Stavanger Bay I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way.

Doe nodded when the other spoke of her fate - to have no mate chosen for you was a terrible thing. Doe's had been assigned to her almost since her birth, and once she'd come to Blackrock, she'd had the authority to take her own mate. Muses, however, did not seem to have attained that title yet. It couldn't be helped. Still, Doe looked on the other with a calculating eye. If Skellige and Deirdre permitted it, perhaps Muses could be given to Szymon and herself.

The errant thought was swept quickly away when Muses expressed her surprise at Doe's leaving her pack. Her ears flickered in thought - she did not know if they would have stopped her, if they'd known she would not come back from her walk that day. Doe suspected that they'd sent wolves after her as well, but only to help her if she should need it. Being Riverbone's concubine had been a fate she'd happily resigned herself to. None would have expected her to run away, except Mirage, perhaps.

Doe wondered if she was grateful, or if she now wished she'd embraced her fate as much as Doe had, for she was sure the woman had missed Doe as terribly as Doe had missed her those first few months. It mattered very little, now.

"Perhaps you can learn to love the forest as much as I have learned to love the bay," Doe replied, moving to give the other a comforting nuzzle.