Wheeling Gull Isle kiss me like that

By the time that the raven and Komodo had returned to the island, several moons had come and gone; seasons had passed; things had changed. For once, Komodo felt that his presence on the island was long-overdue — and not for the other seawolves who once presided until his council’s jurisdiction, no, but for himself. 

It was a weird thing that was difficult for Komodo to explain, because he had never truly been a man consumed by attachments. To ideas, customs and practices? Yes, but to faces and names and places? No. There were things in the corporeal world that were always changing and to hold onto them created struggle and strife; but the intangible lived forever. It was the way of the angakkuq — so what tied the mottled man so strongly to this one place, and the Cortens who inhabited the islands near and far? 

He didn’t know, and didn’t pretend to know. So, in typical Komodo fashion, he chose not to question it. He prayed to his gods, made blood sacrifices, and trusted that they would carry his destiny and future with care and intention. He was much too old distinguished to do anything otherwise.

Their crossing of the strand had been done without much fanfare — there had been no welcome party, nor did the dark chocolate pair issue a call of their return. They were of this pack, were they not, and were they not allowed to enter and exit as they pleased? His smelted gaze swept the landscape for the frame of the inky Aralez and they moved into the familiar territory, but he did not catch a glimpse of her… until he did. 

She stood near the stream, with four telltale bundles buzzing about her feathered hocks. The earthstalker’s jaw grit for a moment, but only a moment! Within the very next moment, he noticed that there was no biting bitterness in his gut, and no alarm bells that went off in his head. What he felt, instead, was pride. The girl was a mother, in ways that he had never been able to handle fatherhood — and did the world not need more Coelacanths in the world? Coming to stand abreast his raven, the man watched from afar and did not venture to ruin such a pretty painted picture.