how far do I have to go to get to you

They were moving away from the ocean. The Szymon Cairn of old would have found this unbearable — but he had already borne the unbearable. He had lost Doe.

These children, each of them drawn by a different pair of hands and painted with a different palette, were not his children — but they matched. That bothered him. One boy, two girls, a poor substitute for the ones he’d abandoned. Looking back on it, he couldn’t say he regretted doing it, though. Doe had been a light for him, and he’d followed her flitting trail through some of the darkest moments of his life. Now that she was gone, everything was dark — but he still remembered what light looked like, and maybe he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t given everything up to chase her.

He was feeling morose when Moorhen approached and shoved her nose into one lean, angular shoulder. His kneejerk reaction was to whip and snap, but he pulled his punch at the last second and closed his mouth tight. He wasn’t hungry — he was miserable and lonely and old and used up — but he looked her over with a gimlet eye and tried to gauge if she was asking because she was hungry. Hunger made females more bitey than usual, and he didn’t really feel like dealing with bitey.

Anyway, he never turned down a meal. He could have nodded acquiescence, but weirdly enough, he did want to talk. “Yes,” he murmured haltingly, his tripping tongue yielding easily to the soft monosyllable. “Lead,” he bade her, getting to his feet and stretching his fore- and hindquarters with a rocking gesture.