Stavanger Bay dispersal

The gunmetal prince and his firebrand sister would not warm to her.

Unhappily, Coelacanth wrapped her ink-feathered tail about her waiflike hips, a soft, tight circle of hurt. The curve of her chin sank dejectedly between her paws, pushing her velveteen lips up and out in a hangdog expression of utter despondency. This position only lasted a few seconds, though; in the next moment, she tucked her chin and tipped her crown forward so that the bridge of her muzzle was practically perpendicular to the floor. This allowed the full force of her sorrowful Neptune eyes to alight mournfully on the face of the cocoa-dusted child, tipped eloquently downward at the corners, their whites rounded with pathetic pleading. “Please love me,” she begged in an airy whine that would have been piping and silvery if she’d had the voice to make it so — but she did not, and it spilled from her in a tremulous sigh. At her side rested the toy Julep and Isengrim had vehemently rejected: a fawn’s scapula, licked and chewed clean of meat and sinew.

The Saddest of Sheepdogs allowed her scythelike-tail to flutter, a shivering little wriggle of motion that proclaimed her friendliness and her fright, and shimmied closer with a hopeful air. Turning her head, she grasped the bone gingerly between her incisors and nosed it toward the mahogany-eyed coffee bean.