Wheeling Gull Isle daggers and diamonds

Undersea’s Aralez watched her family trickle in, her feathered tail beating a waxing and waning tattoo; it sped up exponentially when little @Fern attacked Stockholm with her blunt puppy muzzle. “Get him!” the proud mother — (and impish instigator) — whuffed playfully, slapping one paw heartily against the soft earth.

Her Neptune eyes were still laughing, her tail still whirring, when she looked brightly up at @Driftwood and the shell he offered. “Thank you, sweet Driftwood,” she chirped, her silken susurrus bordering on singsong with the depth of her delight. She bowed her head in acceptance of his blessing, then split her slim jaws in a doggish laugh at his jesting, sides fluttering with a whuffling huff-huff-huff. “Pohaku no more,” she added. “Seawolf, now.” Indeed, it was a day for celebration.

The gentle ghost arrived, then, and Coelacanth half-rose to meet her, elevating her forequarters with a careful prop of her willowy forelimbs, to meet the nuzzle with a barrage of tiny kisses and nibbles. “Maegi,” she breathed, “Mitexi today — Daggertooth, now.” She lowered herself cautiously back down, curling one feathered forelimb around a wailing @Sixgill and gathering a wandering @Grayling back against her flank. “Babies,” she whispered, indicating the squirming bundles of fluff, “wish you joy, love, strength. Small brothers, small sisters.” She centered her attention on @Maegi’s beautiful young face with an exuberant whisk of her tail.

The arrival of @Reed and @Droman, the first to ever hold the rank of Daggertooth caused a joyful wriggle to run from the waggle of her finely-drawn skull to the shimmy of her hips that jostled a nursing @Koi and a sleeping @Thresher. “Reed, Droman.” Seelie watched fondly as Hemlock’s children looked upon Fern and Mur with keen, affectionate eyes, and laughed for the sheer joy of it when the little firebrand peppered the pack’s newest arrivals with tender kisses. In Reed’s capable care, she temporarily left her brood, and tiptoed carefully to @Mou’s side.

“Peace be, Mou,” she breathed, tenderly bathing the soft fur between the peaks of his ears. “Special day. Maegi’s Mitexi.” Stockholm would explain everything in due time, but she wanted to make sure her friend felt included — he was part of the family, now, and the brightness in his eye assured her of his continuing convalescence. A mind and a heart were locked tight within that broken body, and she didn’t want them to fade out or die. She stayed with him for a time, but could not leave her children for long, and curled around them like a closed parenthesis. Hemlock was quick to take her place, settling beside their patient and murmuring a soft explanation of the original Awenasa tradition to catch him up.