Wheeling Gull Isle when we're young we set our hearts upon some beautiful idea

They would find the sheepdog at Coaltree Rise, carefully planting a garden in the soft loam. She was planting berry bushes, of course, by macerating the fruit and then burying it in a soft section of spongy earth between the veldt and the Skybowl’s forest. Berry juice stained her mouth, but her indelible, aphotic fur kept such secrets well. This was her second garden — the first was planted in the peat moss that could be found where the wood met Morningside Moor — and her hope was that if she continued to throw a multitude of efforts at the wall, something might stick.

Fox-fine muzzle touched down, featherlight, on fragile shoots of calendula and yarrow, goldenseal and echinacea. Her back was turned toward the approaching twain as she watered her garden, streaming with water from one of the many rills that fissured through Skybowl’s skirts and then tiptoeing through the meticulously tended rows. She believed that seeds were just sleeping plants, waiting to wake up and reach for the sun — so she moved on tenterhooks, not wanting to disturb the ground under which her treasure trove waited. She was not typically one for border-marking, but with furrows of her claws, tufts of her fur, and scent marks, she had sectioned off this wide swath of earth. Thus far, it had remained untouched by the other seawolves —

Her Neptune eyes narrowed as she spotted in the earth nearby a hoofprint that was too fresh and close for comfort, and as she turned — her back still facing the general direction of the sandbar — she spotted one of the shaggy horses that made a home of the veldt and neighboring beach. “Hey!” she boofed in indignation, damp hackles lifting like inky sea urchin quills. She nipped at the equine’s heels, narrowly dodging a kick to the jaw, and began nimbly driving it away.