hRhianne

I stand on the edge of the harbour wall, where everything is grey. The sky and the sea merge into each other, no horizon line to tell me where the world stops. The waves crash against the concrete wall I stand on, and some of the anger ebbs from me. The sea has always helped soothe my temper, even when the waves are at their worst. A few snowflakes fall around me, but they dissolve as soon as they hit the water. It takes a lot more than that to turn the sea to ice, the salt in the water fights back against Borga’s influence. Maybe another spirit controls it, and doesn’t like to share, maybe it’s simple chemistry. I know Rico will be following close behind me. He doesn’t seem like the type to give up easily, which is probably for the best. He wants me to go train with him, with others like me - as if I could stand them. I can barely stand myself some of the time. And to leave my brother behind, go out on my own. No. I’ve managed this long here, changing would only make things

Rico lowered his head as the snow drove at his eyes. At least the storm’s sudden arrival suggested he was going the right way. Solid grey clouds had swept into the clear, summer sky as he approached the beach, matching the grey of the sea stretching out beyond the concrete shell of the harbour. Sean had suggested that his sister might come here to settle herself, after their disastrous first meeting, but he hadn’t quite believed it’d be that easy. Looking at the small, grey tokota standing at the far edge of one of the harbour’s curved concrete outer walls, partially hidden by the waves crashing up against the barrier, he realised that simply knowing where she was didn’t help. He was going to have to walk out there, and with the growing storm where sea and sky blurred together into a solid expanse of grey only relieved by the snow and waves, both of which seemed determined to attack the harbour wall, that wasn’t going to be easy. But he had a new recruit to fetch, and he wasn’t going

While the little robots trundling around the forested valley hadn't reacted to the tokotas approach, the horned horses did not seem pleased to see the stranger coming. Lavaeolus was still waiting at the top of the mountains which sheltered the valley, looking down as Kirima, Tasha and Helena approached the horses, trying their best not to seem like stalking predators. Helena stopped the trio when they were getting close to the horses, so there were two or three body lengths between them. The tokotas looked between the horses and the robots, not sure if either were going to understand them beyond seeing them as predators, but figuring it was worth the trip. "We are peaceful visitors," Tasha said, trying to avoid showing too much of her teeth just in case. The robots didn't respond, continuing to circle the horses, paying more attention to the trees (which a few were carefully pruning) than the tokotas. The horses looked between each other, then one moved forward. "What brings you

Navigating Bemahrii could be tricky at the best of times. Toktna New Year was not those, and certainly not when Illyria, Cambiata, Carnation, Rex and Rupert were trying to track down Iljar, who'd come in to celebrate (and enjoy the free food which was on every street corner, and given out from all the cafes during the party) and then ended up lost and panicked when the fireworks started going off. And, unfortunately, when a 75% dire started to panic, he made it everyone else's problem as well, with reports coming in as quickly as the tokotas could follow up on them of Iljar racing through crowds of human children, knocking some of them down, overturning long tables set up in the streets for eating, as well as racing through an area set up for crafting. At least that meant he was now easy to track, as the tables had been set up with enough glitter to make fireworks cards for as many children as wanted them, of whichever species, so the dire was now trailing multicoloured glitter behind

It was far too hot. A heatwave had snuck up on Coastal Tyonek, turning the Anniversary Celebrations into tokotas lying in the shade panting, or hiding under the boardwalk, dipping their paws in the sea and looking at the bonfire with an expression of disbelief that anyone had thought this was a good idea to set up. A whole host of activities were arranged along the beach, but most of them were being ignored in favour of staying cool. Teasly was still enjoying herself, even if only because she'd found a section of deeper water under the boardwalk where she could mostly just lie in the sea, looking back onto the beach at the various entertainments with an expression of longing. Rex had found a space in the waters beside her, hiding in the shade from the sun which turned his black coat into a heat sink, alongside Cambiata who was similarly suffering from the heat due to her larger size. Caweys was still trying to both enjoy herself and keep her fur pristine, so had settled for lounging

Karhu was back to her usual, excessively cheerful self now that she was on solid ground again, and the prospect of needing to round up raptors for study wasn't interfering with that. She'd got a couple of the other tokotas to help - Carnation and Cambiata as muscle, just in case the raptors decided to fight back, while Illyria and Rupert were along to help with speed. Rex was strange, in that he was also capable of being a raptor, but that had already helped Dr Mitchel work out how high the fences needed to be on the catch pen so the raptors couldn't just leap back out of it again. Karhu hadn't waited for long after the pen had been set up to head off in search of raptors - she rarely had patience, and particularly not when there was adventure and excitement to be had. Cambiata and Carnation were left trailing behind her, while Rupert and Illyria only just managed to catch up with her as she left the research camp and headed out into Fosbir's wilds in search of raptors. Rex had been