Deepwood Weald two smokes

maybe an excursion? <3]

that day, @Marina took @Chagak and @Sea Hunter on a small journey to the place dutch had once kept as his own. peaceful, the land was too silent. he thought that the laughter of the boys might liven it, and sent them off to play among the dense trees as he turned toward his wife.
"something has kept him," he said with an exhale. "he would not be gone so long."
for her forehead, a kiss, lingering. he pulled away with a grin. "we should swim in his lake while he is gone!"

Yessss

He wouldn't, Marina agreed softly, and though her eyes promised more words on the matter, they were not for the ears of their sons who she still heard playing among the trees. So she obliged her husband with a warm smile and an easy laugh, a glimmer of hope for the implication that Dutch would return to them. Surely he would.

For now, Chakliux reminded her to live in the moment. Their family thrived; her health, too, though it was always so fleeting. There was so much to celebrate still. Marina ranged ahead of her husband with a daring smile, leading him with a practiced step which told wordlessly of her familiarity with this place. A familiarity she'd learned only in her search for Dutch — but she wouldn't think of that now.

seal hunter wife set the way; seal hunter followed, traveling on long legs easily after marina, head lifted to see all places of the land and how it fell around them.
he sighed; he did hope dutch returned to reclaim such. presently he caught up with marina, tugging playfully at her tail.
are you happy? he suddenly wanted to ask, taking instead his answer from her glowing eyes and the glimmer of her beautiful smile, which made his heart race with a quick galloping.

Marina whipped her tail away from her husband with an affronted giggle and a playful snap of her teeth toward him. She moved to kiss his cheek at once, though her eyes held mock-scolding. How rude, She chastised, and kissed him again.

Yet her expression turned serious quickly; thoughtful.

There was no trace of Dutch anywhere. I searched for days. It's odd, isn't it? The way he appeared - the way he disappeared.

She let the thought linger in the air, quiet for now.

"ice raven gives. and he takes." and that was all he could say upon this matter.
he could not torment himself by thinking of it; he hugged her fiercely, touching their foreheads together. "dutch would prefer that you too were here."
he knew it; he felt that he knew her heart.
and in his smile was only an encouraging joy.

Marina turned somber for a moment, burdened by all that she could never say to her husband. How could she tell him that she had sometimes wondered what it might be like to wake next to another man? A man who had lain with her and never looked twice at her again; a man who held Chakliux in his own heart.

A man who had married someone else.

Now he was gone, and she knew that she should let go — but her heart would not. And so for a few seconds she was only silent, sorrowful in her husband's embrace.

Then Marina managed a faint, weary smile. Let's swim in his lake, then, hm? She echoed her husband's words from before and hoped that he wouldn't question her sorrow, that he would see it only as grief.