Wheeling Gull Isle Two Storms

The girl’s face is pulled from the shallows, water trailing from her cheeks in long flowing twin veils. It thins out the shape of her head and ruffles her fur, a goofy little look for someone so graceful. Judah pinches his lips, quirking them off to one side in feeble attempts to stifle a laugh. He can’t remember the last time he did.

“Yeah…lot’s of things.” She’s charming.

He kneels closer to the runnels, seeing textures of stone, observing shells, starfish, and glimmering agate. He points them out to her with the names he’d learned from his parents when he was a kid: muscle, hermitcrab, minnow. Others he’d never learned names for, so he’d made them up. He told those to Racharra, too: slime-mouths, needleballs, tube-fish.

“Dish ish wha 'ew wan,” he mumbles, snapping a small, brown-shelled scallop from the stone with his teeth and plunking it on the rocks. “This tastes the best- trust me, I’ve had the privilege of trying ‘em all.”

A show is made of halving the shell and slurping down it's meat before Racharra has the opportunity to snatch it. He gulps and laps his maw coarsely. "Your turn," his eyes challenge.

In the headwinds, the boy's tail gives a little flick.