Wheeling Gull Isle treibloka

Link to the Old Slavonic prayer, if you're curious as to what it sounds like :)

She held his paws. Her palms were streaked with salt, but the sandpaperish feel of them was comforting. They faced each other like two sphinxes against the soft blue smear of ocean, as if age and wear had softened the vigilant postures so that they bowed inwards, malleable and familiar.

I only know prayer in old language, he admitted. It is like song.

He gathered himself, trying to remember the first few words. Her closed eyes lessened his swell of self-consciousness. He took a breath, his voice tracing a firm, funereal note whose tail-end wavered gently in his throat:

Otche nash, izhe yesi na nebesech',
Our father, thou who art in heaven,

Da svatitsya imya tvoye... da pridyet' tsarstviye tvoye...
May hallowed be thy name... may come thy kingdom...

Beneath his voice the river murmured on and on. He trailed off, having forgotten the last few lines, but he took comfort in Heda's presence. The expected spark of frustration did not appear. He felt like he only existed in the few square inches of warmth on his cheeks, and where he and Heda's paws touched.