Wheeling Gull Isle I am the owner of nowhere land, queen of a castle that’s made of sand.

A flower patch grew at the foot of slope near the den. On this muggy July afternoon, most of the pups were enjoying a siesta. But two of them—@Dinah and @Ava Macaroni—looked wide awake. She silently motioned for them to follow her downhill.

-“We should find a bunch of pretty flowers and make some bouquets for your parents. What do you think?”- Towhee suggested, turning to face her small audience.

Grandma Towhee has been around more and more often, as of late, and Dinah could hardly make sense of it. But as such, she was happy to see her all the same!
Today, she and — one of the darklings — are called forth, and the Redhawk child bounds right for her, crashing into her foreleg with the almighty force of about fourteen pounds. A task! Foraging! Gifts! Dinah loves foraging!
A thump-thump-thump of her little tail, and then, an observation. What're you doing with your paws? Grandma Towhee is gesturing... something. It has to have meaning to it. Inquisitively, her wide eyes peer up at the elder woman. Are you sending us a secret message?!

bees droned in the flower patch outside. ava had been stirred awake by their noise and watched mesmerized.

a spear of black shadow crossed the den. ava's gaze climbed upward until it met her grandma's -- then her expression broke from studious intent to delight.

HEE!! she roared to life, bounding after dinah. she only narrowly missed crashing into the bumper-car pileup herself, swerving last minute into a bed of queen anne's lace.

she slumped, too lazy to get up -- but dinah's voice urged her to look back at towhee in interest. what was all that about, anyway?

Towhee couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the child’s question, though her annoyance was directed at her parents—well, her father—rather than Dinah. Caracal was even worse than Meerkat, who’d at least put in the effort once upon a time. Towhee could barely recall her son ever using Ptero.

-“Kind of,”- she replied sardonically, before adjusting her attitude and explaining more lightly, -“It’s a sign language. I’m signing the words I’m speaking. It’s my preferred way to communicate, since I’m deaf. Do you know what that means?”-

She glanced over to include Harley Ava in the question, smirking when the younger girl went tumbling into some pretty white flowers. Well, that was one way of demonstrating her gameness for Towhee’s suggestion.

-I don’t always talk out loud when I’m doing it, either. How do you like them apples?- she added silently, merely for her own secret amusement.

Dinah is enthralled. She senses some annoyance coming from her dear ol' Gramma as she explains the mystery paw language, which she now knows is called sign language. She says the word deaf, which admittedly, Dinah had never heard before. Tha's cool! I wanna learn how to do that! Her eyes widen as she watches the gestures, eagerly trying to decipher what it is she could possibly be saying when she is not at least mouthing along with it. Can you teach me?
She searches for the sound of bramble crunching, then, and with it she finds little darkling Ava.
The darklings had become more and more of a normal presence. Very rarely did she feel so egregious with her jealousy now, as the instinctual need for being responsible had begun to take hold. And right now, Ava needed help: she'd fallen! Oh! It's okay, I'll help you! Hobbling over on stilt-like legs, she presses her cold little nose into the scruff of Ava's flank. Now, she just had to figure out how to lift her up.

ava fancied herself concealed in between bouquets of soft white petals. she watched towhee’s paws as they moved in their own secret rhythm — a charming finger-spell come to life. 

she sensed none of towhee’s annoyance, too enthralled by how each paw perfectly articulated a hidden meaning. 

a brace of something cold pressed against her shoulders. ava recoiled with a loud squeal, turning her belly instinctively towards dinah. when she realized it was dinah’s nose that had been the source of such discomfort she quickly righted herself, sending a sulky nip in dinah’s direction that possessed no hope of connection.

Dinah glossed right over her question, though Towhee didn’t hold it against her. The attention spans of children were fickle at best. Anyway, her granddaughter’s request was exactly the kind of distraction that could immediately score brownie points with Towhee.

-“Yeah, of course,”- was all she managed to convey before Dinah rushed to help her smaller sister.

This act won Towhee’s favor as well, though she didn’t say anything. She just looked on with a smile as Dinah prodded Ava and Ava righted herself. The elder she-wolf cocked her head when the younger girl scuttled away like some belligerent crab.

