Sequoia Coast sea billows roll

simeon shimmered in her arms, with worry, with pain. with the bone-deep anguish no boy should endure. none of them should suffer the way that they had. the way she had made them. and heda had replayed that over and over in her mind: what if she had not left? a reimagining in which she led caracal to sleep off his drink in their den and been with him when he woke; in which she talked softly to him and helped him. stood by him. 
it had been her exhaustion, the loss of two sons and almost a daughter, the constant conflict between those she had birthed and those she loved as if she had. it was her own lack of escape, constant touching, constant mediation; she and caracal had suffered, and finally he had sought some respite from it.
the hurt had been because he had not come to her; he had hidden from heda, cursed when she found him. and now he lay in a fresh grave on a mostly-emptied island, and they had lost all the more.
now simeon choked out his pain, and heda listened, cupping the back of his head and finding, with a wonder, how much he had grown, how she could no longer cradle him; a mother reliving the first blurred, soft moments as dinah's voice turned to glass.
the cool that filled the space between brother and sister chilled heda. she shook her head once, then stood, pulling away from them both; she caught her breath and fought the panic of another splitting between them.
first, a paw, steady on simeon's shoulder: he is not dead. he will not die. her son had been from island to mainland and then back; heda found her faith in malakai's persistence. her own golden eyes turned now toward sweetharbor, in agreement all the same that son and sibling should be found, should be given the protection of a last family discussion on what they must now be.
she did not want to go back. the idea of returning a second time brought her eyes now to dinah. ava was a veritable baby in comparision: she could not make this choice. heda pulled her gesture from simeon, now pointing to the left, then the right, along the cliffs.
we can go home or we can go on. her eyes were now upon john, he who had come down from sweetharbor, surrendering a new home for her. for them. and in her gaze, she made the choice that of her children; if he still believed in god, then he would know their works belonged to the lord.
she was grateful for his kindness, for his attempts; heda hoped john would stay with them, even as she felt that they were about to be tested again.
moonspear was in one direction, the cluster of moon villages a hotbed of heathenry from all she knew, but it would give them all a chance to grow up among family, connected as caracal would have also wanted for them.
heda knew she could not live by the sea any longer; in its voice she thought she nightly heard the voice of judah, crying out for her. and at moonhigh, caracal had begun to come to her, only for now a reddish silhouette that stood upon the waves in silence.
the ocean could no longer be her home, but she would ensconce her children beside it, if they chose as a unit to be; to be.
and lastly; heda turned her back upon the saltwater, upon the island; she lifted her muzzle into the breezes ranging from the inland, and tried to remember where rivenwood had once stood.
a place god could not reach.
not once could she recall having told them of the place, its details. of mahler. of sequoia. of druid. she had left it all behind with her name.
skaigona.
her gaze gathered simeon and dinah both now. heda gave a soft shake of her head. no more argument. if malakai would not come with them, then simeon would stay. but two boys alone could not survive winter, and thus heda might find herself with them once more.
all silent. the woman's trust in her own mind had been broken; now she seemed to close in on herself once more, slowly turning back to the long darkness of the eternal sea.