Moonspear a still heart

Njord chuckled when the kelp elicited big reactions from the girls. Life in the mountains was so different than growing up on the coast. Seal and Orca wouldn’t be raised as Stingray, Vixen, or Swordfish had… they would never know the secrets of tide pools, where a seabird’s eggs were hidden, or how to rend an oyster from the rocks. Though their time with Sapphique had ended tumultuously, the sea would always and forever be intertwined with Njord’s true being… and so, by birthright, a piece of that existed in his daughters.

A warm smile made the father’s blue eyes squint merrily. “Is it salty?” he asked Seal before he undid the last wrapping. Laid out were a crab, three clams, a sand dollar, a starfish, and a smooth pink seashell.

He multitasked and kept an eye on the girls as his good ear turned and listened to Meerkat. “Ye mother? An’ Da?” Njord felt his heart jump into his throat. This was a big deal, and his wide expression telegraphed it. Only just recently Meerkat’s sister, Fennec, and nephew, Killdeer, had joined the pack. It seemed like fate wanted the Sveijarn-Cortens folded into the Redhawk clan, which was serendipitous considering Njord felt he had severed or sacrificed so much of his previous life to keep his family safe.

“Of course Ah want tae meet ‘em,” he assured her, though the way his brows flexed implied he was a wee bit nervous. After all, Njord cared about their impression of him. “They came tae visit us…?” he asked, wanting to know the particulars. Was this meeting by chance or did they know about what happened with Sapphique? With Swordfish?