Wheeling Gull Isle eastbound & down

The prospect of being separated from her littermates — particularly her sister — was stressful and overwhelming, but Koi wanted to see Lucas’ old home. It was the banded male who scared her the most. When he spoke, she didn’t see any colors at all — she just felt cold and afraid and desperately lonely. Her oversized ears fluttered uneasily when he spoke to ŭmma. Though the word — “Ves,” — clearly held some significance for the Aralez, she didn’t speak of it. She merely crossed the distance to Moorhen after the waves swallowed his prints, her Neptune eyes filled with a deep and enduring tenderness, and murmured, “Peace be, lamb. Home safe. Love ever.”

I can stay, Koi thought, looking at the empty space where she ought to be standing — next to Thresher, Sixgill, and Grayling, tucked protectively between appa and ŭmma. Then she turned to regard Moorhen, Lucas, and Currituck, and made her choice. She loved her family, but the Corten wanderlust was already very much a part of her. She would go, and she wouldn’t lose her way. The island was her homing place, but she wanted to see the places that had so shaped Lucas and Currituck.

It was saying goodbye to her parents that brought tears to her seabright eyes. For as long as she could, she reached up and clung to Stockholm, grounding herself with the prickly touch of the vreccale rubbing reassuringly against her cheek. Once her farewells to Moorhen had concluded, Seelie completed the ring around her youngest daughter, nuzzling soothingly at her withers. “Good girl, Koi. Love ever,” the young mother murmured, the simple phrase serving as a gentle reminder as much as a fond overture of praise. Seelie, surprisingly, did not cry — the storm had instilled in her some kind of otherworldly, enduring strength that held steady even now.