Falls of the Hinterlands Brightest Dark

Having established a “home base” of sorts, Coelacanth felt comfortable leaving the coast she loved in favor of exploring the inland territory her brother had visited again and again. Despite their closeness and codependence, the siblings often kept differing schedules to suit their individual tastes — Coelacanth did not share her brother’s wanderlust and penchant for adventure to quite the same degree and was more prone to settling into a pattern of behaviors and haunts. It was an arrangement that suited them, for Coelacanth was, in a sense, Amoxtli’s compass. The siblings’ ability to find one another was uncanny — and with Coelacanth spending much of her time divided up between a triangle of territories, she served as the sepia and coal dragon’s homing device.

She moved at a steady southwesterly clip until she reached the glittering salt flat she remembered from their first night in the Teekon Wilds, and turned decisively southeast to follow the river. Clusters of wolves appeared to be gathering here and there — a burgeoning morass of possessiveness and pride — and Coelacanth steered clear of any sign of dispute, but could not shake her attraction to the sound of falling water. Carefully skirting the burgeoning border marks around the copse of glittering will-o’-the-wisps, she picked her way nearer to the wintry cascade and drew a reverent breath at the glowing arch that splayed vividly across the misted sky. Wonderstruck, she stood without moving, one paw lifted as she paused in midstep to fill her heart with its beauty.

“Riverbone, O highest father,
your daughter runs in brightest dark;
no snowfall in the mountains,
no faithless morning lark —

The sun is fully hidden;
stars cover up the day —
by moon the earth is bitten
and all will waste away — ”

Drawn as always to those who could sing songs or tell stories, Coelacanth found her dainty paws meandering toward the sound before she had time to consider whether her actions were wise. Denied the role of siren, she was cast as a sailor — doomed forever to the allure of the creatures’ arias. Wrapped in the mist, her tufted ears flicking water droplets here and there as she perked her ears and swiveled them to cup each solitary sound, she was undeniably disappointed when the song came to an abrupt end. Stepping beneath a cavernous overhang so the water spilled over her body and turned her fur to ink, she allowed the pressure to pleasurably pepper her limber muscles.

“Riverbone, O highest father…”

There it was again!

Turning her head, Coelacanth moved in the direction of the sound, unwittingly stopping just before the forest pool and its two unlikely inhabitants — but as before, the sound trickled into silence. She hadn’t noticed the Mexican Wolf or her skeletal treasure — her tufted ears swiveled this way and that as she searched for the source of the singing, a soft sigh slipping soundlessly from her mist-dappled muzzle.