Honeyed Pasture kanivaun ╦

maybe @Penn? :o

the smell of the sea was upon the air.

kukutux had wrapped a white fur around her pale shoulders and gone from moonglow, walking until the water was a thin silver ribbon in the distance.

yet its expanse was known to her. she would begin her search here, and whispered a prayer of gratitude to the spirits that sialuk was ready to marry.

the tall grasses nearly swallowed the lithe, dark figure who traversed them now with singular purpose. cormorant sought the sea, having decided that a beachside vacation was sorely needed after the onslaught of the needy and unfortunate that had been unleashed upon him. he did not need more wounded birds to tend. whatever curse was upon him, cormorant would outrun it. he'd done it before - and like then, he did not care to know which of his sins had brought this plague to him.

when he caught the smell of salt in the air, cormorant knew he was heading in the right direction. he only prayed he would not run into any more wounded or ailing wolves on the way.

instead he found a woman wearing a pelt as pale as her fur and the scents of a dozen other wolves. more, perhaps. cormorant scented her before he saw her, and decided to allow their paths to cross when he determined that she was healthy. there was no scent of illness or injury on her, at least. no, she smelled like a mother, a wife, a pack wolf. normal and boring, which was perfectly acceptable to cormorant.

hello, he said politely. i'm looking for the coast - this seems close, but i'm not certain i'm going the right direction. would you happen to know which way it is?

The moment he’d left Fenn’s side, he’d regretted the decision. He should’ve gone after her. He should’ve told her about his kids, how he’d met one of them and now he needed to know if the others were okay (or if they existed). She already knew he was awful. He’d only ever judged him for being awful to her, never for what he’d done to others. Abandoning his kids was by far the worst thing he’d ever done, but maybe she would’ve understood. Maybe she would’ve come with him. Maybe he should’ve stayed with her.

These were futile thoughts, of course. If he’d acted fast enough, he could’ve found her and followed her. But, he hadn’t. She was gone, and Penn was off again on this fool’s errand.

Sticking towards the coast seemed to be working out well enough for him. It was different navigating with only his eyes, but he was pleased to find that it was too different. He grimaced when he came upon the pair of strangers. He wasn’t much in the mood for company. He wondered if he could just sneak off without being spotted, but he hesitated. Wasn’t he trying to find someone? Shouldn’t he talk to someone if he was looking for someone?

Penn huffed to himself in annoyance.


”North,” he said simply, answering the man’s question as he strode towards them. He looked them both over quickly and noted they were the wrong age to be his, but still. They might know something.

there was one man and then another. away from the spine, the duck was careful. her springjade eyes watched the first speaker and while her tail waved once with kindness, her posture did not relax. "the sea is that way," kukutux murmured, gesturing to the north. "it is not a long time away."

he had similar eyes to herself, she noticed. with a small pang that she had not expected, she saw that he reminded her of the blackfox, long dead and passed into sedna's embrace. his pelt held the hue of a darkening sky and his limbs were long like young willows.

the second man was the color of seafoam beneath the moon's eye. his leg was stiffened and his ears showed that he had fought at least once before. he gave his own directions and walked on, though the man seemed to hesitate.

kukutux, who had finished her silent observation of them both, smiled. "i am moonwoman of village moonglow." she tilted her crown southward. "why do you look for the long water?" she asked the first hunter who had spoken.

Penn's gaze slipped away from the male rather swiftly, uninterested. If this dude couldn't even find the ocean, he felt it pretty safe to assume he'd be useless in trying to locate a missing person. His attention was stolen by the female instead--a pretty thing, older, somehow enchanting. Just his type. Or, it had been when he'd been young and stupid and desperate for an older woman who could truly make him feel like he was a man.

Those were the days.

Her speech reminded him of that one girl he'd also been chasing after during his Brecheliant days. He couldn't think of her name and quickly dismissed the thought as irrelevant. Penn was quiet as the guy gave his answer to her question, then faded into background noise. He looked at the woman again and quirked a brow.

"Moonwoman?" Penn repeated, "Please tell me you have a brother named Sundude." He grinned, amused by his own brilliant wit.

the darker of the pair held her attention for a moment and then the greyrock was speaking again.

he teased. kukutux responded with a small glint of her teeth in a smile. "my husband, he has the name of sun man." she gazed at the one who had spoken. he meant to joke but he had said a name aloud.

her interest deepened.

"we are leaders to our people. there must be a balance within the village."

Penn snorted at her response, then paused. He quirked a brow at her as if to say really? But the question died on his tongue. She continued on, though the question lingered in his mind. She had to be screwing with him, right? What were the odds that one set of parents would name their kid Moon Woman and a second would name theirs Sun Man and they'd somehow find each other and live happily ever after? He was missing something.

Meanwhile, she continued talking. Ever the polite, attentive conversationalist, he didn't really listen. "Ah, yeah. Good stuff," Penn replied, distracted and quickly growing bored. "Say, you ever seen a girl around here with two different colored eyes? White fur with patches of brown?"

the man seemed ready to rush. it came to be seen that he searched for someone. the duck shook her head. "i have not seen anyone who wears such a parka." and two-colored eyes? odd. moonwoman wondered who this wolf was to the man before her.

"i will help you look for a time," she offered. her own search was internal. "what is the name that you have?" it was as good a place as any to begin her vetting, though she would keep her intentions muted and allow him to lead on.

Penn was really starting to wonder if he wasn’t completely insane for attempting to find this woman who had birthed his children. Especially because it meant he had to deal with loopy females like this one before him, but also because (as her comments quickly pointed out), he had pretty much nothing to go on.

If only he knew he didn’t even have the correct name of the one daughter he had met.

”I mean… I don’t know her name,” he replied, feeling annoyed now with the whole thing, ”She has a daughter named Penn, about a year old. Probably more…”

it was his relative but he did not know her name? moonwoman found this curious. "i will watch for her."

kukutux inclined her head, wanting to press on. "i search for a husband for my daughter. if you know these villages in this place, perhaps you will help me speak to them?" she suggested, testing him for a bright moment.