cod water

"Are you having trouble sleeping, Sena?"

She nodded, eyes squinted shut in an attempt to keep the foul lamplight out, and reached out unseeing to wrap her arms around her baba's leg.

Aegaeon did not mind this display of dependence, of attachment and affection, but it did hinder clear communication somewhat. In light of this, he bent down and retrieved Sena from the ground, lifting her up into their arms where she gladly tossed chubby, childish arms about their neck and shoulders.

"Is it the heat?"

"So hot!" Sena proclaimed. "Need cod water."

"Cod water..." Aegaeon mused. "I never would have thought you to be one for enjoying cod liver oil."

It was clear that Sena would have laughed were she not currently experiencing such discomfort. "No, no! Cod water - water!"

"Water that has passed through the gills of a bottom-feeder type fish?" But Alrest did not have deep-sea bed-dwelling wildlife, owing to its lack of any discernible seabed that any explorers, human or Blade, had ever seen, reached, touched.

Sena ceased to be amused, since this query came with no element of humor and she couldn't see Aegaeon's face to make out whether or not they were joking.

"Cod water..." she grumbled. "Brrr."

"Ah, of course," said Aegaeon, "cod water."

Shifting all of Sena's weight to his left arm, he proceeded down the corridor, away from the master bedroom wing where Mòrag and Brighid yet slumbered (perhaps wearing nothing at all, which would solve the issue of heat for them, or perhaps simply inured to it) toward the palace's kitchens.

Sena became subtly heavier as they walked, and Aegaeon knew she had fallen asleep easier thanks to the soothing pulse of his Core and his naturally cool disposition. Still, they kept pace for a circuit around the palace, stroking the miniature head covered in hair the color of Stream Navy until dawn.