Wheeling Gull Isle santeria

This got away from me; I’m sorry.

A soft, involuntary trembling took up residence in Coelacanth’s hummingbird fragile musculature, and she had little choice but to succumb to it — the seas were still winter-frigid and she’d walked away the last vestiges of daylight. Hope bloomed when Komodo approached her, but it plateaued when he seemed content to leave what seemed to Seelie an insurmountable stretch of distance between them. Her interaction with Thexxan had been largely dissatisfying because of her deep-seated need to be touched and talked to in order to feel real — would it replay itself now with her erstwhile friend? “How’ve you been?” the medicine man questioned, his roughhewn tone rife with sincerity, and she focused her attention on her sand-dappled toes with a sigh that dipped her shoulders low and emptied her lungs. Her gamine framework, compiled with her pointedly dejected posture and the shivering that wouldn’t quit, conveyed what she couldn’t say:

I am sad; I am cold; I am lonely.

At that rather inopportune moment, her empty stomach decided to cast a vote of its own with a disgruntled, gurgling rumble. When was the last time she’d eaten? She couldn’t remember. All of the food she’d managed to happen upon or catch had been given to her lambs, and while she’d consumed enough to sustain the illusion of life, she was essentially wasting away. Tilting her head to the side, she shimmied her hips to approach him at a bashful diagonal, making her apology clear in the way she angled her graceful neck and entreatingly lifted a paw. She hadn’t meant to complain! She was still so grateful to find him here.

“How’s that old man of yours? Still kicking, is he?”

“Yes, yes!” bespoke a sprightly nod and a tattoo of dainty forepaws.

A glimmer of true joy cut through the weary sorrow that had chased the light from Seelie’s Neptune eyes; she had visited Vargas Island last autumn and her grandfather had been hale and hearty despite his advanced age. She knew he would soon pass on, but she did not greet this fact with any particular sense of dread. Corten’s legacy had been carried on through four generations now and Riptide had lived to see his firstborn son ascend the throne. Furthermore, he had lived to see the birth and rearing of Crosscurrent’s heir: Undertow’s son Chelan. Komodo had met Chelan, and although the fiery-eyed yearling had objected to the medicine man’s aid at first, he had grown to regard the angakkuq with the same respect and gratitude Coelacanth now displayed. All of the Cortens had thought well of the Earthstalker for his personality as much as his service and it must be admitted that several of the females had made their liking quite plain.

One thing was for certain: Komodo had never been left wanting for company during his stay.

“C’mere,” he bade her. She needed no other invitation. Like a small black cannonball, she bounded toward him, but she pulled the punch of her inertia at the very last second, settling timidly against his chest and tucking her muzzle against his throat with a quavering sigh and a litany of woeful whisper-whines.