Duck Lake can't remember when it started

The pond was strangely vacant; the waterfowl already have flown south. The girl was hungry and disappointed, having not eaten anything substantial since two days before. Travel-weary and sore, her mood was dangerously low, but she managed to cheer herself in the knowledge that she was very, very close. She shook her pelt briskly, drinking deeply at the shore of the lake before turning to other pursuits; namely, hunting as quickly as she could to fill her stomach for the last leg of her journey. She sniffed at a trout a moment before determining it to rotten to make a good meal, and instead continuing along the shore, head low and ears pricked for any signs of lunch.

Although the heat away from his northern home was sometimes too much for the aging male to bear, there was one benefit to the near-constant fair weather. Murdock loved to swim - something he'd only been able to find out since coming to these warmer southern regions. Soon, it would be too cold for that even down here, but for now, he still liked to come down to the lake and swim for a while.

The shore was just a line in the distance when he finally decided he'd had enough. The male turned himself around, his thick tail acting like a rudder behind him, and paddled to shore with long, powerful strokes. The proximity of the lake had helped him to regain some of the muscle he'd lost to hunger during his wanderings, something that Murdock was greatful for when he spotted a feminine figure draped in fetching greys.

Letting out a loud bark to hail her, he sped up his strokes to reach shore more quickly, never one to pass up a chance to shoot the breeze with the fairer sex. "Hey, stardust. Wait up," he called, dragging himself out of the water and shaking the water from his pelt.

Perhaps she could fish; she supposed if the rotten trout was any indicator there ought to be fish in this lake. She slowed, twisting toward that lake just as the male called out. Her brow furrowed in surprise, squinting across the lake and wondering just where this male had come from. She paused, ears flicked towards him, then tilting backwards a moment benignly. She approached the lake's edge, watching the male with a bemused expression. "it's dawn, actually." she retorted lightly, finding this lake-wolf to be most interesting. She stood passively while he shook the water from his pelt, asking then, "I don't suppose you've seen anything edible around here? I seem to have missed all the ducks." As much as the male interested her, hunger was still a priority on her mind, especially after travelling so long.

"Dawn," the male repeated, his gaze becoming slightly less warm, but no less friendly as he observed that the girl was younger than he'd first thought. Not too young, perhaps, but younger than what could usually hold his interest. His thoughts meandered onto her words, and though - at first - he imagined a woman named Dawn ought to be painted like the sunrise, he realized that this young woman had a coat for the hours just before that - when the early light painted the whole world in shades of silver and grey. "It suits you," he decided, a note of approval in his voice.

Eventually, his mind made it to the question of food. He let out a lazy hmmm, looking around for some yet unidentified object. "There are fish in this lake," he offered, though he padded further from the shore. "I probably scared them with all the splashin', but if we can find some good bait, we'll get them back to the shallows. See anything smelly around?"

They'd be fishing for catfish, most probably. Although trout tasted much better than the former, which tended to taste a lot like mud, catfish were far more easily attracted and caught. Murdock would go for ease over taste any old day - it was all sustenance, at the end of the day.

The girl missed the change in the male's expression, but offered a smile at his remark, unsure of what to say. She latched onto his next words with interest, glad he was able to help. "I never thought of using bait before."  she said thoughtfully, thinking already of the rotten trout. "I'll be back"  she said quickly, darting back the way she came and gingerly grasping the rotten trout. Ignoring the thick scent, she trotted back towards the male, who had quite a few inches on her. 

Dropping the fish before him, unsure of where best to place it, she asked curiously,  "Are you from around here?"  He could hardly live in the lake, and his scent had been mostly eradicated by the lake water. She wondered if he were another loner, or lived in the vicinity. She only knew of Easthollow, here, but hadn't travelled this way in a little while.

Thankfully, the girl darted off before Murdock could look too hard for something to use to attract fish, and he gladly took a seat in her absence and began grooming his sodden fur. Unfortunately, she came back rather quickly, so he'd have to finish up at a later date.

"Perfect," he praised, his nose twitching at the fetid scent. If they weren't using it as bait, he might've rolled in it. "Just wade in a few feet - halfway up your legs should be good - and plop that in the water. The catfish'll come. I wait for a big one. Once you scatter 'em, they'll take their time coming back."

