Totoka River compose a poem, an honest verse of longing

Seelie does!

“Carina,” Olive breathed, and for a prolonged moment Coelacanth regarded the mother-to-be with an expression of bashful bewilderment. Her delicately crafted head tipped first to the right, then to the left — and there it remained in an expression of puppyish inquiry, tufted ears erect and attentive upon her velveteen crown, Neptune eyes wide and limpid. It had been so very long since anyone had given the tiny Groenendael a new name or addressed her by her true name that ofttimes she didn’t feel real. Set adrift without a leader to guide her, frantically trying to hang on to the frayed ribbons of three tiny tugboats until they too floated away, she was a frail and wayward outrigger canoe in a vast and lightless ocean. Her heart was so loud, crying out for the wolves who had claimed her and left her, but the only creature on earth who could truly decipher her secret song was nowhere to be found. The misted druid’s sage-green gaze was heavy with prophecy as she gazed upon Seelie, and an uncertain bubbling of warmth both familiar and foreign strummed her heartstrings and stirred her feathered tail to waving. Joy. That was its name; she remembered now!

Comprehension dawned within the atramentous sheepdog’s pelagic gaze, and her tail began a sweet accelerando, thwpp-thwpp-thwpping wildly when it hit peak velocity. She followed the cant of Olive’s muzzle and gazed lovingly upon the night sky, her throat tight with words that longed ardently to break free. Her constellation seemed to wink at her, and despite the reverent silence of the moment, Seelie swore she could hear a soft, bell-like tinkling as each individual star became known to her. “Silly puppy,” bespoke her grandmother’s voice, warm and worn like a well-loved book tucked securely beneath one’s pillow for easy reach and safekeeping. “With the stars above you and the sea at your side, you will never be lost.”

The glimmer of tears lent Coelacanth’s seablue eyes a glittering reminiscent of bioluminescent plankton as she turned to the approaching daughter of the moon, and as Olive embraced her the little yearling quavered and uttered a single, hiccupping sigh. Starsilver pooled in her long-lashed eyes and melted into the velvet of her cheeks as she tucked herself firmly against the older female and felt against her flank the flutter of new life. Without speaking or moving away from her confidant, Seelie nodded acquiescence.

If she could find a way to answer Olive, she would.