Sun Mote Copse mention our ghosts, our knotted spines

scouting thread 3 of 4. tagging for reference!

Mato keep pushing west. He is reluctant to leave behind Silverlight Terrace but as beautiful as it is he knows it must be left behind: it was not ideal. @Seabreeze is blessedly patient with the starlit druid as he keeps searching. Doubt does not harbor a place within him: he knows he will find a place to build Tindómë …where they will build it because Seabreeze has become as crucial to the whole idea as Mato himself. It is something of an unexpected surprise but a pleasant one, at least. He had expected to be on his own in the task, in the conception aside from the wolves that he would recruit to the cause and (for once, perhaps) the empyrean is happy to find that he was wrong. He enjoys Seabreeze’s companionship in a way that …perplexes him, perhaps. She is lovely and somehow she grows lovelier every day …or perhaps it is not she that changes but his perception of her; and the empyrean is naïve in such things, unaware of what is stirring for her …and ignorant to what it means. He knows fondness and affection, of course. He feels these things for his family, for Rannoch and Cypress; but as he dwells upon it, enjoying the early morning sun as it shines through the bright forest, catching on the motes of pollen that dance around them like forest sprites the druid notes that it feels …different.

He spares Aerlinn a glimpse as she keeps step alongside him and wonders about connections and destinies all other things he cannot truly hope to fathom. She is of the sea and he is of starlight and moonbeams; and according to her the sea and the moon are intimately connected to one another. Does that mean …? He stops himself, finding the whole thing perplexing and a soft burn of heat creeps up his neck hidden by plush moonbeam pelage but his ears flutter back and he averts his gaze to the undiscovered path before them — the only physical signs of his brief embarrassment. It would be easy to cling to childhood but he is no longer a child. It is not a truth anymore. This is proof of it, all of it. The stirrings for Seabreeze, the consuming desire to venture out on his own and build something that is borne of his own ideas. “This place is nice,” Mato remarks, contented that he does not have any ill feelings from the territory; but it does not strike him as perfect either and this holds true in his tone. For a moment Mato is struck with an odd consideration of if he was being too picky. For a moment, lips part to let the question spill forth but he bites it back with a sharp intake of breath.

Not yet. Perhaps he would not ask it, ever. It strikes him as unseemly for an aspiring leader to second guess himself. He must be sure and consistent or else his kingdom will crumble before it has even had a change to become.