:D!

the boy who attended her could not hide the curiosity of his hard eyes. relmyna looked into the scarred young face, the melded hues of vaati that bespoke windsurf and sand; she straightened beneath the yearling's gaze. despite the melonii's time as dark master, the two of them did not know one another. relmyna felt rather that this was her fault, but given her previously delicate nature, had decided to be kind to herself.
thus with a small paw she pushed the limp fowl in vaati's direction. "Ooo," the woman murmured, seeking the icy handsomeness of his features with a searching look. a gesture that he sit before her, if he so chose; the listener gathered her plume about her forepaws and regarded the boy in silence.
the nephew of cicero and damien, she knew his mother had been potema. and his adjacency to her own brood made him their blood as well. relmyna wondered if vaati was aware of this, that he was not alone save for the dark prince who had allied with him. yes — she remembered the bitterness of his defeat, the war, the threat of redhawk that followed even then. but what the woman did not understand was the seethe of rage beneath the yearling's pallid coat, the leap of what she fancied was anger in eyes the colour of storm-lashed seas.
"w'y 'ate Ove?" relmyna murmured in the next breath. if he was patient, her message was easy to parse: what great evil had the powerful northerner done to vaati, that he should not return home? why did damien seek to sunder the wood? she had already determined she would not leave — family or otherwise, blackfeather was the home of her daughters' birth, rich with caches, blessed with the spiderwebbing beneath the forest. it would be foolhardly to depart that so close to winter for territories unknown; she would not let astara and averna struggle if she did not have to do so. 
quietly, relmyna waited, her gaze soft upon the vengeful seraphim that was vaati, while her hope that he would sup and speak with her went unchallenged for now.