Wheeling Gull Isle Washed up

The voice that cried for succor was raspy and weak, but Coelacanth heard it clearly from her vantage point just a few meters north. She’d tucked herself into a carefully carved divot in the sand to watch the sea lions — a long forgotten pastime that never failed to bring her a deep-seated sort of contentment. Tufted ears perked to attention, one petal-like bulb twisting to more clearly hear the voice of the female who came to the caller’s aid.

Today was the third good day in a stretch of cognizant days for the tiny Groenendael, and although her recovery was not without its share of hiccups and backpedaling, she was progressing rapidly toward a more serene, more steady state. She didn’t immediately recognize Dakarai’s voice, though perhaps she should have; at Lotte’s behest, it had been the swarthy Svartell’s cry that brought about her inevitable betrayal. Utterly unaware, she rose from her little hollow and moved toward the sound, purely out of curiosity.

The moment she laid eyes on the wolf in the sand, though, memory upon memory leapt to the fore. She remembered Dakarai with intimate detail, having tended his wounds on multiple occasions — and her instinct now brought her forward a few hurried paces, ghosting softly across the sand. What harm has befallen you now? Her Neptune eyes scanned the horizon for her friend — for Olive, the mist-shrouded druid who had named her Carina — and then she remembered what had happened the last time she answered Dakarai’s summons. In that instant, her bright cerulean gaze clouded with suspicion and she blew out a shaky, whuffling snort of alarm. Remaining out of touching distance, she stood and watched — but her sharply emaciated frame held within its spindly confines a new tension.