-“Before I’ll teach you Ptero—that’s what the language is called—I’m going to have to collect a fee from you. Unfortunately, you have to pay up front,”- Towhee drawled, padding closer to both pups. -“I want each of you to collect enough flowers to make one bouquet. Do you understand the assignment?”-

Oh, right, yes, flowers! Dinah loved flowers!
The idea of learning an entire new language is quickly thrown out the window as soon as she is reminded of her task. A determination washes over her; yes, yes, she will pick the absolute best flowers the island has to offer! And she will grab extras for each of her seven siblings, while she's at it.
Nodding fervently to Gramma Towhee, her attention is then thrust back to Ava when a nip that does not land is thrown at her. Hey! comes her shout, more like a shriek, an offended, sour look of shock painted across her little russet face. That's not nice, Ava, you don't bite me unless you don't want a flower!
This child tested her. Once before, with the cicada shell she'd gifted to Judah that to this day she mourns, and now this. Is this what Mama meant by God testing that one guy Bartholomew? Was she Bartholomew right now?
Was God testing her?
Creasing her lips together in a frown, she nudges the younger raven child with a gentle paw. C'mon. I'll help you find flowers, if you want? A knowing, expectant look is sent toward Gramma Towhee, as if to say, can you believe this shit?

she’d watched dinah in the thoughtful manner of a predator, ready to recoil if her older sister delivered biblical vengeance. the only punishment came in the form of a scolding; ava’s lengthy riposte was a single, eloquent grumble.

they were tasked to collect flowers. nudged by her sister, ava glanced to the tall stalks she’d just hidden in moments before. 

there was little hope someone as thick as her could learn ptero’s lingo, but on towhee’s encouragement ava set upon the flowerbed with toothsome vigor.

The dynamic between the two reminded Towhee of raising Caracal and the twins. The girls had gotten along for the most part, naturally, but could she even remember a time when there had been peace between them and their brother? She had always chalked it up to sibling rivalry, though in hindsight, perhaps it had been a deeper misalignment.

She wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case here. Ava was technically not family, an outsider, and though Towhee had long since softened her stance on such matters, she knew that those instincts flowed in her bloodline. Case in point: her latest litter, particularly her mini-me.

And Towhee couldn’t hear, nevertheless she’d overheard some talk of some of the older kids taking poorly to the newcomers at first. She could not remember particulars, though she had the impression Dinah had been perhaps the least welcoming of the four. The dust seemed to have settled since, though it was a fascinating subject to ponder.

Blinking back to a focus, Towhee trundled in the pups’ wake, keeping an eye on them whilst not interfering with their search in any way. She truly wanted each girl to independently select an array of blossoms, which she planned to bundle together into bouquets for their young parents.

In case either of them glanced at her, she would encourage, -“Take all the time you need. There’s no rush. Just bring them over to me if you have too many to carry.”-

Ava, seemingly, did not want Dinah's help. Which, admittedly, she was more than okay with — that meant this was now a competition of who could get the better flowers, and Dinah sprung forward with newfound confidence. She toddles into the bushes with her head held high and examines every single one she sees. A master plan inside her little galaxy-brain forms:
Near a rocky fixture, she finds one, two yellow lillies; one slightly smaller than the other, though Dinah hoped it would bloom further.
Hidden in the trees are magenta rhododendrons, a picking from a shrub; unevenly cut, but still beautiful. 
Penstemons, a vibrant violet in color; plucked from an open bush near the sandbank.
A bigleaf lupine, tall and strong and a dazzling blue-purple color. The centerpiece.
Now, she needed something white to complete her desired color scheme — white asters, a handful, found amidst a swath of ferns.
They are all held within her jaws, although as she made her venture back to Gramma Towhee, they had begun to slip and fall to the ground. It was a balancing act to get them to her all together, but that's what made Dinah an expert!

off dinah went. ava followed the progress of her collection, something akin to greed manifesting in her dark gaze.

so while her sister wasn’t looking, she stole from the small pile as it grew. a pale yellow flower here, a small magenta peduncle there — but it was the deep purple lupine flower that truly caught ava’s attention.

a gollum-gleam sparkled in her gaze as she slunk after dinah, waiting until she turned to towhee before ava pounced, attempting to snatch the lupine from the flowery bouquet to set among her own purloined arrangement.

pls lmk if any of this isn't okay! skipping towhee with ooc perms <3

Oh, how proud Dinah was of her collection of flowers! Covered in grains of sand and imperfectly cut by baby teeth, but still lovely; at least to her. She hadn't noticed the slowly disappearing individuals, or the fact that it was much smaller now than when she'd initially bundled it together. No, no, she was too excited! She is giddy, with wild eyes wide with joy and a high-held strut along the bank in the direction of —
The sound of clacking teeth comes up from behind her. Instinctually, Dinah ducks and emits a high-pitched shriek. Aflutter, she topples over; her bundle goes absolutely everywhere right before her eyes, scattered; and taken in the saltwind is the beautiful lupine before either of the two girls could grab it.
The culprit stares with a ghoulish grin and deadened mismatched spider eyes.
Silence, and then, Dinah screams.
YOU! without even having thought about it, her paw is swung right for the littler's face in an attempted strike. Sobs, all-encompassing, memories flooding — this little thief, this world-destroyer, this selfish demon child who she never wanted here in the first place —
Frightened, both by herself and this child and of God's wrath that would surely now rain down upon her. She shrinks, shrivels; You're evil, a whisper-scream, tiny, withered cries in between bubbles of snot and spit and tears that cover her little face.
And then, slumped over in a little ball, she cries. Cries for learned love that had now begun to falter all over again, cries for the dead flowers, cries for how badly she wished she could tell Mama and Daddy and how they would never believe her. Cries because she was in the wrong — she knew this, and here she was anyway. But was she? Shouldn't Ava know better by now?
She cries for the simple fact that she does not know.

