Kintla Flatlands Manifest destiny

You look very much like him.

Aningan’s ears perked and his tail twitched, surprised not by the words themselves but by the fact that someone else was speaking them. The uppik used to tell him often how similar he appeared to his northern relatives, cut from the same cloth. But to hear someone else, someone not of the north, comment on the shared appearance between himself and his father was pleasantly surprising. He smiled in response to her remark, although it did leave him wondering: was his appearance always so similar, and was that why his mother never favoured him? He did not dwell on the thought, deciding that it wasn’t worth it; it was in the past now, after all.

The girl introduced herself and he responded with, “I’m Aningan, from Rusalka.” Presently, anyways. Blackfeather Woods rang through his mind, searching for memories to connect itself with—but, ultimately, there was nothing to be found. Perhaps he knew the name long ago, back in the earlier days of his childhood. Whatever the case, he moved past it and focused on the present, captured by the fact that she was, in some way, connected to his father.

“Does that mean we are family, too?” he asked, curious; he was desperate to find any links that he could to family, by blood or not, so many spaces in his heart to be filled by new faces. But the new could not replace the old, not entirely, and so he found himself seeking more answers as he asked, “What was he like as a mentor?”