Murdock waited on the shore, realizing that this didn't really require much participation on his part. He went back to grooming himself, though he kept an eye out for the girl as well. There was something familiar about her, but he couldn't quite place it. In his distraction, he almost didn't notice her question. "Eh? Oh - over that way." He flipped his nose toward Easthollow. "Led by Valette. Full of wretched little kids. I don't recommend it."He squinted at the silver girl, suddenly wondering where she'd come from. Was she one of his sisters, perhaps? "What about you? You look like someone I know, I think."

She waded in without complaint; he was the one teaching her, after all. She was careful to disturb the silk as little as she could, setting down the fish and watching it drift to the bottom, bits of flesh and insects flaking off it only to settle a few feet away. She nodded briefly to demonstrate that she understood, before focussing her attention on the lake bottom, waiting and watching. 

She was interested, yet not entirely surprised, to hear that the male came from Valette's pack. She snorted at his description, glancing over her shoulder at his question.  "You're thinking of my brother, Sunny. He left my father and I to live at Easthollow; I'm on my way to visit him, actually. I live north-west from here, a pack called Morningside."  She didn't go into depth, as it was rather complicated, really, and she had the distinct sense that she was going to try to steal Sunny away from Easthollow. However, she had gathered the impression that this male wouldn't have cared either way.

Dawn took to the task of fishing with a single-mindedness that was teased an amused snort out of the lounging male. Fishing was a task of patience and focus, but Murdock had no patience for focus, and mainly focused on just being patient. Which meant his fishing stance was quite different from the stiff air of determination that the silvery shewolf took on as she gazed into the water.

Then again, it wasn't too difficult to seem stiffer or more determined than Murdock, who seemed to constantly exude an air of sleepiness. Came with age, he reckoned.

"Ah, Sunny," said Murdock, pleased to have something to add to the conversation. "I know him. Nice fella. Good company." Naturally, the male assued that he and Dawn were on good terms, as she had come all this way to see him.

A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision, and she stiffened, to the amuse snort of the male behind her. She turned back to him, arching an eyebrow, but said nothing. She wasn't sure quite what he found amusing, and she wasn't inclined to ask. She focused back on the water, the man seemed to like Sunny, which she took to be a good sign, unless the male had low expectations for his company. 

Staring into the water in silence while the male watched her fish seemed odd, so she added a moment later,  "I haven't seen him in a while, actually. months. We didn't really part well." Confiding in the random male seemed better than awkward silence, and she waited silently as her gaze tracked a shadow at in the silt.

"Well - that's a damn shame," said Murdock, voice gruff. He wasn't quite sure what else to say, or if the girl would accept or even listen to a stranger's advice - but at the end of the day, it couldn't hurt, and Murdock had never been one to keep quiet when there was something on his mind.

"It's good you've come to see him. This time of year is the time for family, and drawing closer, and slowing down," he told the girl, lounging back in the dry, yellow grass as his lids began to grow heavy. "My mom would call it 'breathe deep' - she said that this is when our hearts open up. When we're apt to fall in love, and when we're most likely to forgive."

He thought fleetingly of Chemukh, and her fine, dark face.

They swam closer, now. Dawn was about to snatch one when the male continued, and the fish pulled out of her range. She huffed under her breath, gaze flickering to the male as he continued, quite suddenly seeming oddly familiar. She turned back to him, brow furrowed with confusion when she felt an odd wave of deja-vu settle over her. She saw the fish in the corner of her eye, however, and twisted suddenly to grab at it, fangs snatching in its tail as she pulled it from the water with a decidedly ungracefully motion, pedalling backwards to the shore to slam it against the rocks that lined it. 

Messy hunt done with, she stood panting for a moment, catching her breath.  "My father - said something like that. Exactly that, actually."  Her gaze was suddenly alight with interest, jumping to conclusions rapidly, but waiting to see if she just might have stumbled across her first uncle.

The male's heavy lids, having fallen shut while the girl fished, peeled back to reveal his two-toned eyes. "Ya don't say," he murmured, rolling from his side to his belly and pillowing his chin against his paws. He watched her through slitted eyes for a moment, observing the thickness of her pelt and the noble planes of her face, and the amber jewels that'd settled so curiously on his face.

"Grayday. That's what Sunny said your father's name was," the male said after a moment, lifting his head to continue his study with a new light in his eyes. "A common name - and common appearances, by the by. But tell me about him. Where does he hail from? What's his father's name?"

