Wheeling Gull Isle maybe i should stop but we'll see

@Coelacanth @Stockholm -- anyone else looking to join please ask me.

He had come back to the island despite everything. He had not been gone too long but it was long enough to show signs of wear on him. Ribs showing just a bit too much, eyes sunken with loss of sleep and things that couldn't be unseen.

He had left to take Lainie to somewhere safe. They had headed east and he had meant to return to Undersea but as her condition deteriorated further he felt more drawn to her. Rokig had done everything he could have to keep her afloat but the damage had been done already. It was not long until she had passed away and he had awoke to her cold body. The former Seawolf had spent days wrapped around her lean body until it was unbearable, until the birds became persistent that she was no longer his to protect.

Finally he had come to the realization he had to leave. He had to go home. Would they still let him come home? Rokig had to at least try. He was not in a great condition but he could only hope that they would still see him worthy enough to become one of them again.

When the terrain finally became more familiar he felt like he could breathe just a little bit easier. The salty scents washed over him. He couldn't break down just yet despite how badly he wished to (for the sand reminded him of life before Lainie's passing and he yearned for that comfort) he had to let them know he wasn't gone forever. He tipped his head back and released a low croaky howl.

The dark shewolf had not spent much time around Rokig. She had grown in many ways since finding succor with Doe's Shadow, but she was still not a very social creature. When she needed closeness and companionship, she sought out Coelacanth and Stockholm, and the collection of children that often flocked around them. But she still recognized the male easily enough, and did not feel the need to question him too harshly when she reported to the call and saw him there upon the shore.

"Rokig," she said as she drew near, her body tight with readiness, but her expression not unfriendly. There was no reason to believe that the male was here to cause trouble. She could not help but prepare for it nonetheless, but she was learning that the trouble she expected did not often come. The island was a peaceful place, after all. "You are back?" she asked him, making an attempt at conversation, for once. He looked unwell, but not in danger of collapsing. Moorhen sensed it was a sickness of the heart that troubled him most.

Bolstered by the return of Komodo and `Io, Coelacanth received Rokig’s summoning howl with no small amount of delight. She rocketed to the shoreline — followed, quite possibly, by the pitter-pattering paws of her children — and bulldozed her way into Moorhen and Rokig’s interaction with unabashed exuberance. “Good girl, Moorhen,” she breathed, her nose and lips burrowing affectionately against the girl’s cheek and the base of her ear. She’d caught the tail end of Moorhen’s question — “You are back?” — and turned to regard Rokig with compassion and mirrored sorrow in her cerulean eyes. The Aralez did not speak, allowing the stocky, compactly-built male to respond to her girl instead; but she did cross the distance and sniff at his shoulder, flank, and hip with a clinician’s critical air. He needed food and rest — she had never seen him so diminished! — but she did not immediately offer these things to him. Perhaps he had come before her only to inform her of his official leaving.

He didn't recognize them very well but they seemed to recognize him. His eyes squinted softly as he took in her earthy form. The smell on her told him she belonged here just like the others. She was safety. He wasn't able to utter a word to the other Seawolf before the inky figure of Seelie arrived. Rokig was not sure the presence of another had comforted him as much as it had now. He seemed to sway with the breeze as the Aralez sniffed at him.

I want to come home, if you'll have me. He whispered softly, directed at the inky female but he did glance towards Moorhen too. He valued the thoughts of everyone in Undersea even if he was aiming for Seelie's approval. I'm sorry. His voice was barely audible against the nature sounds that flooded the air. We need to talk. Privately, please. If allowed he would aim to bury his nose in the plush fur that lined the Aralez's neck.

I apologize for the wait on this!

There was no question as to whether Coelacanth wanted Rokig to stay where she believed he belonged. Her cerulean eyes sparkled eagerly, their exuberance tempered by quiet compassion, and her muzzle dipped in a nod that was both immediate and emphatic. Of course they would have him! She was a little surprised when he stepped forward to bury his face in the feathery fur at her collarbone, but she did not flinch or turn him away. Instead, she rose onto her tiptoes to preen at the nape of his neck, shooting Moorhen a pointed glance over his bowed head with an appealing wag of her tail. In perfect understanding, the Cairn girl trotted away. “@Rokig?” she prompted him in an airy whisper, pert pink tongue smoothing the tan backs of his ears.

Soon enough they were alone and he felt emotionally exposed — raw to his damned, cursed core. A soft sob escaped him and he crumpled to the sandy earth. I'm so sorry. He softly choked out. Lainie got s-so ill and I...I couldn't save her. She's gone. He whined out the words. A low whistle sound escaping him as he sought the paws of Seelie for any form of contact. Even a willowy leg would do.

Everything suddenly felt much more real than it had before. The weight upon his chest and shoulders was unbearable.

He felt deeply awful and uncomfortably sick. His feelings were undoubtedly physically manifesting. He wanted nothing more than for the ocean to creep up on the sands and take him. Perhaps then he would feel better.

“I’m so sorry.”

The Aralez stilled, her head tilting quizzically, but she was quick to follow Rokig’s descent. She lay beside him, a soft, inaudible croon of comfort humming in her throat, and rested her muzzle atop his head that he might feel her condolences even if he could not hear them. “Oh, Rokig,” she breathed softly, clinging like a burr to his side and lovingly grooming his face and whiskers. It was not his fault! She knew this to be true but had no way of making him believe it. She still held herself responsible for Doe and Poppy’s deaths — and so she simply ministered to him in silence, finding the comfort of touch to be more eloquent than anything she could craft with words.

She made no offers or suggestions about honoring Lainie’s memory, chiefly because she lacked the wherewithal to construct such a long, drawn out query. Instead, “Rokig good boy,” she whispered insistently. “Good wolf.” His self-loathing presented to her in waves of bad feeling; a tinge of nausea, a pain she felt deep in her bones. She wished it was within her abilities to tell him how much he meant to her and how deeply she appreciated his presence. She wanted her children to learn from him and lean on him. To Seelie, the stocky wolf was integral to Undersea.

---

Nestled alongside her friend, the Aralez lost track of time. It was only when some of the painful tension in his stocky musculature melted away that she made a gentle retreat, noting that he barely noticed her withdrawal, so deeply entrenched was he in his own thoughts. A few words exchanged with Hemlock put the heartbroken seawolf on watch, just in case he required another pair of trusted and true ears.