Cerulean Cape she don’t got a lot to say but there’s something about her

Unconsciously mimicking her dance from earlier, Coelacanth’s ears perked atop her head as the sibilant shift of the sand made Aditya’s imminent approach known to her. Without taking her eyes off the island’s silhouette, she drew nearer to the burnished wolf whose fur gleamed like the heart of the sun — and if he allowed such intimacy, would deign to press her tiny body against his and rub one silken cheek against the crook of his elbow. Only then did she angle her muzzle in such a way to look him in the eye, cerulean reaching tentatively for sungold, tufted ears fanning forward to eagerly capture each murmured syllable. Like Screech, he was a full-blooded wolf — but the girl’s affection for him was quieter, more self-assured. She was not worried about scaring him off.

She followed Aditya’s gaze out across the sea, toward the island where she’d found him, and a soft, sad whine tiptoed its way up through the hollow column of her throat and emerged from her lips as a yearning sigh. If she was being totally honest, he was one of the wolves she’d hoped would remain with Undersea — but she had seen the look in his eyes when he’d serenaded Dawn. She couldn’t help feeling as if she’d failed him somehow, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it, either. Not when he was so obviously happy. Not when he was a Corten. He was something like a cousin now, and cousins were practically brothers and sisters in Seelie’s experience.

Amoxtli was less sure of the new arrivals to the family, and on some level, Coelacanth fretted about that. At one time, her twin’s misgivings would have caused her to turn her back on the whole idea — but maybe their time apart had been good for her, despite the heartbreak it’d engendered. She thought her own thoughts now and wished her own wishes. Maybe her time apart from Aditya — for she did plan to return to the island, knowing it to be her destiny just as Dawn was Aditya’s — would also be a fruitful thing, but she didn’t like thinking about it. The Morningsiders were dear to her, and the thought of separating from Catori, even more so than Adi, was particularly painful.

For him, because he had heard her speak and because his name was easy enough, “Adi,” she breathed, hoping to convey through the two simple syllables and the touch of her muzzle against the nape of his neck that he didn’t need to apologize for a thing. That she was sorry. That she knew she had failed him. Her Neptune eyes, when they reached for him again, were guilty and sorrowful the way only a chastised dog’s can be. “How are you, o chikni raat?” he asked her, and her ears pressed searchingly forward as she cocked her head first to one side, then the other. It had been so long since anyone had given her a new name, and she smiled slowly, shyly, but the joy dawned in her shimmering eyes and set in motion the serpentine curve of her spine. “Sini — ?” she butchered in a bashful susurrus. “Sini…ra — ?” Lightly she bumped the bridge of her nose against his shoulder as though to urge him, “Again, please!” while her feathered plume began to wag in earnest.