in religious households, revenge often came in goliath proportions. 

ava wanted the flower only - not the rebuke, not the wind, not the wailing thereafter. when dinah turned upon her and struck with a paw, she blindsided the girl whose gaze had been tracking the delightful flutter of flyaway lupine — 

brimstone fire smote her senses; her eyes welled as she was rocked face first into the hardened ground. the pure shock of such violence momentarily stunned her. 

for a moment it seemed ava might cry alongside dinah, but she didn’t. 

she rose from the dirt slowly, her gaze darkened by unshed tears. 

it did not matter ava was too small to mete out due justice. with a tiny war cry, ava came at dinah with her own brand of deliverance.

She should've seen it coming, really.
And yet, she hadn't; when her glassy eyes peeled themselves open, she was met with sharp teeth and wide-set snakejaws that sought revenge.
But Dinah was no fighter.
She merely cowers as the tears rock her body harder; accepts it, accepts her punishment and whatever wounds Ava may seek to land upon her spindly puppy body. Dinah could have easily fought back — she was bigger, older, stronger. But she didn't.
Whispered harshly through gritted teeth, paws clasped over her face in a feeble attempt at protection, she begins to repent.

Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be.

And finally, she croaks out an I'm sorry through her wails. I'll get you one! The blue flower! W-we'll, we can go together!
Weak is she for giving in, for being the one to apologize — but that is what God would want, isn't it?

tiny ava amara, in that moment, was a tyrant — her teeth rounding out punishment against a soft and supple body that did not fight back. 

this was not ava’s design, and as her sister’s sobs rose to a crescendo ava halted and looked upon dinah’s slouched form in confusion.  

without a strike in return, there was little impetus to fuel her for further warfare; her fury ended as soon as the last smarting from dinah’s blow faded away. she set back upon her heels, ears pinned. 

but she wanted nothing to do with promises of a new flower; she skulked away from dinah as the girl repented, finding her own band of raggy weeds to present to towhee.

going to assume dinah sustained a little damage because puppies be SHARP

The reprimand came to a halt soon enough. Dinah, throbbing now with unbroken scrapes and a soreness to her foreleg that felt like a bruise, slinks away as Ava does in cowardice. No remorse to be found from the smaller; a primal display of wrath, of jealousy, of greed.
One paw reaches up to wipe the tears from her cheek, the bitter salt of repentance heavy in her mouth. Fine! FINE! she shouts, ear-piercing. She had paid her price. She had given her apologies and her fear to God — and yet she found she felt no different.
Her tail ribbons between her legs, coiling around the inside of her thigh, and slowly, she begins to pick up the pieces. Her lupine, gone; but what she did recover were two asters, one of the lilies, and the bulb of a rhododendron, now crushed and missing many of its' petals. Disappointment slammed her with no alarm — or perhaps it was fear of disappointing her family.
So instead of sulking, she dusts herself off, ignoring the beaded splatters of scarlet that dot the sandbanks and instead goes in search of replacements. One by one, she gets them back, and this time, there are double the spoils — two of everything, for both younger and older daughter.

in this moment, the divide between the harborlings and the darklings had never felt greater. a rift within ava was born. 

her tear-welled gaze lost its softness, hardening over into something defensive and inscrutable. as dinah rose with a gesture and begun collecting the strewn remains of her bouquet, ava now kept her distance. the sharp edge of her shoulder was kept to dinah at all times, even as her sister took care to collect doubles. 

in her own pile,  ava amassed ragwort and dandelion; queen anne’s lace and wild chamomile; strands of milky wild pineapple weed paired with white trillium. it was an unruly and understated piece, having no chance of upstaging the artistic brilliance of dinah’s attentive foraging. when placed upon the ground, it practically appeared grey — ava eyed it sullenly as she waited for towhee’s verdict.

When the children reapproach Gramma @Towhee, Dinah is wrought with a ferocious guilt. Her bouquet is neatly gathered and placed adjacent to Ava's — a smörgåsbord of absolute chaos, not unlike the three other siblings the Uncle dragged in — but still, Dinah compliments her with an It's really pretty, Ava, giving her pointed shoulder a tender, hesitant touch with a paw. Mama and Daddy are gonna love it.
She noses the collection of doubles to her with a snuffle and a soft whine. These are for you to keep, she whispers, a hopeful wideness to cornflower blue eyes. I tried ta' find an extra big blue one. I'm sorry, Ava. she drags a paw through the pale sand in circle motions, nails raking a pattern of four. you don't have ta' forgive me. But God wouldn't want us to be mad at each other. she didn't even know if Ava would find that reassuring in the way she did — but it was God! God was their light, God was their love, God was Sweetharbor's entire being; how could she not, if she was one of them now?
Patiently, now, she tucks her knees up to her chest and eagerly awaits Gramma's judgment.

