Dragoncrest Cliffs with a crew that’s bound to pack them in

set after this: click

the joyful screams from the race and subsequent feast had long faded from the bright shores, as had the sunlight that arced playfully between every grinning face.

val did not dare go near the water, but for a long time after he stared at the thoughstone, and wondered.

eresta. a part of him -- the part of him that had spent nearly his first two years on the road -- missed the sense of adventure that traveling gave him.

but his place was here, he knew it. at times he might feel unmoored, but sapphique was his standing ground.

still, a quiet pain settled in his heart. thibault, tousaint, and chantale had been his children to him; while they were distinctly mireille's, as was her supreme right as matriarch -- they had also been loved by val.

a growing loneliness was setting its roots in val. he looked out to the stormy shoreline, and wondered how many more of sapphique's children would be born and carried away by the road.