Moonsong Glacier or at the altar, standing thin as the air

Valiant thought he recognized a tone when he heard one, but he could only guess at what that slight pinch of the girl's features might mean. He glanced at Raindrop, wondering if it was a woman thing that she might spontaneously translate, but was glad when Ariadne simply moved on without comment.

He wasn't terribly hungry after his unnecessary slaughter of the turkey, so he chose something small from the cache to be sociable while Ariadne glowed under Raindrop's praise. His lips quirked in a secretive smile; he was thinking about his conversation with Kukutux, which made him think about Vairë for the first time since his departure from her mother's home. The two sisters seemed similar in many ways, but Ariadne's youth, he thought, still shined through.

"I was able to check on your altar," he remembered. "Some things did need replenishing — but I took care of it."

He hadn't yet built his own, but it was becoming clearer to him lately that Moontide was not the place where he would stay.

"Raindrop hasn't heard much about the Moon villages," he said to Ariadne. "I thought you'd be better to tell her about it than me."