Sea Lion Shores danger close

The air was oddly heavy that day. Moorhen lost sight of the island completely before she'd gone halfway across the sandbar, but she wasn't worried. At least, she wasn't worried about getting lost. What she was worried about was the strange scent that was beginning to surround her - a scent that she recognized well enough from her time at Bearclaw Valley.

The raven thought about Venninne and Indra and Laurel and the strange moods that had struck them, and about the little girl that had come and gone from the island and about a den brooded over by two luminous yellow eyes. And she wasn't afraid anymore of being grown up, or of pups, or of motherhood. She was just - thinking. Of the past and the future and the changing tides.

Speaking of tides - Moorhen had come out this way to sait her desire for red blood out from under Coelacanth's gaze. The waves were unusually low after the storm, it seemed, but the sea lions had returned, and Moorhen wanted one. The banded female stalked around the group, searching for stragglers or weaklings.