Moonspear letting the water fall

Huojin’s rejoinder confused Altair for a moment, though he was distracted by Sialuk suddenly wanting to retire from the conversation. His mouth opened to stop her, still wanting to know what had happened to her, but the weariness that his cousin displayed made him second guess bothering her at all. There would be another time, he decided. Instead he watched her go to make sure she was well enough to go alone, and then turned back to their company.

“Well, I don’t know where your pack is so I guess maybe it is a long journey,” he said then, his brow knitting together thoughtfully. “And I’m guessing my mom did let you stay, so…” he trailed off, not quite apologizing for being brusque in so many words. He thought the meaning would be implied well enough, and he shook out his coat to throw off the tension that had lingered.

“So where did you go that was so far away from your home? What’s it like out there?” His questions went probing then, though the interest was genuine. Altair was not overly versed in what else was out there in the world just yet. He could look for many miles from higher reaches along the mountain if he was sneaky and careful about it, but outside of knowing there were mountains that stretched for miles and his experiences with the glen just outside their claim, his world was quite literally a microcosm.