Cerulean Cape silver-spun and scintillating

She could feel him.

@Amoxtli’s familiar blip on Coelacanth’s radar had been absent for so long that she’d almost forgotten what it felt like — but here it was again, a rhythmic pulse that reassured her of his wellbeing and nearness. She hadn’t seen him for over a year but believed that if he was here — and Catori had said he was! — the Hunter’s Moon would draw him to the sea. Tense with waiting, she removed herself from the gathering where introductions were still being made and reunions still being celebrated, isolating herself even from her beloved protector. There was a selfishness in the tiny Groenendael, born of a certain insecurity. If her fire-and-embers dragon of a twin had greeted any other wolf at the gathering before greeting her, she might have endured a peculiar sort of hurt.

She waited at the water’s edge, spindly forelegs steeped in the gentle froth of the ocean shallows, marveling at the reddish moonglade that stretched from the moon itself all the way to shore. The hunt would commence soon, and excitement still drummed hotly through her bloodstream, but she was caught up in her thoughts. What would Amoxtli think of her now? They’d always been fraternal twins, and the new scars that littered her body were invisible beneath her feathery fur, but she felt as though the ugliness of the events that had caused them lingered on her skin like an indelible stain. How many rivers had she tried to wash them away in, now?

Not even the salt of the ocean could absolve her of the sins others had left behind.

What if Amoxtli, mirror of her soul, could see them? Smell them? Seelie didn’t think she could bear to see her imperfections reflected on her perfect twin, but she couldn’t hide them from him.

Something had told him; something in him knew that he was to seek out his ink-cloaked twin on the night of the orange moon. There was a singing in his soul that had led him across the twisting valley and through perilous terrain in order to reach where his sweet Seelie would be. Catori had asked him if he had found her, but he had provided her with a sad response. Try as he might, Amoxtli had not happened upon the scent of the dark-furred female, and it had broken a part of him to be so far from her. Still, the night of the moon was a night of celebration, and the Tervuren knew that his sister would not sit by beneath such a beautiful display of light and power. So, he had made his way to the ocean and it was there that he had hoped to see his beautiful twin once more.

When he had arrived, it seemed that there was quite a commotion with the natives. Fearful of the loud noises and the strange faces, Oxtli tried his best to steer clear of most of them. He could hear some claiming to be Corten, though he did not believe it to be true. It had appeared that a grey-furred brute had made the remark, and Amoxtli had cast him a curious glance in hopes of recognition but found that he had never seen the creature before in his life. Perhaps he was a later Corten and did not belong to the immediate family; still, as interested as he was, the Tervuren was not sure that he could muster the wild noise that was being made by the party. There was a brief flash of regret on his youthful face before he latched his gaze on a figure in the water – her fur was dark as the night sky.

No words were necessary. Amoxtli's limbs carried him past the group of strangers and wild wolves. He raced through sand, kicking it up behind him and spraying those around the wolfdog with a complete lack of care. All that he could see was her. His heart thrummed so wickedly inside of his chest that he wished he could pry his rib-cage open to set it free. The closer that he grew to her, the more he doubted she was actually there, until he could taste her scent on the wind and his mouth opened to release a whispered cry that exited his mouth in the form of a strangled gasp. He could not contain himself; he needed to feel her.

Without warning, the limber-legged boy leaped through the air and struck against her with his chest, sending them both toppling into the sea. Amoxtli had needed to feel her body against his own; he had needed to know that he wasn't dreaming of her shape. Water washed over his frame and the hound shuddered against the cool touch. A sharp stinging in his eyes let him know that he was very much alive and had toppled himself into the ocean water. For this, he was grateful. At least he knew that he was not in a dream. While he had conjured such fantasies before, this was all too real. The waves bit against his flesh and he shivered. Still, he did not care that they would flounder for a moment. He cared only that he had – at long last – found his beautiful sister.

The hum of sound engendered by the lunar festivities blotted out Amoxtli’s approach to a certain degree — but that single, throttled gasp cut through the din like a knife and kicked Coelacanth’s aching heart into overdrive. She turned, but already he was upon her, and in a tangled pile of wispy fur they toppled into the ocean. Were she able, Coelacanth would have unleashed a mess of whimpering, whining, keening cries at the fierce pleasure-pain of their reunion — but even without a voice, the scalloped gradient of her ribs stood out plainly beneath the soaked silk of her pelt and heaved visibly with great, shuddering breaths. The cold shocked the air right out of her, but after a moment she didn’t feel it. She attacked her twin with the pent-up affection of long months without him, her Neptune eyes luminous with tears that streamed seamlessly into the rolling sea.

