Sea Lion Shores you bring out the best in me

[throws a novel at you both]

There was something solemn about this moment — a formal splitting of the sisters’ paths that felt frightening and final even though they would only be a couple days’ travel from one another. At once, Coelacanth flew to Catori’s side and tucked herself beneath the older girl’s chin, turning so that they were heart to heart. Trembling, she craned her swanlike neck to rest her chin across her cousin’s shoulders. Assailed with a wave of worry so high and violent she feared she’d drown in it, Coelacanth drew back and then spared a glance between Catori and Stockholm, her Neptune eyes filled with questions. How were they going to know if Catori needed them? What if Seelie missed something terribly important? She wanted her island — she felt, deep in her bones, that something about it called to her — but she needed to believe that the Spiritwalker would be safe.

The events that had transpired since Seelie had made a home of the Teekon Wilds had changed her irrevocably. A year or two ago, she would have heard these reassurances and believed them without qualm — the blind trust of the wholly innocent had been hers to own then. Now, though, she knew that all the times she had been called ”Bad Dog” really meant nothing in the grand scheme of things — there were truly bad wolves who hurt others for no reason except their own pleasure.

For a moment her usually placid expression was stormy and distressed, the uneven heave of her breath apparent as the swell of her rib cage rose and fell with fluttery haphazardness.

Then she remembered.

This was the girl who talked to spirit bears — who hunted king sea lions with all the grit and toughness the Cortens were known for. Catori could survive anywhere; Riptide had seen to it that all his children and his children’s children were just as adept at securing land prey as they were at gleaning sustenance from the sea. Acknowledgement of Catori’s strength and the fragility that lay in the convex curve of her belly grappled with each other; Seelie held her body taut against its violent roiling. She summoned a smile. A nod. “You have my support,” bespoke the gentle press of her nose against the base of the other girl’s cream-colored ear. She breathed out softly, not enough to tickle — a sigh of resignation. Then, for the first time in her cousin’s presence, Seelie spoke:

“C-Cat — Catori, loff!” she fairly hiccupped out, her silky susurrus tripping shyly from her lips. Her feathered tail wiggled wildly behind her as she gave her cousin the only gift she could: the first “I love you,” she had given to anyone in her family. Fear of changing who she was had kept her from doing so with her aunts and uncle, and even with her beloved twin; but she trusted the Spiritwalker to love her the same. In the same breathlike whisper, “Stockholm keep me,” she informed her cousin, sharing her own happy news. She had asked the Gampr to tie an ampersand indelibly between their names in mid-February — on Valentine’s Day! — and although they hadn’t really gone “public” with the news until now, few would probably have been surprised.