Wheeling Gull Isle how to call on old gods

Coelacanth was having a good day — a cognizant one. This wasn’t to say that she’d be able to maintain the gentler side of her disposition, though; so much of who she was now depended on outside stimuli and stressors. Still, her reception of Maera was almost immediate — the ink-feathered plume of her tail began to wave slowly and her Neptune eyes half-closed in an expression of bashful contentment. Whether this contentment was in response to Maera’s reaction to Axolotl or the presence of the leviathan itself was up to interpretation. She did not bear any untoward mistrust for the Atlanian despite his wayward temperament, and she could not pretend to know exactly how he felt about her — but the atramentous empath was keenly attuned to the emotions of those around her, and his new wariness around her was plain. She knew that things were not as they had been, and this knowledge triggered an answering miasma of emotions: the desire to please him; the fear that she was wrong about his love; and an answering avoidance born of confusion and her doggish propensity for guilt.

Everything about her posture conveyed apology — it almost always did, but around Axolotl especially it was overt. Seelie kept her body low, watching with keen eyes the unfamiliar female’s body language, for anxiety had been so swiftly drawn in the quick flicker of that foxlike plume and the trilling reverberation of that whine. Maera could not yet be trusted, which wasn’t to say that Coelacanth bore any ill will toward her — it was simply that the sheepdog needed to be on her best behavior and could not take the same liberties she might have taken toward Komodo, King, or Cascada. She kept her distance, a willing participant, tufted ears pressing gently forward upon her skull as she offered a fluting, toneless whine of goodwill and lifted one paw entreatingly. Was she welcome here?