Ocean's Breath Plateau dancing doe

A scream-

Screams had roused her from her sleep before, whether they be squeals of joy, a demand for attention, or a child irked by their sibling. She weathered the sharp pitch of their voices, working to hide the squinting of her eyes when they made her ears ache. As they grew, their voices changed- they became louder, but less shrill. They lost their gull-cries and had begun to develop (albeit with some breaks and cracks) their pre-teen voices.

But every mother knew the scream of peril. Every mother knew the sound that could make their heartbeat halt, blood frozen in their veins.

She had become accustomed to counting three children. With Katmai returned, she counted to four- but he was among the three she counted, now. It was Seelie, her little selkie, whose voice was the last trace left.

Three she left supervised, threatened with a trembling voice to stay put! as she brushed past any restraint, hastening to the shoreline where her child’s pawprints trailed, and disappeared. 

The tide would come, and hungrily sweep them away. She would only be able to count to three, again.

She wailed. Into the blustery winds she screamed, fur whipping about her strained features. Again and again she would scream senselessly into the winds until her voice grew hoarse. Only then would she allow herself to be guided back to her home, where she could collapse beneath the weight of a grief that had come to settle into her heart all too soon.