lasher had returned home from his talk with peregrine, and shared the news with blue willow. he did not see fit to keep things from her, and curled around their children, to kiss and to coddle them. they would be eating soon, little morsels here and there, and he had acquired a taste for seafood.

the brine-soaked meat was alternately sweet or filled with a poignant tang, and the beta hurried his steps toward the shore. once he stepped upon the sand, he slowed, nares flaring to bring in the scent of the sea, and murkwater eyes cast about to see that he was alone as he approached its waters.

it was in time that he spotted the ecru of her slim form; a roaming glissade of sensation across his shoulders told the man of her watching, and taltos turned away from where he had been teasing a tiny sand-crab. his murkwater eyes, keen with interest and soft-edged with a new affection, regarded her as he trod toward the woman.

lasher's gaze beheld the wounds of her visage and he frowned. who did this to you? for surely she had not struck herself. while another might have found the sylph angular and dispossessed of a pleasing aesthetic, the servant found that the ragged appearance of her bruises and lacerations only added to the lolita sprawl of her twiggish limbs.

her cheekiness provoked a low chuckle from him. a woman named for the skies, dear to my heart, though not my wife. a cat. he had not thought that a feline would venture so low as to stalk the oceanside for prey, but stranger things had occurred. have you a balm for it? he inquired in reference to her wounds.

straightening, the dark man drew somewhat nearer, and while his posture did not submit to the high priestess, not yet, he assumed a deferential and altogether affectionate air altogether. have you scryed my intention as of late, seawitch? he teased, tentatively extending his muzzle to take her scent before he retreated from her striking range.

the seawitch did not deign to explain her negative rejoinder, but he did not move closer toward her, as she seemed perturbed by his presence. truly, lasher did not know of what the ocean's sylph made of him, or why she continued to allow him so near her briny domicile. and so he made an articulate leg of it, and lowered his haunches to the cold sand.

i am possessed of an affection for you, taltos said aloud, choosing to move toward the reason for his visit without compunction. his eyes bespoke a vague nervousness, but otherwise he exuded an air of confidence. yet he made no more sound; it was her right to refuse, of course.

while she spurned him, lasher would have been more surprised had the woman accepted his overtures. unwilling to allow his affections to be relegated to some decrepit mental ossuary, he took slow steps after her, the remnants of some half-forgotten glensong rising in his throat; an chailín alainn, some called it.

and he began the low brood of its words o'ertop the lap of surf upon sand, wooing caiaphas all the same despite her abject turnabout.

the jocularity of his features did not amuse the witch, and presently she snapped her doubt of his ability to winkle her from her hiding place among the ferns. i am not a man easily spurned! he called to her; she had not said no to his advances, not outright. perhaps when the imp came to realize he wanted nothing save a few moments of her time here and there, and the promise of her coddlings, she would look more favorably upon him.

but for now he halted in his would-be wooings and was content to stroll in the opposite direction along the beach, the intention of return full-fledged in his words.