Moonspear How long have I been on the hunt for you?

She was eager to produce concrete evidence of their union and who was he to deny her—he heard her again, carrying on through a post-coitus bliss that popped in and out like tinny static, telling him nothing he didn't already know. Moonspear, for all its breadth, was not teeming with the likes of wolves from stem to stern. It had never been difficult to determine who followed who, and where they chose to settle within the claim. At least, it had never been difficult for him.

He placated her with a noncommittal note at first, testing the air around them as though something may have been about to go astray. ”And you believe they'll approve of you and I?” he queried, falling back to old conversations. ”Or does it not matter,” he continued, then stretching with a slow roll to his back, ”perhaps you simply could not stand resisting my charm any longer and threw caution to the wind.” He was never certain of his approval, not at least with her parents. Charon was absent from the mountain and didn't count in his thoughts then, but Amekaze? Hard to say.

He could have really nipped it in the bud by finding out himself, but it never hurt to have a buffer.

”What did she say—your mother,” he pressed then, without waiting on an answer.