The wings knows something. The dove hasn't stopped harassing the cherub for the better part of the afternoon, soaring on fluttering wing over the seaspray before looping back to Cupid and cooing insistently at him.

He doesn't know what she sees, but he follows her dutifully. Past the meadows filled with the stamping of their hardy island ponies, past the shrine to Aphrodite sitting clad in sea-shell and sea-salt and a drying set of narcissus blooms, past the cliffside Trygve slipped out of his grasp upon, and onto the sprawl of sandy beach that formed this side of the bridge that marked the crossing path for visitors. In the right season and tide, of course.

The wings trills low in her throat, and feathers rustle noisily in the dove-god's ears as the bird takes her seat perched over the knobs of his spine. Worked into a frenzy, the dove ruffles her feathers and shakes her head, then turns to self-soothe and groom her long, pristine flight feathers.

Cupid halts upon the beach, tilts his head into the wind to listen for what he's here for. A visitor? An invader? A washed-up cub or a particularly exciting piece of driftwood? The wings' priorities are sometimes...less than accurate to his own.

His nose, however, is a cunning sense. The wind shifts, carrying the sting of salt rubbed into a wound, and - there.

His daughters smell of the night. As if they are born of the darkness that Cupid's sharp vision was so mercilessly cast into, they live inside of that expansive abyss without fear, without blindness, without cold.

The cherub's paws move swiftly over familiar sands, his tail bannered behind him like a beacon. A muddle of voices clear as he closes the distance with his chin high and spirits higher. Bragi! A tilt of his head in her direction, the scent of a thousand stars winking from high overhead. As wonderous, as bright, as they are unreachable. Something burns brighter in his subtlest of children, the most troubled of their number, but Cupid cannot tell yet the reason. She has been absent since...since Apollo. Since...

Cupid was a god first, and a god still; his wings are clipped just so he can remain within this cage of a body, and it is blessing as much as it is curse. And even so, he has no such mortal qualms. Did she kill the boy?

Does he care? All six of his fledglings, dead or alive, scattered or tucked safely in his arms - they are the progeny of his heart's greatest desires. They are his. She is his. She could raze the earth, salt and burn it behind her. She will still be his; welcomed and cherished.

His nose swings in the direction of the powdery scent of owl feathers, the sharpness of the sea, Sindri, the shining one even amid the darkest nights. The last of his mischief left to Cupid's grasp - and how she reminds him of her fathers! She gives him the same kind of headache Loki did, so brash, so headstrong, so independent! And he sees Tyr in her too - she is kind, but willing to fight for her vision of justice. He veers in her direction, for this daughter has always welcomed his affection - her temples, to place the offering of a pecking kiss, gratitude for her safe return!

There is another presence, sensed by the way the seabreeze bends and quiets around his form. Known by the scent of freshwater dew and exposed slate, hovering near the diminutive stature of the dove-god's runt. Close enough the wind bends around both of them, close enough that Cupid navigates to Sindri by the warmth radiating off the pair of them.

Paternal fury threatens to ignite, but the archer quells it for now. Now is the time to welcome his children back into the flock.

Welcome home, my children. Warm, joyous, Cupid's tail fails entirely to cease wagging. And welcome to Skjoldrheim. He inclines his head in the man's direction coolly. Probably just a recruit. And how thoughtful of Sindri! He noses affectionately at his daughter's cheek. You're late, Sindri. Teasing, mostly, with a thread of I worried, of course within.