Though it was Cullen's gilded ribcage more than the Lagoon itself that Varanduil had come to think of as 'home', when he found himself bereft of his company, the loss was tempered by a spark of curiosity he'd struggled to keep muted until then. 'Clansmen,' Cullen had said once, but the only one Varanduil had ever truly met had been Kendry (a ghost of an ache made his ribs twitch at the memory), and now he found himself parched with a devastating thirst to find the rest of them. The Lagoon was a tangled, sprawling thing, and his brothers few and far between, or so his luck finding them would have him believe.

-Until, that is, a keening voice called out to him through the muggy summer air, and he spun and sprang after it like a hound to a whistle. It was better than he expected. There were two of them waiting for him, already in seemingly heated discussion as he neared enough to hear their voices, and one sounded like the boy who'd challenged Cullen's leadership. And there, across the shallow blue shoal, he was, along with a vaguely familiar figure- someone who had backed their leader with a fascinating mixture of both loyalty and resentment. It had baffled and intrigued him, as so many things that Cullen's presence stirred up did, and he very badly wanted to know more. Varanduil couldn't make out the words said over the lulling lap of water around his legs as he waded to them with magnetic intensity, but by the shifting of Fearghas' young, expressive face, it was not what he had wanted to hear.

"...no brother, Goose. Ye have a family and a home and a kid. Ye dinna belong here, making deals you don't understand." Ohh, he had teeth. Varanduil had expected more softness from that shadow-face, but he couldn't say he disliked this stern fire.

"-Then, would you have more time to speak with your real brother..?" he interjected swiftly as Fearghas began to ease dismissively away from the brassy-bronze curves of Goose. Sliding out of the shallow water and onto sand that quickly turned his damp, dark legs pale, he paused, glancing at the mysterious Goose from under his lashes, trying to absorb what answers he could glean from his white-spattered body (his honest, unhappy expression made his muscles tense), before tilting his narrow head to Fearghas. He opened his mouth to continue, but found himself simply studying the shimmery shadows of him for a moment; this boy who wished to strap himself to a load that would drag him down into mud that couldn't be washed away. In Cullen's steady, confident shadow, Varanduil always felt so terribly young and inexperienced. Here, standing across from Fearghas, he did not so much feel mature or prepared as he did a strange, alien, lovely, horrible sense of familial fear that he wasn't accustomed to, and wasn't quite sure what to do with.

"...Brother," he began gently (no, vulnerably, and he strangled the rest of his words back until he had tightened his voice into something almost as sleek and metallic as usual, straightening a little to add to the illusion), "I can't imagine you're eager to see me, but I promise you, my affection for you is real- as is my-" he hesitated, gingerly feeling out words that were not too tender, because he had always been better at being hated than liked, and he couldn't imagine that this stubborn shadow hadn't already decided- "concern for you.

"Fearghas." He tried to say it confidently, missing only slightly- perhaps close enough to be convincing to someone who saw what they were looking for. He forced his lean body to relax, idling back on his heels and lazily angling his snakelike neck. "I'm not here to argue with you, only listen, if you'd like me to. If you trust me to." Beginning to remember how to be languorously casual, he slid his gaze away to scan the treeline for more of their brethren, working not to look excited at the prospect. (It didn't hurt that not looking at Fearghas made it easier to forget that he didn't truly know how to act with family, and this act was a familiar one that fit much more comfortably when he wasn't meeting the young would-be usurper's serious eyes.) "It doesn't have to be about... This," he added smoothly, "if you... Had something else on your mind." '-Or you don't trust me not to run back to Cullen with your plans,' went politely unsaid, his black stare innocently watching a branch sway across the water.