Wheeling Gull Isle bermuda, bahama; come on, pretty mama

She reads within the manuscript of his stiffly-etched framework that he is as unprepared for their interaction as she — perhaps even less so, if she is to make assumptions based on the brief flicker of alarum in his goldleaf eyes. There is something dark about those eyes — a patina grave and bitter enough to encapsulate eons of gnawing sorrow — that pulls at her in a way her tormented psyche can scarcely comprehend. She ought to be frightened. He eclipses her in height and breadth, and there is nothing about him that welcomes her company; she has cowered and run from and warned off wolves far smaller and more kindly than him.

She cannot turn away from his pain.

He sinks to his haunches like a soldier who has walked through warzones, over bodies; he slumps like Atlas, bowed beneath the weight of the world. He offers her a low chuff, the set of his shoulders betraying that this aural olive branch is the most and best he can offer her, and something flickers in her greedy, wary eyes. Keeping her distance, she closes her senses to the outside world and opens herself wholly to Stockholm: tufted ears tip forward upon her gently sloping crown, each feathered bulb cupped attentively toward him; bright cerulean eyes search dusky gold; and she takes the first tentative step in a slow progression of tentative steps toward him. The intensity of her sheepdog’s stare is still ambiguous — even Seelie doesn’t know, at this point, whether she seeks to comfort him or lay claim to him.