Sea Lion Shores mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird

The bright bands of her ribcage no longer echoed the state of her physique. Moorhen had filled out into a muscular, well-insulated wolf - not exceptionally large, but exceptionally sturdy, and by no means small. Moorhen, though, had no way of knowing this. When she thought of herself at all, she still thought of a starveling girl, not yet big enough to be on her own, but big enough to give you a run for your money.

But only rarely did she think such abstract thoughts. Why should she when there were mouths to feed and babies to protect and an island to skulk about?

Moorhen wasn't on the island today. She'd dreamed of Maegi the night before, and so she'd battled against the waves today to visit the mainland. If there were traces of the pale girl's scent, she would follow them. And, if not, she would stretch her legs and roll in some sea lion scat and be on her way.

*coughs* i hadda do it

more or less she knows she will remain by govinda, for the time being. still the same selfish, silly girl then, letting herself drift from man to man. what is that saying? third time's the charm. at least govinda has not made any designs on her yet, nor, truly, even asked of her to stay. no, hamartia made that decision on her own and she will stand by it. 

there is something alluring about govinda that makes her want to.

she has not thought to travel up the coast for some time, too afraid of what unbidden histories she might encounter. the farther from her own past she stays the better. today though some unknown force calls to her, urges her to travel; well, so long as she keeps hugging the shore, surely it will be fine. 

or so she thinks, but suddenly the lonely shore is filled by warm oak brown, all she can see. frozen suddenly, hamartia feels her legs tense. she could run; she could turn and make her way back as she came, back to the coconut groves and govinda and her pretty fantasy of starting over new. of course, how could she have forgotten, she knows sif went to the island, they'd spoken of it, the last brief encounter they had. 

hamaria can't bring herself to come closer nor can she bear to leave. swallowing air she breathes, "funny, i distinctly remember being the same height as you," each word on the verge of collapse.

maybe sif won't remember her at all.

The Cairn girl was glad enough to see her friend. Their last meeting had been short but pleasant, if not a little bittersweet. Thus, she started toward the familiar figure with her tail wagging lazily behind her. Her ears swivelled curiously at the other woman's words - Moorhen was capable of teasing and recognizing when she was being teased, but this time, the words missed the mark. She wasn't sure what the other woman meant by that (she was not aware she had grown) and in any case, she had outgrown the sort of frivolity she'd enjoyed in the past.

"Hello," she greeted, still blithely closing the distance between herself and the other woman. It was only when she was close enough to smell that Moorhen drew back, a stricken look overtaking her stoic features. It was not Poet she was smelling, but Aditya. She paused several feet away, waving between the desire to close the distance and to turn away from the traitor's scent. "You smell like a wolf I know," Moorhen explained, still uncertain. "A bad, bad wolf."

sif is not the same as she once was; neither is hamartia. she looks healthy and grown. despite herself, the woman feels a pang of longing for having missed her ex sister-wife's development. perhaps she should have followed her from bearclaw valley all those months ago as she'd secretly desired, but held back for fear of suffocating the girl. how different could things have been? would she still wear her old name on her tongue, all blatant sacrilege and undeserving arrogance? sif's stricken look neatly coincides with hamartia's thoughts, and for a moment she thinks she must have spoken aloud, eyes widening imperceptibly. 

but she hasn't. instead it is some other thing, a smell she carries that sif does not like. a bad, bad wolf. her brows furrow, uncertain. "who is this bad wolf?" hamartia asks, voice low and gentle, but curious, too. there is, after all, a narrow list of options that sif could be referring too; she's only been in the company of one wolf as of late, however limitedly. but she will not out him by name, not yet, not until she hears the brushed umber girl speak. after all, hamartia herself could easily be called a bad, bad wolf.

Moorhen's brow furrowed as she tried to think of how to explain. "Aditya," she replied, still mulling over her next words. "A gold wolf, with gold eyes. He was the leader of Morningside - a pack where our cousins lived. But he came and attacked our Stockholm, and he shed the blood of the innocent. Even Coelacanth," she said, her words no less emotive for all that they were slow and careful. The look on her face suggested that this was a grevious offense indeed. "He couldn't kill our Stockholm, so we sent him away alive."

It was more than he had deserved, in her opinion, but she had learned to keep her opinions of others to herself. Besides, she could not understand what had driven the male to attacking them. He had loved Coelacanth, she thought. Had loved Undersea and its wolves. Moorhen suspected some grevious illness of the mind had affected him, but even so, she could not forgive him.

"He attacked without reason," Moorhen added, remembering words that others had said. "He said - he wanted to take our Aralez away from us. From Stockholm, and from her island."

as sif begins to speak, hamartia realizes her error: not in consenting to stay with govinda, for his crimes are no worse than her own, but in letting her sister-wife reveal too much. now she can collect all of govinda's secrets, and spare him none of her own, if she chooses. this is different than with phocion, who was good, and pure, and did not deserve the weight of hamartia's history. she does not understand every word that sif reveals, but the look on her face speaks volumes enough, and so she commits each foreign name and word to memory. a reserve, of sorts.

carefully she says, "i see," her expression somber. she does not want sif to think she is taking this lightly; she just does not know her sister-wife's own harmed soul. "your aralez is still alive, then? do you know what their relationship might have been?" for sif's attacked without reason sits strangely to hamartia's mind. perhaps he did. hamartia does not know him well enough to assess, nor has she decided if she is going to reveal her knowledge to him (though should she, she wants to know as much as she can).

Moorhen shrugged; "Family," she replied, because that was all she really knew about the Morningside wolves. They were Coelacanth's (and Undersea's, by extention) family. "He wanted to take her, so he attacked us. Her loves," she added, her explanation made clumsy by her inability to understand Aditya's logic. "Because if her loves are dead, she might go with him." Maybe. But more likely, she would have hated him all the more, would she not?

It didn't really matter to her why he had done these things. That he had done them was enough to earn her ire and her fear, and if she met him away from the Aralez's eyes, she knew that she would do her best to kill him. Not for herself, but for the good of the world. There was no room in the wilds for a savage creature like that. Moorhen didn't want Undersea's children to go out from the island while he still walked the earth.

her expression remains neutrally interested, eyes guarded. to give away her own lack of response to what sif clearly regards as a high crime would be to out herself as equally criminal, and, although foolish, part of her wishes to still be held in her good esteem. hamartia conjures a faintly aggrieved expression as sif finishes her explanation, murmuring "a shame, then." 

straightening her posture, she adds, "i appreciate your.. warning," her voice gentle. oh, but she does so want to keep sif's memory of her intact, and so she lies. "i will stay away from him," she says, "i did not know his history." the second is a truth, though of course knowing has only made her more intrigued to keep his company, understanding, finally, why she felt so drawn to him. they are kindred spirits in sin. 

Moorhen accepted this with an uncertain snuffle, anxiety rippling down her back and then seeming to dissipate. Poet would be careful - and in any case, Moorhen doubted Aditya's aggression would be triggered by a stranger. His maddness seemed to have been caused by his desire to possess the Aralez, and Moorhen still remembered the way that Doe had cherished her, and how her pale uncle had thought her some minor witch of the waves.

Perhaps there was something to that. Moorhen thought about it for a moment, and then connected Thresher's witchcraft with her mother's bewitching ways - it made a sort of sense.

"Good," she said with a wag of her tail, moving forward to offer Poet a tentative nuzzle. "Peace be, sister." And then she continued on her way, still intent on combing the area for signs of Maegi. Perhaps seeing the pale girl would help stitch together some of the wounds Aditya had dealt her.