Arrow Lake Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error

With a start, Dragomir turned to his dam when she arrived, momentarily setting aside his imaginary game to bask in her company. He maintained an aversion to touch that he'd developed in his childhood, but he swung around and trotted to meet her with a high waving tail and a warm, vulnerable smile reserved for her and Isilmë alone. He stood level with her chest now, he saw; soon he would begin to grow much faster and would overtake her completely. A sobering thought, but an exciting one.

Dragomir had amassed a sizeable vocabulary for his age, thanks in part to his mother's loquaciousness and her eloquence both. His downfall was the muddling of his languages, but that was beginning to improve as well. He understood every word she said to him, yet the abstract ideas presented therein went over his head somewhat. It would be a while longer before he could make sense of those without an explanation. We came from the water? he asked with a faint frown playing about his brows. His gaze landed on the lake's coruscating surface once more. And dad too? How?

Why did dad leave us again and not take us with him, leaped to the tip of his tongue, but Dragomir was not yet ready to voice that concern of his. To Isilmë, perhaps, but not to his sweet mother. To do so would be to unlock the hurt—and, yes, the hint of anger that had sparked deep down inside—at being left behind once more. Abandonment was a complex feeling and Dragomir did not yet know how to confront it. Instead, he beamed at the idea that he was strong and followed Aure's long-legged steps to the edge of the lake, where he hesitated when the cold water licked at his toes. He remained poised there on the edge with an uncertain thump of his heart as Aure slipped into the lake.