Cerulean Cape where the moon is made of gold

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Coelacanth’s tufted ears folded reluctantly but resolutely, two carefully printed confessions hidden beneath the press of shut-tight fingertips; it was for the best. The wolves in her family did not fetter its members so tightly — [but she was her mother’s daughter!] — and she must learn to do the same. Carefully, for her legs were still half-asleep and tingling uncomfortably, she pushed herself into a seated position and tucked her tail around her numb forepaws to watch him go.

She did not even know his name.

She was still sitting demurely when he turned his brilliant eye upon her, and her ink-feathered tail whisked the ground genially, bespeaking her wish that he be well and safe — she summoned a smile for him that he might remember her with joy instead of sorrow, wishing she had been less maudlin the day she’d been denounced by Doe’s children — but something twisted painfully inside her. Involuntarily, her finespun musculature twitched forward as he turned from her and departed, but she remembered the implicit command in that final glance — stay — and set down the paw she didn’t realized she’d lifted, only to turn in the opposite direction where her family waited.