Gilded Bay Deep Dark Unknown

The isbjørn stalked the coast, restless, his mind turning over the words of a story from his youth.

I am the cat that walks by myself. All places are the alike to me.

I will not come.

But Valiant had not even been invited. Somewhere along the line, he'd gotten the idea that Dutch didn't want to be followed into the village Moonsong. That left the isbjørn to make his own way; to assimilate into Moontide or seek out a different place.

Or to wander, as he had always done.

Today, his traveling did not feel like exploration. It did not feel like a journey. He merely walked, and looked without seeing at the pebbly shores and the dreary horizon. He was waiting, he thought, for something to catch his interest, but there was nothing new under the sun — and, moreover, there was nothing that belonged to him, and nothing he belonged to. He had been raised on the tundra, but not born there. He had been born to the willows, but those memories were painful. And there was the sea — so many of his family loved the sea. But he did not have the experiences they did. He did not have the saltwater in his blood.

So lost was he in the absence of thought that he did not notice, at first, when he came across another. Rose gold eyes listlessly tracked the motion of that distant figure, and gradually, Valiant became aware that he was watching a woman as she frolicked.

And that he should probably stop.

Instead, his paws carried him closer.

"Did you drop something?" he asked, still watching her play in the water.