[AW] hymns of salt and terror;

[Amaroq]

in his own country Death can be kind The storm rages in earnest now, rain in sheets and lightning arcing overhead, only visible as a flash through the canopy of trees. The leaves shudder and twist in the wind, flashing silver and green, and as the doe vanishes in the brambles Amaroq wishes, for a moment, that he had kept to the sea. There is little he can claim to love, but to wait below the waves while a storm roils overhead, to watch the lightning split the sky, to feel the turbulence sing in his blood - that he can appreciate. But he is not in the sea. And he puts away that wanting as he studies the mare, bright and vital against the dark forest. There is too much distance between them for him to scent the blood on her; the rain lashing has washed clean her sins. But the kelpie regards her plainly, the way she stands, the tilt of her head, the storm-soaked sleekness of her skin. When she speaks he flicks an ear forward, but if he is surprised at what she says nothing of it registers on his face. His expression remains as impassible as ice, the rise and fall of his breathing as even as the tide. Oh, Amaroq is still hungry. But the doe is forgotten, like a seal below the ice. At last he lowers his head a fraction, his horn pointing at her like a blaming finger, a challenging sword. “Almost does nothing to fill my belly,” he says, low. Where the rain touches him it begins to turn to ice; a raindrop is frozen midway as it slides down his ivory horn. For a moment he only breathes out another breath of mist, as though he stands in midwinter and not a summer storm, and then he adds, “Won’t you come closer?” There is an echo of the command he had used on the doe, but only an echo; there in his voice, mingled with the hunger, is a curiosity just as sharp. Like any beast of tooth and claw, Amaroq can sense the difference between predator and prey. @Euryale <3 amaroq