Wheeling Gull Isle the hour of death

Tagging people for reference. ♥ Let me know if I need to change anything!

The temperature had dropped significantly, and dark clots of threatening thunderclouds were starting to saturate the sequoia-spangled seaboard. In some places, fragments of the winterstorm had already hit — coconuts from the mainland grove had been surfacing with increasing frequency to nestle on Wheeling Gull Isle’s shores, some of them charred with the same damp woodsmoke aroma that the winds had carried. Seelie and Stockholm had asked that @Driftwood, @Droman, @Rehan, and @Blossom help keep the pack’s guppies safely ensconced in the Labyrinth, and scouting missions for @Thresher had been doubled, with @Komodo, @Moorhen, @Hemlock, @Reed, and @Rokig all taking active part in aiding her parents’ search.

The closer the storm drew, the more intent the sheepdog became. Though she had stepped down from the pack’s helm to focus on finding her missing daughter, she had never been so assertive. She had chosen the teams with razor-edged purpose. Komodo, Moorhen, Hemlock, Reed, and Rokig were all highly respected and deeply loved pack members that Thresher knew and would hopefully recognize upon sight or sound, if not scent. Driftwood, beloved of all the Seelholms, would ensure that the occasionally willful puppies wouldn’t make a wild break for it with two new guardians in place. Koi had taken a special shine to both Rehan and Blossom, but she was still wont to disobey if she thought she could get away with it. The one unknown was Droman — he had become something of a recluse, and Seelie could make neither heads nor tails of him. The only reason she didn’t ask him to join the search was because she genuinely didn’t know how to talk to him at all anymore.

She was waiting impatiently for Stockholm to return from a scouting trip, restlessly tracing the new high tide line with restless paws, when she caught a painfully familiar scent. With a considerable amount of trepidation — the past tended to hurt when it resurfaced — she followed her nose and stopped several meters away from the whitewater wolf she had come to love so dearly. She looked, automatically, for @Maegi — but although Reed had seen the Melonii girl recently, she didn’t seem to be anywhere around. “Mou,” she breathed softly, her delicate features creased with concern. All the anger she’d been hanging onto fell abruptly away at the sight of him, so broken and frail. He had some new scars, but she didn’t cross the distance to investigate. She didn’t know what to do, honestly. “Peace be,” she whispered, a question in her eyes that couldn’t be injected into her hollow utterance.