Cerulean Cape wave-wracked and wanton

Tagging for reference. ♥

The inky sheepdog’s tongue lolled from her slim jaws as she panted heavily, afire with excitement and surprise. With characteristic timidity — and always with one possessive eye on her Gampr — she made her rounds, nosing at shoulders, licking at chins, and generally getting involved in everyone else’s business. Special attention was paid to @Sunny, who looked as though he was not feeling completely well — at least in comparison to the exuberant boy Seelie remembered. She bounded over to the young wolf with a seashell clasped delicately between her teeth and dropped it at his feet with a birdlike tilt of her head and a noiseless yip of welcome. They were cousins, now! Sunny and Dawn; Dauntless, Lavender, and Easy; no matter what name they bore, they were Cortens where it really counted. How funny! She’d been so afraid of Sunny and Grayday at first —

— and yet, somehow, here they all were. Family.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon!”

That voice — Coelacanth whipped around automatically. @Aditya! Adi! She felt a certain protectiveness toward the golden-eyed wolf and was pleased to see how healthy and strong he looked in comparison to the sodden, sand-crusted pile of wolf that had washed up on her beach that fateful day. Accordingly, she danced her way over to him. She didn’t give him a verbal response, for she didn’t speak much anymore — not that he would have been able to hear it with all the commotion anyway — but boldly nuzzled the underside of his chin in greeting. It was a shame, she thought, that he couldn’t also become part of her family [she didn’t know about his marriage to Dawn] — but he was like Komodo that way, someone who would surely find favor with Riptide himself if he ever graced Vargas Island’s shores. She pirouetted a haphazard little ring around him.

Just when Coelacanth thought she couldn’t possibly be happier, “Found you, found you, found you,” came a very familiar, very dearly missed pair of voices. The tiny wolfdog threw back her head and gave a wolfish little, “Woo!” that nobody would be able to hear, kicking up her paws in a noodle-legged frolic as she began zooming around the congregation in a headlong sprint, tufted ears thrown back against her finely-tapered skull and head cranked back on her neck. Cerulean eyes were bright and wild; her tail was so far between her legs that it seemed her spine was unnaturally sloped — and at every new sound or sign of movement, she was off again. When her case of the zoomies wore off, she’d surely want to cuddle with her family members, both old and new — but for now, she was content to run off her excess energy. She’d save enough for the hunt, of course!

@Stockholm was her first victim; she launched herself at the Gampr and swarmed over him in a confusion of kisses before clambering up and over his back in a gangly leap.

Poor @Komodo was next: she raced toward him at full speed and at first bent her head as though to charge him like a tiny, tuft-eared bull — but at the last moment, she put on the brakes. As such, if he allowed her to make contact she would bounce off him rather harmlessly, her cheek and nose squished against the broad curve of his breast. Moonbeam! She was still kicking, and bobbed her head vigorously to prove it, before flopping down on her belly in the sand to catch her breath.