Wheeling Gull Isle bermuda, bahama; come on, pretty mama

The trembling of Coelacanth’s body eases, but only slightly, drawing intermittently across her spine in timorous waves. A warm, thrumming purr hums blissfully in her throat as Stockholm envelopes her in his warmth, and in homage to him she touches the wet of her nose softly against the fur of his cheek. If he is her protector, then she is his acolyte, sworn to heal what hurts she can — and to use her teeth against those who have earned his enmity. There is a protective streak in Seelie miles wider than the set of her thin shoulders, and what she lacks in brawn she more than makes up for in speed and wiliness. He is hers now.

Her tufted ears flatten to the sides to accommodate the broad jaw that brushes lightly atop her gently sloping crown, and she makes a silly, cross-eyed face as she attempts to lick at his chin with a frantically wriggling tail. “Hungry?” he asks, and she looks at him with incredulous wonder at first — because how could she possibly be hungry for corporeal food when her heart is so very full? — but then her stomach answers for her with a gritty gurgle that makes her grimace. She shakes her head — “no, no!” — and leans up to prop her dainty, diminutive forepaws against his shoulder as she indelicately smashes her face with abounding love into his thick ruff. A happy whine trills tonelessly from her lips and gets lost in his fur.

She wants to show him all the things, especially what a stellar fisher she happens to be, and she bounds like a fawn a few paces away from him, craning her neck to look over his shoulder and encourage him with a whuff and a sneeze. Then she remembers that she does not know what to call her new friend, and she issues a verbal greeting, complete with introduction, for the first time in her life: “Coelacanth,” she sounds out very slowly in a frail, tremulous whisper, the final consonant blend coming out more like a prolonged “f” sound. Her voice is barely audible as she clarifies: “Seelie.” Her bashfulness is easily discernible in the lowering of her long lashes and the shy way she angles her tapered muzzle down and away.

For him, she soldiers on bravely. “Name? F-F-Friend?”