Stavanger Bay and every minute gets longer

Open for anyone; perhaps someone who can tell him that Verrine is gone? No obligation to match rambly length.

From the coast, he rediscovered that at sunset it seemed as though the sun submitted itself to the ocean's mercy. The water shifted in color throughout this event, from an opaque blue to a dark sapphire laden with green shards. Ultimately it faded into a blackness that didn't seem rightly named; an emptiness that Mordecai wasn't sure what to make as he pressed along the loam between grassy grounds and sweeping shore. After what had been something of a confusing venture eastward along the river past the plateau, he had backtracked with mixed emotions of the spring to come.

It had come, or at least it was showing fair signs of making a rebound like no other. He welcomed this, beckoned it on like so many others. But it brought him to a crossroads that he knew not whether to make heads or tails of. He had told Dante he would stay through until the spring, but it felt as though his contributions were far too few for the graciousness of his friend. A friend who by all means extended an offer knowing that Mordecai would eventually turn tail. Perhaps it would be later into the spring, he thought, instead hinging the concerns elsewhere and allowing them to lapse for a time.

The Bay turned up ahead of him in its glory, from the cliffsides that churned upward from the sea of forestry much like a leviathan come to capsize a vessel. He knew it from another angle, where it was shielded from the trees. He also would have recognized it from the south as well, as the cliffsides and the ruddy forestry had been his turning point inward to the wilderness, to the full extent of the Wilds. The Bay had been his unknown turning point in a web of history and prose writ. It was also home to his brother and children and the budding desire to seek them out was nurtured from ember to flame once more.

He paused well from their markers to observe silently for several minutes. It was quiet, but whether or not it was void of watching eyes and stalking scouts was unknown over the din of the ocean. Yet as he raised his muzzle skyward and called for Verrine, he was certain he would be heard. Someone would hear him, if not his younger sibling then someone who would come out to find him.

murder by death — it will never die