The Sentinels recurve

The ghost was not sure why he was surprised that she did not speak a common tongue. She cast aside her birth name and offered another one in its place: Sif. The pale Cairn canted his head to the right, just slightly and frowned at the she-wolf. It was the first time his twisting sneer had vanished from his features. For a moment, he could feel anger rise in his gut and burn the inside of his throat. He did not understand how she could simply abandon her birth name. The vagabond was not sure how she had come to be the way she was. His patience had waned slightly, but he moved to step forward one last time, leaving only a yard or so between them. His heterochromatic gaze remained locked on her face, her features, he was forcing himself to pick her apart in his mind.

“You've lost yer way, Moorhen,” he chided her in a softer tone. He shook his head just a few times, looking at her from under dark eyelashes. “You've stepped away from yer family name.” Saying it out loud was enough to make his gut churn, but he swallowed the venom and lifted his head upward. Kingfisher understood that she was not familiar with his tongue, but he didn't speak a lick of whatever she had tried to speak before. He wasn't about to try. His only goal would be to get her to understand him. To understand the shame she should feel.

The dark woman was not a Northerner. She had been born on the very bay that was nestled beyond the forest. The ghost did not understand how she had changed so very much in a single year – how she had lost so much of herself and who she was intended to be. He found himself grateful for having been swept away by his father and not left behind. The pale Cairn understood that she had missed every important lesson that Skellige had ever offered him. And she had missed out on more than just that.

Moorhen's question fell against his ears and he drew them forward, propping them upright. She wanted to know if Skellige was there. Smokestep blinked twice before responding with a simple and curt, “no.” He did not seem to know what he was to do at that point. For he feared that he could not rebuild his sister and that she had already been lost to different blood. Sandpiper had said it best: if they are Cairn, they will be there. If not, they're dead and not worth our name anyway. And again, he thought it might have been best to have the peppered woman at his side, if only for her level support.