Wheeling Gull Isle seifas

heda plucked birds. she stacked their feathers. she cached their meat. she stood at the top of the greenhills, watching rain race out toward the mainland.
her world remained dry for now, sunlit. heda raced down the green faces, panting and whirling and laughing by the time she reached the bottom.

miseria had gone on for year, festering like a laceration. hypnos had long gone, where the nowhere king had gone she had never found out.
she made her way to the wheeling isle, noticing the redback girl skittering down the faces of dancing hips of the hillside. she lowered herself to the ground. 

the girl was pale as in the inside of a femur. heda stared in open consternation. she advanced at once, protective of her home, red-painted nape flaring to stabbing life.
"who are you?" the girl barked out, gilt eyes hard with ferocity.

miseria pressed her head into the ground like a truffling pig, pleading that somehow she had gone unnoticed. startled, the spiderling curled her tail between her thighs. lowered her salt limned brow.
"i'm sorry," that always preceded her name in any instance. "n-no one ...." 

the submission halted what might have been a blow, had heda made up her mind. her nose dipped to smell nothing but the shoreline and salt. "this is sweetharbor," she said. "how did you get here?" 
this time, the guardian's voice was easier.

sweetharbor.
miseria was still curled like a pallid gordian knot. her tongue held a pregnant pause. "i ... swam. i just wanted to see what was on the isle." if she could solder her ears to the sides of her head, she would. "m'sorry."

heda shook her head, sharply at first and then more gently. "no. no, it's all good now. uh, there's a few of us here. we — worship. learn about god."
she was suddenly excited to tell the girl about everything. "i'm heda. what's your name, really?"

miseria finally caught on her groveling was starting to lose its previous charm. she rose on her legs, steadily. her ears still splayed back and her hands rested at her side.
she rolled her shoulders. "sorr — um, okay. thanks." she smiled softly, but insisting. "m-miseria."
she garnered a spark of courage to at least give heda to decency of looking her in the eye. "worship? my mother also worshipped a god. what's your pieties like? "

miseria. heda supposed it fit, in a weird way. the other girl mentioning her mother did a lot to put the former mountainwolf into a more relaxed air. "god is nice. he is love. i'm not very good at uh, explaining him, though."
her red-capped ears swung. "maybe you should come meet bartholomew."

miseria appreciated heda's brevity in the description of god, actually. because it's what she needed most, simplicity and guidance. "that's okay. your home sounds nice too."
the gosling blinked slowly at the name the girl mentioned. "is he ... your god? or ..." she wondered silently how heda communicated with this saint bartholomew, if this was true. sacraments? or did they have a point of commonalty in a overly memorized oral scripture?

"who? oh, bartholomew?" heda chuckled. "he is a man who teaches everyone on this island about god." 
as far as her own relationship with god — the jury was still out. the man had brought her peace. she would have to do the rest.

miseria's cheeks suddenly went hot over a simple mistake. it wasn't uncommon to call a god a different name, but still. "oh, like a priest."
the girl licked her chapped lips briefly in thought. if she met the priest, maybe he would not be so upset she had come the isle uninvited. "a-alright, sure. i'd like to meet him." the first definitive she uttered in awhile.

a priest? "yeah." maybe.
she led the way up the sandy slopes and to the midpoint of the greenhills. the grass rose tall and waving all around them, and here she called for @Bartholomew, telling him of a stranger to the island.

he had seen from a distance, a mingling of bodies.

he trusted heda. he trusted God to guide her hand as He did with his own. but all the same heda called and he answered with warmth. a trot through the lavender fields brought him before them.

blessed day, isn't it?

miseria's gaze flickered at the cleric with the narrow gaze. he reminded her of the structure of a cathedral.
upstanding, finely detailed in places that showed age as it did wisdom. columned, and arches that completed its features.
her tail swished lightly. "hello. heda told me you teach about god?"

"this is miseria. she was curious about the island. i invited her to come meet you."
her eyes lingered on him, then the girl who had come to their home.

miseria,

he hummed warmly, examining her only for the briefest of moments. for illness, for sickness. nothing he could spot. older than heda, not as old as himself.

are you familiar with God?

he invited the both of them to follow him towards the lavender fields.

"no. n-not really," she mumbled. "but my mother used to worship another god. i ... c-can't really remember who ... or why."
miseria always found it somewhat curious how so many religions existed besides another, as if for every toe a god or some patron saint gave them, they gave them a myriad of other beliefs. 
her back unstiffened slightly. "why do you teach about your god?"

skip me! just tag me back in when/if needed :D

for a moment her eyes were only for bartholomew. at a gesture heda moved to follow, walking alongside the other girl. the lavender flowers stirred in the salt breeze; she lowered her muzzle to explore the purple petals for a moment.

he had met these kinds.

ones who heard stories of false gods, led astray. some mocked him with their false ideals. some turned towards the light in the wake of his words.

he had met both in these lands.

but this woman — miseria — could not remember who or why.

the sea had a way of sending him clean slates.

why? his lips moved for a moment, a half smile before his features fell fatherly once more. for peace, for love, for gratitude. He has given me everything here. to teach about Him is the least i can do in return.

miseria nodded slowly as father bartholomew spoke. she pawed the ground.
a pregnant pause.
"do you think ... that i could learn about god too? on the isle." she asked softly, looking up at bartholomew with rheumy eyes. a home, peace, a desperate need for counseling.
miseria lacked a definitive personality between shrewd and miserable. she had lacked skills. maybe sweetharbor could cultivate her like a flower.

his smile returned, a bit wider and warmer now.

of course you can, miseria. the lavender around them stirred and waved with a sea breeze. kicking up the soothing scent of the meadow.

there are a handful of others with us. heda here, you have met. he gestured towards her once more. a growing boy named mo. another young woman, lively, named jasmine. he would not be surprised if the boy was somewhere in the trees or tide pools. hunting, perhaps. he could not say. jasmine could be...anywhere! he should know her better.

there is a woman who is unwell too, though. she resides in the cave — the lion's den — and i ask that you give her space till she feels better.

a breath quivered from her lips like a tentative bow. "thank you, father bartholomew," she bowed her again in thanks. she looked towards heda, miseria's own expression unreadable now.
if it proved to be more than she could handle, she would become as forgettable as she could.

father bartholomew.

it had been some time since he had been addressed as such.

he looked now towards @Heda with a warm certainty. expecting her to carry some sort of reaction or response now.

make a place wherever you wish, beyond the cave. his eyes shined warm and bright.

content to leave the women to themselves, if they wished.

father bartholomew.
heda was not sure if she was ready to utter that word, but she could not deny how fitting it was for him, with neverending kindness which always surrounded the man and his soft eyes.
miseria was a supplicant and heda, healed, would help to guide her. she was — she wanted to be — a shepherd.
"come on," she invited the woman who seemed to be more girl than her. "i'll show you around." she stepped off, wanting to take miseria first to the topmost of the greenhills, the highest point of the island where she could show their newest every point of the peaceful haven.