Wheeling Gull Isle nothing has changed, He is the same

It was over.

He had finally gotten what he had wanted — and now she was gone, maybe forever.

Everett swam across the sea this time; he didn’t wait for the land bridge to form. Perhaps the salt waters would cleanse him, purge him, or at least make him forget how @Reverie had not listened, how Reverie had refused him, how she had shut down, how he had made her weep. He had done everything he could! Explained every thing to her … why he couldn’t come to Saltshore. That he had hoped she might come to Sweetharbour instead.

But even when he had stopped insisting on his way for her, and began discussing ideas of visits — for her, Blossom, Lestan — she would not let him go his own way.

And perhaps this was his tipping point.

Evander had understood. They’d talked like men, and had decided to part ways. They each needed something different. They each needed space. He had wept for a week after leaving his brother’s side. Sometimes, he still cried now. But he expected Evander would find him again. And he expected that Evander would welcome him if Everett ever found him first.

But Reverie…

Oh, Reverie.

He had finally seen Reverie for more than a few moments. Been with her for many days. His heart ached. He wished to heal her.

But Everett began to see.

He could not heal her.

Reason fell on unlistening ears. No logic appealed. She spoke to him in tears and silence, in paws that still ran away, and he realized with dawning sorrow that though she claimed to be free, something still shackled her. He did not speak to a woman yet. The Gilded Sea had kept her a child.

Everett hauled himself onto the sandy shore of Sweetharbour, shaky and with red rimmed eyes, and he turned to look outwards across the violent sea.

Somewhere out there Reverie would make a new life without the reminder of the Gilded Sea. He would have protected her. He would have cared for her. But she needed space, like he did — even though he still hoped he would see her golden head crest the horizon and come bounding across the waters to meet him. To learn of this God who had led him here. To rest and heal.

But she had chosen something else for herself, somewhere he couldn’t follow.

Would she ever let him back in?

Everett didn’t know. But one thing he did know: out there Reverie would learn to be a woman, and not a little girl anymore. In motherhood. In matehood. In the life of a pack. But if he joined her now, he would only keep himself a little boy, and he couldn’t make himself a child again when he had just begun to learn what it was to be a man.