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

Consonant blends are still difficult for the atramentous sheepdog, and the first time she parrots the Gampr’s name there is a space between the “s” and “t” that doesn’t make much sense. “Stockholm,” she chirps, tongue tripping clumsily. She mouths it a few more times to herself. It takes her a minute to reproduce it perfectly, but she isn’t satisfied until she hits that mark. She leads the way toward the water, but her inclination has always been to follow. This makes for an awkward — and quite possibly annoying — trek to the shoreline.

Like the clip-eared guardian who walks beside her, seemingly unperturbed despite the hum of energy that keeps her lithe body in a state of constant movement, Seelie is curious. She, too, has a human-given name — but she doesn’t like it. She volunteers it willingly, but the flattening of her ears and guilty downward flinch of her muzzle betray that it was a name not often spoken in a kindly manner. “Little Girl,” she whispers, feeling anew the shame of her puppyhood and the fingers clamped around her muzzle. She surmises that Stockholm must have loved the Man even more than she’d feared the woman and wonders what it must be like to love one of the long-living gods who span lifetimes. “Tofariss,” she adds, butchering his other name as well, repeating it carefully until she gets it close to right. This name is harder and she can’t get it perfect — so she defaults to the god-given name: “Stockholm.”

As they near the collection of tide pools that seems to yield the most fish, Coelacanth peers down into the water. A smile that is inherently shy softens her features, but the glint in her Neptune eyes is somewhere between mischievous and confident. She mimes slapping at the water, indicating that Stockholm should circle around to the opposite side of the pool and scare the fish toward her — all the better for her to scoop them out and toss them ashore.