Qeya River outstretched arm, and upturned hand

as the river spun besides them, so wardruna unwound the course of his own story; of the blackened strands of beach, cold icy waters, and of war and pride thick and as free flowing as blood. 

imrathil was troubled; something about envisioning the deep black sand sucked by cold blue waters jolted a fragmented part of his conscience; yet as soon as he was aware of its presence, it parted much like hands grappling for smoke. 

he turned and saw wardruna too was troubled, but a different kind than the sorrows that gripped imrathil. homesickness; it was not spoken of yet he could detect it in the bitter cast of the northern man’s words, in the soft arch of his hardened eye. ”you miss it. but it does not sound kind for old men or the crippled. i would surely die. perhaps it was better i wasn’t born there. maybe we could find something like that here, or make it.”