Wheeling Gull Isle yippee-ki-yay

The creaking of the undulating giant spruce seemed ominous, but Driftwood only paused a short moment to regard it with nervously flickering ears and upraised paw before he stalked forward again. He rubbed a paw across his eyes and warily regarded the tree as he drew closer, but not too close...the grandiose wooden monster and all her children were slowly performing a swaying dance today, as they often did, but something about the motion stirred an uneasy feeling deep within him. Were they trying to tell the wolves that passed beneath their boughs something? The air seemed to hold a certain tension in general, and Driftwood had to wonder if perhaps the majestic spruce and its kin somehow knew something he didn't.

Maybe he was just a little sleep-deprived and paranoid, though. It seemed quite possible...even probable. But any and all concerns about the behavior of any trees or his own state of mind were swept away in a sudden wave as the sudden motion of a familiar black shadow went whooshing past in a graceful blur of fur. Driftwood's head pivoted to follow Coelacanth's exit to the shoreline, and his gaze sharpened and his own pace reached a concerned gallop as he saw her agonized silent pseudo-howl. Seelie! he yelped, his own worry ringing loudly in his ears as he galumphed up to her with a much less graceful spray of sand pluming up as he skidded to a stop just shy of her feet. He didn't see any signs of injury but she sure looked like she was in the most exquisite pain imaginable, as he desperately sought to look into her eyes and tried to divine what might've happened. Indeed, not just her howl of misery but her voice entirely seemed a dubious thing—she was never a loudmouth at the best of times but her posture of extreme anguish was such that Driftwood genuinely wondered if she'd be able to speak aloud of it at all. He tried to cover his bases verbally too in the meantime though just in case: Are you hurt? What's wrong?! What can I do?! His paws danced uncertainly in place as he jittered to and fro and tried to figure out how to fix this. Please just tell me, I'll do anything... He hated to see anyone in such pain, admittedly, but with sweet and kind Seelie of all people it seemed utterly unbearable. ...A recollection of recent events flashed through his mind, and his own mirroring misery deepened in response, if not nearly so bone-deep a feeling as she was obviously experiencing. Driftwood visibly hesitated before asking, very softly, Has... have you heard anything of Thresher?

He was praying mightily within, meantime, that there at least had been no bad news, and that the girl was still alive and in one piece out there...somewhere. Else he feared his merely asking might in fact be making things worse. And that was the very last thing he wanted to do, right now, with Seelie sitting here looking like this. But it wasn't just for her mother's sake that Driftwood had to ask; he too was worried for the island's young Treasure, and in what condition and on what unfamiliar shores she might have washed up. Not every place was as diligently open-armed in their welcome of strange Tauhous as Undersea after all, particularly with one as innocent and vulnerable as Thresher would be, especially if she had gotten hurt or exhausted herself trying to swim against the current or— no no no, don't even THINK it, Driftwood. As if the mere thought might somehow will it into reality. But he hadn't heard if there was any news yet, and the least he could do was wait until after he heard something more definite before he started spinning up catastrophizing stories. Right? Theoretically. He stared at Thresher's mother with deeply worried golden eyes as the less-sturdy of his eartips drooped sadly earthward.