He stands on the black sand beach, the waves lapping at his black legs. He watches the moon rise over the calm waters, bright glowing organisms alight as they crash gently into his ankles. His illuminated smoke billows from around his feet, rising to dissipate somewhere near his knees and hocks. A wind comes and sweeps his long hair away from his bright teal eyes, making his smoke dance. He lifts his head and looks down the dark beach, lit by the silver light of a full moon; he whistles. A pair of doberman type hounds come striding toward him, vanishing when they come within a few feet of him. “Good.” his voice rumbles. The souls summoned saw no sign of Gospel, the territory’s current leader.

Can it be his then? He questions, tipping his gaze to the moon. A place to finally rest – somewhere that isn’t the River or the arctic. Though he does love his brother from another mother, Leilan, and he always has appreciated the free pass to do pretty much nothing and still get to live in Icicle Isle, it is not the place for him. It isn’t even the cold, really, he likes a good hardy winter – it is the fact that it was ALWAYS WINTER. Like somewhere tropical having no season, this was the arctic for him, a seasonless barren land of boringness. And perhaps really it isn’t even that, and it is more that he never took the time to fall in love with it. Not like he fell in love with Silver Cove over 40 years ago, or even Hyaline less than 20 or so years ago – when it was a school yard for the young and bright.

The land has morphed and shifted and still the Cove remains. A little changed, but not so dramatically that it isn’t the same old hunk of beachland he fell in love with so long ago. He has memories of many relationships here, of children born and raised, fights one and lost. A family built and lost.

He was back.

chemdog

astra inclinant, sed non obligant.