Wheeling Gull Isle another tomorrow

Reigi had been becoming more agitated the more pregnant Coelacanth got. It was like she was being forced in two; the instinctive part of her wanted to protect Seelie and her Island, and the other half had begun to deeply resent the inkdog and her snowbear.

She knew that Coelacanth did not deserve her ire. The Aralez was not Indra, she had done nothing malicious to drive Reigi to these feelings, so the winter raven isolated herself instead and took solely to @Yakone's company. Words were hard; sometimes she could find them and sometimes she couldn't and these feelings were so delicate and intricately woven that she couldn't begin to unravel them.

The puppies did not think of her as their momma. When they reached out, they reached out for Seelie, who was going to have her own litter with her own mate and would have the privilige of an intact family. To Reigi, it felt as if she had taken the orphans, too, and while they hadn't been replacements for her own children they had helped fill the hole that Nuna and Mar had left.

Seelie loved deeper than Reigi had a capacity for. She loved better than Reigi could. Faster than Reigi could. She was soft in a way Reigi had thought she was soft until she had been once again shown that she was wrong. And being able to love was all that Reigi really had left.

If she spent time with anyone aside from her daughter, it was @Komodo. The virile swain had a nature that was so endearing to her. Being around him lifted her spirits if only because she understood nothing about him — how he worshipped the gods, how he pruned herbs from the ground. His scent was a comfort to her, one she did not reward herself with often.

And it was because of this she had agreed to accompany the man away from Undersea even though it hurt her heart. They would travel as a family, and Reigi would allow the time to find herself along the way.