Wheeling Gull Isle only love myself no more

saint, saint, saint —

a useless word that slinks 'round their skull, on a low pitched, reedy hiss ... like air pushing from bone. rattling. empty.

a voice they would grow ever familiar with the older they grow.

and they would grow.

the trip to this place had been rocky, uncomfortable. anger and hunger inducing. but they had not ingested the poison that two of their siblings had.

no.

they are a lovely, dark bud that grows strong and will blossom.

a deceptively beautiful but invasive species; the young witchling.

the goddess vaermina has made her mark, a soul tether, an engraving of bones, or a piece of herself sparking life into and upon the young witchling, once named saint but now nameless. witnessed in the cursed right eye; siphoned of color and much vision until nothing but obscure shadows of the living world are all they can see.

the blackwater of their dreams, though only glimpsed thru the murky, developing vision of their good eye haunt their dreams. calls to them in their restless, fitful dreams so that in their waking hours they rebel; stubborn.

try, though it is futile, to squirm away from the extra press of bodies that are not their siblings ( though their siblings are there ) from the mothers milk that does not taste the same, towards the dark lullaby of the darkwater.

they never get far.

they are too young to truly remember their witchmother, but they remember her scent, they remember the disruption of their entire life, they remember the bark sled, the chill of the saltwater.

they remember greedily drinking the mothersmilk offered after being painfully hungry for what, to their young, not fully understanding mind: felt like a lifetime.

they know with a sinking feeling in their gut as they scramble to paws too clumsy, legs too shaky, the feeling too that they will not get far. the strangers are vigilant.