Greatwater Lake Empty chairs at empty tables

This had all been new. The reclamation of the Woods, their homeland. He wondered how long it had laid empty, and who, if anyone, had lived there while Blackfeather Woods was ousted. It made him angry, to imagine a Blackfeather Woods without a Melonii within it (luckily for him, that had not been true at all), but there were ones now, and he was satisfied. The rabble who followed his younger sibling-niblings were harder for him to create a mental image of. There was her of course, but she could be an image of the very best or the most middling of them. Perhaps even the very worst — but she was far too polite for that.

Settling back? he asked, hoping to lure the events out. Towton's far from here. I left. Not because it was bad, mind you. I just felt cloistered. He shrugs, then grins at her, cocksure. I wanted to see the sea. And his brother, and perhaps his other relatives. He didn't know. He had no idea what he was doing.