Wheeling Gull Isle he's half the man and you're twice as tall

we need to go, @Judah.
the island had become — suffocating. it was like dinah had set off a domino effect of madness, of ghosts she hadn't seen in what felt like years, pushing and pulling she and he. bitterness seeped back into her heart. the audacity of malakai to show his face to her again, of john, even of gramma towhee; it was
too much.
dinah wanted to take her brother and sweep him off to the rise, to show him the snowmelt and the streams which broke the land. she wanted to be alone with him. she wanted to feel the warmth of mulherin again. she wanted — her mom. she wanted her mom.
she did not come to him with demands, only a panicked, antsy plead. her eyes spoke of her desperation as she paced the greenhills just outside of the once-abandoned den. i can't-- i can't take this anymore. this is all too much, it's-- i can't believe everyone thinks they can just, just, come back, as if everything is fine. as if-- ugh.
please, she settles down for a moment, head between her elbows; her voice shakes. please, juju.
don't make me stay here.

Dinah came to him with whitecaps on her voice, an ocean pushing back, vigorous. John and Simeon, Towhee and Malakai- she did not share his great relief to be reunited with her family.

Judah had wanted to hold onto his self-righteous anger. He had wanted to find someone to blame. None of this would have happened if they hadn’t all abandoned Dad. It was mom’s fault. Dinah’s. Mal and Simeon’s. His death bloodied their paws. They’d all turned their backs on him that day- every last one.

But they had been children, and in the end, he loved them too much. And when he found his heart unwilling to forgive, he’d hold dad in communion, with all the old spirits of the deep. It was the island that saved him.

It was not so for Dinah- something worrying was happening to her. There was a new sallowness to her full face, her eyes were emptying. She wasn’t happy here, Judah saw it. It was the first time he realized the island would never again be Sweetharbor.

Judah shifts his weight, reaching to gently cradle her tired cheek in his palm. He didn’t mull his thoughts over, for long they’d been welling in his mind.

“Ok. Let’s go.”

dinah didn't even realize it, but she devolved into a bundle of exposed nerve endings, collapsing at judah's heels in a bough of tears which she had not allowed to fall in many weeks.
the island was not home anymore.
when she had returned, some small part of her had expected to find it exactly as she had left it. the dove white clouds against the backdrop of deep cerulean, the seafoam snarling against the endless beach and the waft of lavender on the breeze; all of it was still here, right in front of her, so close she can reach out for it, and yet — all she sees is a muted sky. all she smells is blood. the death rattle churns beneath her skin, the milky haze which settled over hazel eyes.
this was not home.
this was not sweetharbor.
daddy was not here, only the rotten remains which were sown into soil. and they would never find him again no matter how hard they searched.
she leans into the touch as another wave of agony crashes against her; silent tears trace her cheeks, forming dark rivulets against her pelt.
we'll l-leave in a few days, she whispers. say our goodbyes. and then we'll go-- we'll go somewhere, we'll find ava. find ourselves.
it's just-- i just feel so suffocated here, she warbles, steadying her voice with a pitiful sniffle. it's like i look around me and all i see is him. sometimes i th-think i see him. i feel like i'm losing it, like we're both going to just-- go fucking insane out here. i-i-i don't even want to see them. they left me to take care of mom. they left me, judah, they;
she was crumbling, her face burning and her extremities beginning to quake; delusional, delusional, delusional; i w-want to see mulherin.