The Sentinels i was late like thunder; i’m regretting it now

A maelstrom of impatience churned within Szymon’s gut as he awaited the advent of the girl who would one day be Skellige’s queen; a billowing curse clawed his throat, burning with the bile that was his enforced silence — something told him to tread with caution here. The alliance, while affirmed by both packs’ leaders, was fragile and new; it could so easily be unmade that he feared to breathe on the towering sentinels that guarded this place lest they topple and the blessing of the Sea be jeopardized in the aftermath. Anxiety caused the ever-present twitch of his tail to flicker at fever pitch like an agitated cat’s might; he drew breath between clenched teeth to call again for her, but quite suddenly, there she was.

Deirdre’s boundless green eyes, limpid and wise beyond her time, settled upon Szymon with a kindness his tarnished soul felt almost ashamed to accept; he would never know how he and his brother had come to befriend such a pure and absolutely unsullied creature. Still, he was relieved to see that she was unhurt — the corners of his ink-limned lips shaped a smile around the body of the rabbit he’d brought for her even as his narrow skull dipped with respect. Battered and whipped by the stormwinds, still the youngest Cairn stood firm and tall — he had put on weight and muscle since arriving in these abundant wilds and meeting Doe. Deirdre bore the grief for her father’s passing in the shadows of sorrow that glistened within her bright, keen eyes — but she, too, was a changed creature. There was newfound purpose and dignity in the way she walked; though he remembered her as a graceful creature, as careful and deliberate with her words as she was with her body, this version of her was something new entirely.

The wind seemed to billow about her in an impossible way, and though she was soaked to the skin, the glimmers of lightning casting a halo about her strikingly feminine form, she was as poised and warm as he remembered. Szymon listened quietly to her apology, and his sulphureous eyes widened faintly — she had done this? Having believed in the mystics and witch doctors all his life, Szymon could not doubt the magick that lay within the marrow of Deirdre’s willowy bones — but he could not have predicted its magnitude. He bent his head to her, taking a step toward her without touching her, careful not to soil the immaculate whiteness of her fur with the brine that sharpened his fur into a series of porcupine-like quills. A whisk of his tail told her that he would willingly follow where she led, and a wary cast of his eyes behind and around him swore that he would protect her.