the Ocean has its silent caves, deep, quiet, and alone;
though there be fury on the waves, beneath them there is none.
He’s expecting…something. More of a reaction, to his somewhat ill-advised lunge towards one of her son’s throats, but she seems to take it calmly in stride. There’s a flicker of interest deep in his chest, because he likes the calmness of her, and so he turns his green eyes away from the colts and watches her. She confirms her identity with a name, Carwyn, which Kellyn had given him before disappearing, and offers the names of the boys. Children his age – he hadn’t thought he wanted playmates since the first few lonely weeks of life, but having them within reach now makes him reconsider. “I’m Casimir,” he offers in return, and momentarily contemplates Mother.
“She didn’t say where she was going. She left me on the mainland.” He’s articulate, as he should be at his age, but more because she would never have tolerate anything less. The faster they grow up, the sooner she can leave them. Whatever she is looking for, she hasn’t found it in any of her children yet. “She didn’t say where she was going, but she didn’t want to see Ivar. Father.” It tastes strange on his tongue, the word father, because she never used it. Ivar might have been his father, but after she’d found out about Carwyn – more about Aeghir and Twyll, he supposes – he’d been nothing to Kellyn. Somehow because he found Carwyn interesting, he was beneath her.
Cas is still watching the boys, and wondering what it would be like to play, but in the next breath she sends them away and something inside him that he’s never felt before hurts. He is used to Mother’s casual rejection, but it’s a new hurt to have his sister send her children away from him. But a part of him understands – Mother can be casually cruel, can injure without thinking about it. He was raised by her, and Carwyn is right to be wary of him. He did already try to eat one, after all. Still, he droops a little and watches them out of the corner of his eye and tries to be brave. “Do you, um, know where my father is?” If his sister’s family isn’t going to be his family, maybe he can find it with his father.
@[Carwyn]