She pushed her tiny body into his like an insistent cat’s, twining around him, trying to crawl under him or clamber over him — she trembled with more than just cold. Her breath came in a series of shuddering, sobbing gasps, each punctuated with a crystalline cloud of white. Amoxtli! Seelie was a creature built for loving, with a singular desire to have that love reciprocated, and not even her requited affection for Stockholm compared to the feeling of being reunited with the torn-away half of her soul. Slim jaws parted to mouth at the underside of her twin’s jaw; she clasped her spindly forelimbs around his neck in a sweet hug. All the while, little whimpers and whines danced up and down the hollow column of her throat. She felt, rather inanely, that she was both being reborn and rebuilt and breaking apart at every seam. Nothing could have prepared her for this.

When at last the heartbreaking happiness of being with Amoxtli again subsided to something only slightly more manageable, Seelie pressed her muzzle to the bulb of his ear and whuffed a sigh of blissful contentment. “Where did you go?” bespoke the tilt of her head and the airy whisper of a whine that trailed from her lips, her cerulean eyes fixed in worshipful awe upon his face. There was no accusation in the small girl; she did not demand to know or even question why he had left her alone. She simply wanted to know of his adventures — and hoped that the world had been kinder to Amoxtli than it had been to her. He was a Corten, built for a colorful life, and all was forgiven.

He could not believe it; she was there, and he could feel her heart beating against his own. The feathery reaches of her pelt brushed against his, and he could not contain the feverish burn of love that was erupting within his gut. Each jittery movement was accompanied by a whispered whine that rattled in depths of his throat. Her arms were around his neck and he pressed his nose into her cheek, her neck, beneath her chin, and anywhere else that he could reach. Amoxtli did not want to ever forget the scent of his other half. The Tervuren mix wanted to have it etched in the deepest parts of his soul so that he might never be without her again. Still, he could not hold himself still and his legs danced along the ground with each wag of his tail that rocked his rear end from side to side.

The questions that flickered across her face were clear. She had wanted to know where he had gone. The young boy felt almost foolish having left her behind for so long. If he could speak, he would spin her great tales of adventures and treasures that he had found and buried for a later day – for when he could take her there in person. As if to respond, the black-masked male cast his head down the coast and stared off into the great wilderness. Where he had gone, well it didn't matter all that much because he had returned for her. With a sparking realization, Amoxtli looked to her with wide eyes and a beaming smile on his dark lips before he bound back to the sands and sniffed against the earth manically. His tan legs carried him to and fro in search of something and he furrowed his brow in frustration at not being able to locate it. It was his reason for having held it so close to him while he traveled. Sniffing and watching for a sign, he stopped suddenly and pressed his nose into the sands, using his paw to scuffle away the remainder of it.

Clutching the stone in his mouth, the Tervuren mix turned back to his sister and beckoned her to approach him, to stay with him so that he might present her gift. It was not much in comparison to the months that she had spent on her own, but it was his reminder of her throughout his journey. The stone that was held softly between his teeth was the color of a Caribbean sea on a sunny day. It danced with turquoise and teal with shadows of navy. It was shaped roughly like an egg, and polished smooth. He had never seen anything quite like it before, and it was intended for her. Bobbing his muzzle up and down, he spun in a circle and wheezed softly.

Coelacanth hustled the seawater from her pelt with a vigorous shake, her feathery fur whittled into a confusion of sea urchin spines. She tipped her finely-sculpted head to the right, then the left, as she watched her twin sweep the shoreline with an obsessive air. Her tail whipped cheerfully against her hocks as she mirrored his steps, brimming with excitement, following him blindly though she had no way of knowing how to help him find what he sought. Instead of helping him, her inclination was to hamper and distract — she nibbled lovingly at his hip or his shoulder or his flank, whatever she could reach, whenever he wandered within reach; and when finally he stopped and beckoned her with a glance, she bounded forward with a glad toss of her head.

Oh…

Her movements were birdlike and quick as she cocked her head and peered more closely at the stone clutched with infinite care between her twin’s teeth. Over time, Seelie had developed a penchant for collecting things as a way of coping with her loss of Amoxtli — but with her imprisonment, she had lost everything. Tufted ears folded delicately against her head as she approached him, aware that the colors of the stone matched the pleochroic blue of her eyes almost perfectly. She had nothing to give him in return. Though she’d stored things almost obsessively in preparation for his return, the previous year’s spring thaw had washed all those beautiful mementos away. Feeling inadequate, she watched as he spun a light-footed circle.

Knowing that her delighting in his present would be gift enough to her twin, Coelacanth allowed all the joy and fondness she felt to crest up and over the heavy, immutable wall of shame and sorrow that had solidified within her over time. “It is so beautiful!” she thought, pirouetting upon her hind paws before leaping and whirling in place like a happy spinner dolphin. She reminded herself of all the things she had to be grateful for and pranced up to him on sprightly paws, pressing herself carefully into the crook of his throat with a contented coo and a purr. “Thank you.”