Big Salmon Lake to the fall

Pft, no you don't. <3

It was frigid upon his tongue as he lapped at it slowly, resisting the urge to lap like an it with an eagerness that he knew would potentially make him sick. He was a disaster without Solia, admittedly, but he had survived life before her and he would survive life after her. After all, that was what he did. He survived. He survived against the egg and sperm donor's wishes, he had survived his fight to the death with Glimmer, and he would keep surviving. Sinaaq didn't know how to do anything else. Of course before Solia he had been stolen his nephew from Glimmer and had taken it upon himself to raise him, despite that Sinaaq had still been but a child, himself. The wretched had, had someone to take care of, even though the teenager had made his loathing of the infectious child known. Still, the child had loved him, and despite it all, Sinaaq had loved him, too. Without anything to take care of him but himself, which he did only because he was a horribly vain creature and to be anything less than aesthetically pleasing was unacceptable to him, he was left to the grasping and clutching claws of his own loneliness. In some respects, Sinaaq enjoyed it, but he desired affection even if it was cruel — after all cruel affection was all he had known from Frigga and it was all that he had, accordingly, shown Aldartok. Sometimes, he would forget that he was alone and he would hiss at Adlartok to reprimand when he heard a loud noise only to worry about his cracked sanity seconds later when it sunk in, once more, that Adlartok was ...gone. Not dead, the Arrluk thought, but lost. Somehow the smoke color child had gotten lost from him — not for the first time, admittedly, and Sinaaq had made no real effort to go looking for him. It was how they, as Arrluk's, operated.

The sound of heavy footfalls against the earth caused the darkling's ears to perk, alert, head rising from the water, droplets running off of his chin in rivulets. Salmon pink tongue snaked out to catch them as they fell, wondering with a shot of hopefulness that Sinaaq instinctively snuffed out, that Adlartok had found him after all. He knew it wasn't possible for the footfalls were too heavy for the young boy to have pulled off. For a moment, Sinaaq considered ignoring the approach of another, content to wallow in his own despair and loneliness. After all, his sardonic disposition was rarely taken in any sort of good light. Regardless, he let out a chuff to let the other know that he was in the vicinity, unsure of how close the other was, or even, whether, the fog would carry the sound or simply swallow it.