Sea Lion Shores danger close

“Szymon.”

Tattered ears shot forward upon the male’s skull, and a wrathful light danced briefly in his fool’s gold eyes before the rust and dust of all those lonely months snuffed it out. His tongue, swollen and bloodied from the previous night’s folly, flickered like a serpent’s to wet his cracked leather nose. “You,” he murmured hoarsely, his honeyed baritone thick and guttural with disuse. He recognized her, but he didn’t know her name. She was not Skellige, but she had her sire’s eyes. She was not Qilaq or Julep, but he had cared for her almost as ardently as his own daughters.

His daughters.

He waited for the pain, but it had stopped being novel and new long ago. Now it was simply a part of the clanwrecked Cairn’s daily existence — except when he could fool himself into believing that Doe was here and Skellige was pleased with him and everything was full of promise and prophecy. “D-D-Don’t,” he gritted, when the world began to fray at the edges and Moorhen’s taller, broader frame began to shrink down, one ear folding over, eerie yellow bleeding into mahogany. What was her name? What was her name? If he couldn’t remember it, she was going to turn —

“M-M-M-Moor…” trailed from his lips on the gust of a sigh as the jackknife twist of his spine smoothed out slightly. He heard Doe’s voice — “These are the children of the Leviathan, and we must always protect them,” — but Moorhen’s lips didn’t move in time, so he knew the illusion hadn’t taken hold. That was good — and bad. He’d rather have been speaking to his wife, whether she was real or not.

“H-Hunt,” he uttered pointedly, though he knew better than to try to command the larger, more steely-muscled female. He was more just…expressing his intention. He’d feel better, he thought, if he could kill something.