Wheeling Gull Isle if you look away, the stars will know, and they will not be able to help you.

Coelacanth arrived on the scene moments too late, but she was quick to sort out what needed to be done. “Mur — ” the little dog gasped out before her heaving side stilled unnaturally, and the Groenendael shot a pained glance at Maegi and a slightly panicked one at the winter raven. “You have done this before!” bespoke her desperate plea, a whine that winnowed through the chocolate-and-white fur that was shot through now with crimson and purplish grime. It was at this point that Komodo made an appearance and took charge of the situation — and the Groenendael could only look at him gratefully, the follies of their past buried beneath the weight of this tragedy.

Leaving the puppies to the island’s guardians, Seelie turned her attention fully upon Poppy. With her tongue, she swept the other female’s mouth clean, an intimate kiss revealing the utter lack of any obstruction; she crushed a handful of berries and raspberry leaves in her muzzle and with another tender kiss applied them unto the paling tongue. She feared her efforts were in vain, but could not stop trying, morbid as it probably seemed. “No! Bad dog!” she choked out in a broken whisper, cocking her head to place her cheek to the other female’s chest. Nothing. Rearing back on her hindquarters, she made her forelimbs ramrod straight and thumped the other female’s chest, one catlike paw placed over the other. “Come back,” she begged, repeating the motion. She alternated between these odd thumping motions and bathing her small friend’s face.

Utterly unaware of the tears that had filled her eyes and now spilled down freely her cheeks, she nudged fiercely at the woman’s chest. “Come back?” she wheedled unhappily, shaking her head in denial even as something within her rolled over and surrendered. If love alone could have saved the collie, Poppy would live into her twenties — but Seelie knew innately that there was a window of time in which you could fight death, and it had closed. Relentlessly, she began to beat herself against it. She redoubled her efforts, bathing Poppy’s face, trying to stimulate her heart and lungs, resting catlike along her spine to warm her, knowing it was all for nothing — and she knew, too, that this was somehow her fault. She should have arrived faster. She should have kept a closer eye on her patient. She should have loved her better. Should have, should have, should have…

“Doe,” she wept, still halfheartedly nudging at the Border Collie’s muzzle. “Come back.”