Shimmering Sands up with the sun, gone with the wind

My mate, he answered, pained, with a silent grimace passing over his features. All the nothing to show for every mile at his back weighed him down. She has black fur and silver eyes, he noted, for whatever it was worth to him. Silas' face felt hollow and in front of his stranger, he couldn't make his tongue say her name aloud yet. He wouldn't make it, and neither did he handle any explanation all too eloquently with that in place.

The Ostrega does know enough to feel somewhat ashamed by the desperate wave of hope that maybe he'd recognize someone matching that description and that all of this could end. He could try to elaborate, however, and took a deep breath. We used to live by the sea. Something happened, though. And he didn't know what—another strike of misfortune for him, surely, and what to blame exactly? Silas could only theorize, and he had a terrible feeling about it. He had been worrying about it, about Qilaq, for months now. And she's been missing since summer. And thanks to this, here he was, miserable, alone, and feeling so disgustingly lost.