Totoka River baby, when I whisper, can you hear?

I gift you with a small novel that is also my 50th post. ♥

His Aralez is, and always would be, a free spirit. He knew this. He would never deny her it. She was free to roam, free to go where she wished, to dance and play on the shores with whomever she wanted. It was not in his nature to be jealous of such things; at the end of the day she was his, and he was hers. And his faith in that was firm.

But it was so very unlike her to leave without telling anyone where she was going.

He had lingered on the island as long as he could bear to take it before leaving word with Moorhen and setting out after Coelacanth’s scent. The Gampr had not been completely oblivious to the subtle shift and change in it, but he was blissfully unaware of what it meant. Too much time in the lull of domestication, too much time among humans and their altered canine companions. The natural cycle of life had slipped his mind and he was unfamiliar with the sultry tang that lingered like a shadow over his mate’s normal and familiar redolence.

He trailed her scent-path, across the ridge, through the willows – taking solace in the fact it seemed she was headed towards Morningside and not off in some strange, illogical direction. And somewhere shortly before the borders he caught a conflicting disparity in the trail, where it overlapped and seemed to go in two directions at once. Careful inspection revealed the diverging path was actually Seelie’s return trip, accompanied by two others.

Without hesitation nor care for rest nor food nor water he turned heel and followed it back towards the coast. He wanted to run, oh did he want to run until his lungs burned and his paws bled, but he knew better. His time in his homeland in the endless rolling hills and plains had taught him to pace himself, lest he take even longer to reach his destination.

He stops only once at a small pool of rain water that has collected on the forest floor, drinks his fill to soothe his parched throat and empty stomach before forging onwards. Somewhere, shortly before the coast comes back into view something clicks in his head, a subconscious realization that crashes into the forefront of his thoughts, and he recognizes the change he smells where it lingers in her tracks.

And no longer can he resist the urge to run. The long stride of his gait eats away the miles like wildfire burning through an autumn field, and he doesn’t slow even when the wash of waves on the beach reaches his ears and the taste of salt hangs in the air. Not even when he sees her, standing like a mirage in the moonlight so very much like that first night on the shore when they met.

Water splashes up under the heavy fall of his paws as he careens into the shallow water, his momentum slowed under the drag and slip of mud and sand – but he can’t be sure she is real, can’t trust his sight and his sense of smell, he has to know she is real, and he all but crashes into her, sending them both tumbling into the soft cushion of sand. And he buries his face into her neck, breathes her in. Lavishes kisses across her throat and jaw, whispers her name over and over like a prayer to assure himself she is real as relief floods his tired body. “Seelie, Seelie, Seelie– ”