Stavanger Bay dispersal

@Coelacanth?

It was cold, and Doe scared her.

Moorhen was the only one left from her litter. Her mother had died, her father had left, and one by one, her siblings had disappeared. Moor didn't know much, but she saw everything. She saw how Doe mourned for her children, but not for Moor's siblings. She saw the hungry glint in the Sea Queen's eyes. She saw how Doe cared for Julep and Isengrim and the new, dark wolf, but not for Moorhen.

I will be next.

The banded child knew this, and was very afraid. So she stayed back from the red mother, even though she wished very much to have someone to cuddle her and make her warm again.

The gunmetal prince and his firebrand sister would not warm to her.

Unhappily, Coelacanth wrapped her ink-feathered tail about her waiflike hips, a soft, tight circle of hurt. The curve of her chin sank dejectedly between her paws, pushing her velveteen lips up and out in a hangdog expression of utter despondency. This position only lasted a few seconds, though; in the next moment, she tucked her chin and tipped her crown forward so that the bridge of her muzzle was practically perpendicular to the floor. This allowed the full force of her sorrowful Neptune eyes to alight mournfully on the face of the cocoa-dusted child, tipped eloquently downward at the corners, their whites rounded with pathetic pleading. “Please love me,” she begged in an airy whine that would have been piping and silvery if she’d had the voice to make it so — but she did not, and it spilled from her in a tremulous sigh. At her side rested the toy Julep and Isengrim had vehemently rejected: a fawn’s scapula, licked and chewed clean of meat and sinew.

The Saddest of Sheepdogs allowed her scythelike-tail to flutter, a shivering little wriggle of motion that proclaimed her friendliness and her fright, and shimmied closer with a hopeful air. Turning her head, she grasped the bone gingerly between her incisors and nosed it toward the mahogany-eyed coffee bean.

Glassy-eyed, Moorhen pretended not to see Doe's Shadow. The Shadow belonged to the Sea Queen, just like everything else in the girl's short life. She was often snapped at for 'taking' things from the other children, and only slightly less often, for nothing at all. Though she bore no marks upon her flesh, deep left by Doe's teeth criss-crossed over the youth's psyche. I am a seashell, she thought. Seashells do not need to eat or be warm. They do not like to chew bones. They do not need to be punished.

Glassy-eyed, Moorhen pretended not to see Doe's Shadow - but she did see her, and hear her airy whines. Inwardly, she was intrigued by the Shadow's strange behavior. The wolf in her urged Moorhen to investigate, but she was a seashell. Seashells didn't do anything.

Glassy-eyed, Moorhen pretended not to see Doe's Shadow. And truly, she did not comprehend the please love me writ all over the sheepdog's face. Of course she didn't. They were speaking different languages, and Moorhen? She was saying the same thing.

Moorhen’s feigned indifference, however discouraging and disappointing, was preferable to the battlecries and wardrums Julep and Isengrim customarily greeted Coelacanth with. The little seashell didn’t need to notice the sheepdog to soothe the empty ache in her chest; Seelie wasn’t necessarily responding to a maternal instinct so much as a pastoral one. More than a pack to belong to, the tiny Groenendael needed a flock to guard — and, just as her mother’s speckle-faced sheep had viewed Selkie as little more than a annoyance, Seelie didn’t expect affection from Doe’s children. She wanted it — thirsted for it — even tried to demand it sometimes — but never really expected to receive it.

In the face of her cousins’ violent rejection, Moorhen’s indifference was a walk in the park.

The inky ingénue wasn’t sure when or how or even if such indifference could be transmuted into tolerance, but she tested the waters with that litany of, “I am nice; see how nice I am?” whines quivering her whiskers, shimmying closer under pretense of pushing the oblong wafer of bone closer still. She didn’t think Moorhen would let her close enough to touch, but she wanted it so badly.

The seashell had long since learned that flinching only got you two. Besides - there was nothing scary about the Shadow. Doe possessed it, but like Moorhen, the sheepdog was usually nothing more than scenery. Shapes and motion, but nothing more.

But it's different when she's so close. Moorhen isn't afraid, but it's hard to ignore those sounds. She is a seashell, but she had ears, and instinct that tugs at strange cords in her chest when those airy whines brush against them. They mean something, she's supposed to do something, but she doesn't know what. The next step is unknown and unfathomable, and so Moorhen simply sits stiffly in the corner, forgetting that seashells don't flick their eyes uncertainly toward Doe's possessions.

Acknowledgement came in the form of two furtive mahogany eyes, and Coelacanth ceased her boneless wriggling, drawing back to look squarely at the little wolf with the hopeful doubt of a domesticated dog who isn’t quite sure whether you do have a treat in your closed fist. Her Neptune eyes were very bright, and the bulbs of her tufted ears cupped attentively forward as she drew a tremulous breath. In mingled eagerness and shyness, she belly-crawled the rest of the way to the silver-banded seashell, her tail whup-whup-whupping rapidly against her hocks as she ducked her head sheepishly and slicked back her ears. When she was near enough to touch, she made her attempt with infinite care; the whiskers of her muzzle sought to brush lightly against the little girl’s cheek, and if Moorhen allowed it, would be followed by the velveteen of Coelacanth’s lips and the leather of her quivering nares as she investigated the soft fur at the base of one oversized ear.

At any sign of rejection or aggression, Seelie was ready to abandon ship — but it never came.  For as long as the brindled coffee bean allowed it, her guardian curled around her and lavished affection upon her.