Wheeling Gull Isle you've still got a little lightning in you

The atramentous sheepdog, no stranger to her own handcrafted silence, found Doe’s absolute quiet to be utterly out of character. To Seelie, Doe was light and music — singing to herself or talking waterfalls — and the unnatural hush that blanketed their reunion enforced Coelacanth’s fear that the yellow-eyed, sweet-scented phantom was merely an illusion. Nevertheless, Seelie bathed her face and preened at her fur, all the while issuing a wheedling litany of hope and anxiety. This version of Doe, whether real or incorporeal, was full of hurt and fear and distress that her Shadow did not understand but longed ardently to fix.

When Stockholm stepped out of the brush, Seelie’s tufted ears popped like two quest marker exclamation points, gilded in the gold of the sun. Her ink-feathered tail began to wave as she nibbled warmly at the curve of Doe’s flopped over ear and whuffed softly — a greeting for Stockholm that lost itself in the thick, cream-colored fur she kissed so tenderly. Her cerulean eyes were eloquent in their welcome, however, as was the soft, airy whimper of worry that tangled upon her lips. Perhaps he would know the right thing to say or do. Doe had always had such great respect for her Leviathan, and Coelacanth believed — perhaps erroneously, and swayed by a hefty amount of bias — that Stockholm was taller, handsomer, and far kinder than the silver-banded Cairn had been.