Whitefish River some sad singers, they just play tragic

Coelacanth watched Olive with a curiously impassive expression. It was clear the inkdark female waited for something — there was a striking intensity in her Neptune eyes not wholly attributable to her piercing sheepdog stare — but what she wanted was anybody’s guess. When the heartsick woman dissolved into tears, however, something inside her erstwhile confidant seemed to soften. Reeling beneath the weight of Olive’s borrowed emotions, Seelie trembled once, and the set of her slim shoulders sagged. She understood on some level that the female had submitted to her wholly, but found she was not altogether pleased with the outcome. Tufted ears swayed faintly upon her skull; she did not remove her nose from the woman’s nape but continued to breathe her in, feeling suddenly exhausted by the whole ordeal. She still kind of wanted to bite Olive…

— but Olive had given her a name. Olive had been part of her flock.

“Seelie?”

The atramentous sheepdog’s own guilt transposed itself over the protective rumble in Stockholm’s voice, and her feathered tail sketched a quick, frenetic scribble of apology as she turned her head just enough to catch sight of him. Bright cerulean reached boldly, desperately for shining gold. She’d gotten herself into something she didn’t know how to get out of. “Why did you let them give me away?” she thought wretchedly at the sacrificial lamb whose tears wetted her catlike paws and trickled between her toes. Still stiff-legged, she smoothed the fur she’d mussed with a few quick licks, then afforded a greater proximity between her body and Olive’s. The girl was clearly anxious, harboring a mixture of shame at her forward behavior, dissatisfaction at Olive’s reaction, and continued confusion as to what exactly had transpired that day.

Her hangdog eyes darted sheepishly between Olive and Stockholm but eventually settled firmly upon the Gampr’s steadfast visage for a prolonged momoent. She wasn’t making things easy for him, she knew, but she didn’t know where to go from here. Perhaps if Olive spoke about her experiences, she would gain some perspective. A wheedling, airy whine spilled from her lips as she turned pointedly toward Olive and “barked” once, a quick rush of air and click of teeth. Mirroring their earliest meetings, Coelacanth tried to encourage the woman to speak without being able to speak herself, the bridge of her muzzle sweeping innocuously alongside one heather-gray shoulder — a hovering touch that did not make physical contact. Though her typically gentle face was still mirthless and somber, she cocked her head inquisitively and sat. “Speak. I am listening.”