Totoka River keep cool but care

he comes back up, dragging his contempt with him like the world’s most ostentatious cloak, on the heels of a smile that contains far too many teeth to be friendly – and then another, tightly controlled, formal. yunxu’s sodden hackles threaten to rise, and are promptly crushed back down by the weight of the rain.

yunxu’s expression is still perfectly, politely blank as he inclines his head in equally polite acknowledgement. his thoughts, like the fin of a circling shark, are somewhat less so.

he looks from the open skies to the roaring water nearby, threatening to overflow its banks. to the wet grass and mud churned up beneath both of their paws. again, to the smears all over owlglass’ coat.

it is a singularly unwelcome place to lay your head to sleep.

“enough seaman not to lay by flooding river in rain.” yunxu’s voice lifts and falls, a soldier’s perfect one-two march in audible form. it wouldn’t be out of place on a robocall. owlglass’s smile slides off his face and crashes somewhere between them, lost in the storm.

“better shelter in cliffs.” yunxu gestures, briefly, to the barely-visible sweep of the rocky coastline, the bay he has passed by to the south. his words are short and clipped. “you live here long?”