Wheeling Gull Isle the hour of death

Tagging leadership @Coelacanth @Stockholm; and tagging @Relmyna just so you see this too!

He took her words to heart; his heart, which had been obliterated so cleanly by Maegi's sudden appearance, by her banishing of him. Titmouse did not linger long in that spot once she'd sped off. He wanted to go after her — chase her until the world was dust and they were lost among the stars together, but she had been right to cast him away. It was for his own safety. He didn't like it, but she was protecting him. So, the young man had thought quickly and composed a strategy for his own survival.

He raced along the chilly beach until he came to the familiar land bridge that led to Undersea, and without calling for aid or alerting anyone of his arrival (in case Maegi's follower, the Redhawk, were to hear him), he charged along the bridge until he came to the island's edge. It wasn't the best place for him to hide; the island might have been far removed from the mainland (especially so when the bridge was submerged) but it was small, with few places for him to hide. For now, Titmouse lingered on the beach and crawled haphazardly across the scattered rocks and shells, until he found himself situated beside a few large logs cast aside by the tide - some boulders too, anything that he could hunker beside while he awaited his inevitable discovery.

Tagging people for reference. ♥ Let me know if I need to change anything!

The temperature had dropped significantly, and dark clots of threatening thunderclouds were starting to saturate the sequoia-spangled seaboard. In some places, fragments of the winterstorm had already hit — coconuts from the mainland grove had been surfacing with increasing frequency to nestle on Wheeling Gull Isle’s shores, some of them charred with the same damp woodsmoke aroma that the winds had carried. Seelie and Stockholm had asked that @Driftwood, @Droman, @Rehan, and @Blossom help keep the pack’s guppies safely ensconced in the Labyrinth, and scouting missions for @Thresher had been doubled, with @Komodo, @Moorhen, @Hemlock, @Reed, and @Rokig all taking active part in aiding her parents’ search.

The closer the storm drew, the more intent the sheepdog became. Though she had stepped down from the pack’s helm to focus on finding her missing daughter, she had never been so assertive. She had chosen the teams with razor-edged purpose. Komodo, Moorhen, Hemlock, Reed, and Rokig were all highly respected and deeply loved pack members that Thresher knew and would hopefully recognize upon sight or sound, if not scent. Driftwood, beloved of all the Seelholms, would ensure that the occasionally willful puppies wouldn’t make a wild break for it with two new guardians in place. Koi had taken a special shine to both Rehan and Blossom, but she was still wont to disobey if she thought she could get away with it. The one unknown was Droman — he had become something of a recluse, and Seelie could make neither heads nor tails of him. The only reason she didn’t ask him to join the search was because she genuinely didn’t know how to talk to him at all anymore.

She was waiting impatiently for Stockholm to return from a scouting trip, restlessly tracing the new high tide line with restless paws, when she caught a painfully familiar scent. With a considerable amount of trepidation — the past tended to hurt when it resurfaced — she followed her nose and stopped several meters away from the whitewater wolf she had come to love so dearly. She looked, automatically, for @Maegi — but although Reed had seen the Melonii girl recently, she didn’t seem to be anywhere around. “Mou,” she breathed softly, her delicate features creased with concern. All the anger she’d been hanging onto fell abruptly away at the sight of him, so broken and frail. He had some new scars, but she didn’t cross the distance to investigate. She didn’t know what to do, honestly. “Peace be,” she whispered, a question in her eyes that couldn’t be injected into her hollow utterance.

The events leading him here were few and far between, but he had not yet started to process them. As he sat in wait for discovery, things began to creep through his thin veil of composure. He was hunkered there upon the sand with boulders and discarded trees as cover, very unlike his first arrival to the island — but still a piece of detritus, a nagging piece of meat stuck between the teeth of the world. While he sat there, his mind began to play back the last time he'd seen Maegi — her panic, her heart breaking as she cast him away. It was for the greater good. It was to keep him safe, to keep them all safe. Redhawk would never stop until he was dead but — but his thoughts weren't about his own safety right now. He imagined Maegi's face. The contours of her cheek bones, the lively color of her eyes, the grin cleaved through her skin...

Titmouse gasped and a sob came out, but there wasn't time for him to feel the full piteous effect of the moment because there was a familiar face creeping closer. For now, he'd stash away his emotions and do his best to -- well, he wasn't sure. Explain why he was there, for one. But as soon as he looked at Seelie he felt his heart fill with a mess of new emotions, and let out another gasp for air like he was coming up from a deep dive in the middle of the sea.

He missed the way she said his name; it wasn't him anymore, but semantics weren't the problem. As she came closer he rose up and moved to intercept her, and when he was close enough - whether she wanted it or not - he buried his face against her salt-lined scruff and hugged her tightly in the body-twisting manner that wolves did to long lost family. See, he sighed in to her fur, See, I... I nee' stay, can — can stay? He pulled back from his embrace and blinked at her with that one good eye of his, and it glimmered in the winter light, layered with thick tears.

Titmouse’s sharp, gasping sob invoked an answering hitch of Seelie’s lungs, evinced in the faint fluttering of her concave flanks. The desperate, lonely way he cleaved to her as she approached was all the invitation she needed — and the jagged edges of inflamed tissue that bordered the exit wound he’d left began to heal. She craned her neck and tried to shield his taller frame from the world that had treated him and Maegi with such needless cruelty. On the tip of her tongue was her customary promise — “Welcome ever,” — but Aditya’s return had made her cautious. “Ever” was a long time, and her trust had been frayed and stormtossed and singed.

After a moment’s hesitation, “Yes,” she breathed simply. “Stay.” She began to bathe his face the moment he pulled back and regarded her with his glimmering gimlet eye. “Missed you,” she hiccupped softly between her ministrations, wondering what had brought him back to her now. Why did he need to stay here? Why now, after leaving without a single word of farewell? Her seabright eyes, glistening with emotion, were briefly contemplative — but she didn’t question her good fortune. She didn’t need to know the answers. She needed to know where her daughter was. She needed to know the seawolves were steady enough to weather the coming storm.

She opened her mouth to tell him about either or both of these things, but almost immediately, she closed it again. Part of it was an altruistic desire not to trouble him; part of it was a reluctance to sully their reunion; mostly, she just didn’t want to talk about it. “Welcome home,” is what she did say, nuzzling lovingly at the corner of his mouth and nibbling at the thick tufts of hair that bordered his cheeks and jaw.

It was all he needed to hear — and he fell to pieces beside her, burrowed against the dark of her blue-black coat, holding her close and feeling her warmth. The boy was a mess again but he knew he had a place to hide, so at least now he could try and -- and -- Titmouse wasn't sure. He didn't know what to do without Maegi, and upon realizing he was directionless even here, broke out in more sobs. He had to get a handle on these emotions or else he'd have to explain things, and right now Titmouse didn't have it in him to rehash all the things that had gone wrong since his dispersal from the island. So he held Seelie close, he cried, and when he could breathe again he'd follow her to somewhere much more private so that he could rest a while.