Stavanger Bay her early leaf's a flower

She did not like to be questioned, but the voices of her family broke the red mother's heart. Szymon, so dedicated and true, could've been broken as surely as herself if she'd landed wrong or sunked deep instead of breaking the surface of the water. Qilaq would have been in the same place either way, except left without a mother once more, if the ocean had seen fit to keep her instead of setting her free - and the Sea was their god, but sometimes, in the dead of the night, Doe knew that it was not.

Doe knew that this family of hers was what she worshiped, and what she would follow if it came down to one or the other. Deep down, Doe knew that her husband felt the same.

"You were wonderful, Qilaq," she was quick to reassure, giving the girl a gentle kiss on the cheek. Nestled under the blanket and beginning to feel warm again, the shewolf finally felt fear churn in her belly - had her young ones survived? Surely, surely... "Amayo was bad, but she will not do it again - and it doesn't matter, because we are both now blessed - and we will never have to do that again," she explained, looking shyly toward her husband with contrition in her eyes. I'm sorry, she said, though her lips remained sealed. Can you forgive me?

But she knew that he would.

She was god.