His heart felt strangely empty as he stared at the silvery girl, the girl that could be his niece, the girl that might be a daughter of his family, if not a daughter of his loins. He wasn't sure how to feel about her. It'd been so long since he'd seen another of his bloodline, and even longer since he'd set eyes on little Day, with his bright, tang eyes and his eager, playful demeanor. With a jolt, he realized that he didn't know what Grayday would look like now, as a grown man rather than a gangly child.

The male's lids peeled back to reveal his odd-coloured optics, which had gone unnoticed until now. There was a glimmer of interest within them now, and Dawn hesitated briefly before she replied, taken aback by the eyes. She had no idea eyes could do that in the first place, but the matter at hand seemed more important. She sat, fish forgotten for now, and regarded the male thoughtfully as she drudged through her memories, for the first time pulling together bits and pieces of her father's past.  "He came from the north and left when he was young. Um - his father was Dirt." 

Her brow furrowed, doubting this immensely, and continued slowly, brow still scrunched in concentration. "No, it was Mudd- Mud." Her father hadn't let much slip, and she hadn't asked much of him, either. Perhaps she ought to, for the lack of knowledge about her father's past loomed suddenly in her mind. There were no secrets between them, something she knew to be true and respected greatly, but they simply hadn't spoken of the past much. Here are there the odd thing had slipped in conversation, but the girl had never pried. Her gaze settled on him with fervour curiosity, falling silent when she wasn't sure if the rest of her information was reliable. A fire, perhaps? She couldn't quite remember.

Although he'd anticipated this - had prepared himself for it - the male still couldn't help but draw in a sharp, unsteady breath at this confirmation. Mud. His father. The man he looked so like, save for being paler and ruddier than the late northern king. His body tensed, protesting against the speed at which he'd propelled himself to his paws. He took a hesitant step toward the girl - toward Mud's granddaughter, Day's child, Murdock's niece - before he could stop himself, and then swallowed back all the questions that where whirring in his mind.

"My father's name is Mud. And I had a brother named Grayday," he told her, his voice sounding strange and far away. "But he was lost to us when he was still young." His eyes traced over her face again, lingering a moment on her bright, tangy irises. "You look just like him," he said softly. And then, "Is he well?"

Her mind reeled, taken aback and excited by the revelation, and sll that she could manage was a minute "oh"  She glanced at the male with a new light in her eyes, searching for (and finding) similarities between this man and her father. She didn't doubt the validity of their relationship, and said, voice awed, "I've never met an uncle before." It sounded childish and odd to her own ears, but it was true, and the glint in her gaze was excitable.

 "He's well." she answered, still a little awed. "He leads my pack - Morningside - and I've got 2 brothers and 2 sisters." She rambled a little, perhaps out of character, but she wasn't sure what information one gave a long lost (or was it merely never-found) uncle.

Murdock let out a burst of laughter at Dawn's admission, but truthfully, he thought it was terribly sad. "I've met more nieces than I can count," said Murdock, eyes sparkling with similar humor. "Your granddad had eighteen cubs in his lifetime, and they're all breedin' like rabbits up north. Their kids, too."

He cocked his head, looking Dawn over once more. She was certainly a pretty one; in a year or two she'd be a knock-out, but he didn't think he'd ever look at her without seeing his baby brother. "But I'm glad to meet another. Especially one of Day's. I never thought we'd see that kid again," he murmured, wistful. They'd looked for him when they realized he should have been back, but by then, it was too late to track him. Honestly, they'd all sort of assumed he'd died out there, blind and alone.

But he'd survived and started a family. A small one, by Sameth measures, but it wasn't as though the rest of the litter had been very successful, either.

The girl's eyes widen at eighteen, (all at once? she knows that Khoe's birthing was messy affair, and she had had only three) and she wonders just how far her family stretches. Suddenly, it seems so much bigger than simply Da, Sunny, her siblings and Sunspot, and she wonders what her cousins must be like. For a while, she is content to speak with the man, telling him of her father and her siblings, and learning of him in return. Time catches up to her soon, however, and they part sometime in the afternoon, the girl eager to make the final leg of her journey, head abuzz with the sudden knowledge that her family stretches larger than she thought possible.