Dawnlark Plains New Life

Grayday's tail wagged at this news. "Well, no one gets exceedingly gorgeous until you're in love with them," he said with a satisfied air, glad to hear that his son was at least not scraping the bottom of the barrel. Skraeling had seemed energetic and fit, and that was just as important as beauty in Grayday's opinion. "I really hope you're right. I'd like to see him settled down before I... well, before too much longer," he explained, hoping he'd covered his slip-up well enough. He'd been about to say "before I die" - but he didn't want to worry anyone, and there was no reason to go shouting about his impending mortality when he was still strong and hale.

Grayday to intercept the tiny bodies that were bobbling toward them. "Here's Kasatka, and this is little Ty," he said to his friend, ducking into the den to extract Winterbourne as well. "And this is little River. Cute, right?"