She intended to keep a close eye on the girls, though that was before Towhee saw something strange on the ground. Cautiously, she sniffed closer to it, squinting and asking herself, What… the fuck… is that? It looked like it could be a fish of some sort but it was more of a blob than anything. And what was it doing here?

Whatever it was, it was definitely dead and partially eaten too, by the look of it. Had one of the island’s wolves killed it and dropped it? Maybe it tasted bad? It looked like it tasted bad…

What? Towhee blurted when the pups reappeared in her peripherals, apparently ready to show off their findings. Oh, right, she acknowledged, giving the dead creature one last odd look before trotting over to meet Dinah and Ava.

Oh, wow, she exclaimed, genuinely impressed by the array at their little feet. Having neither seen nor heard anything of their contentious exchange, she added, You two did even better than I expected, as her eyes swept the gathered blooms.

Towhee eventually looked up at their faces and finally noticed something amiss, her brow furrowing as she asked, Hey, what—did something happen?

when stood alongside ava’s ragged arrangement, dinah’s was far lovelier. ava stifled the urge to destroy it, fearful of towhee’s watchful gaze. 

she flinched under dinah’s hesitant touch - a neat show of teeth given in response to her sister’s magnanimous offer. ava was irritable, tired, and hurt. such a cocktail of emotions made her ungenerous. 

towhee’s question met no response. ava’s sullen gaze trailed to the ground and then to dinah’s far more gorgeous assembly of flora.

Gramma Towhee was no stupid woman. Pretty instantly, she'd gathered that something had gone awry.
Dinah takes it upon herself to explain. Ava tried to steal my flowers right from my mouth, she sheepishly curls her tail around herself, chin lowered and pressed to her chest. so I swatted at her n' then she attacked me. and, and-- I picked more as an apology. These are for her. she points first to the cuts along her forelegs, and then to the second bouquet with a shaken paw.
Ava refuses to even so much as look at her; her teeth aglow with a thin sheen of saliva. Dinah nearly started sobbing right then and there once more! She sniffles, wide-eyed as she stares to Gramma; oh, the ache in her chest; I already prayed n' told God I was sorry.

Towhee fought hard not to roll her eyes. There was no bloodshed, as far as she could tell, just bruised feelings. If it had been her own children, she probably would’ve dismissed the argument outright, let them sort it out between themselves in their own time. Or maybe set up a puppy battle dome, who knows? But she was a little softer as a grandmother than a mother and she did hate seeing both girls so sullen following what was supposed to be an enjoyable activity.

Mmkay. Your parents let you roam the island pretty freely, don’t they? Why don’t you, Towhee said, pointing to the east, go that way? And you go the opposite way, she continued, catching Ava’s eye and pointing in the opposite direction. Take some time to cool off while I sort through these flowers and arrange them into two bouquets. They’re gonna be all mixed together so nobody will know who picked what, in case that had any bearing on your fight.

Towhee promptly—but gingerly—swept all the flowers into a single heap. She then gave each girl a hard look, pointing emphatically as if to say, Class dismissed.

Aloud, she said, Come back this way in about an hour, then we can find your parents and present them to them as a united triad. Capische?

in that moment ava was disadvantaged; she had no way to tell her side of the story. dinah’s recount was met with a wretched stare.

instructed then to flounce off in a direction opposite of dinah, ava rose. intrusive thoughts of kicking dirt over both bouquets came to mind, but with towhee there ava didn’t dare; besides, the small child in her was desperate for approval from some adult figure.

she shook out her bladed ruff and begun walking away, exhaling through her nose as she began exploring the adjacent tide pools.

Gramma Towhee cared not for the skirmish between them. As Dinah had somewhat expected — when were these things ever taken seriously? They were children, and children have petty arguments all the time; but in the little Redhawk's mind, Ava may as well have called for war and renounced her christening.
She refused to forgive, or even spare her more than a sour glare.
Her guilt free-flows into swaths of anger. Ava was the one who snapped her pearly little teeth at her face in hopes of stealing her flowers! After all that effort to fix, rebuild, apologize; completely for naught! And now Dinah felt as if she might perish. What had she done that was so unequivocally wrong? She didn't deserve this!
But it subsides quickly, and soon enough her stomach begins to hurt. She had done something, something to cause this. There were no actions without consequence. Ava had now decided to shun her, and if she knew anything, it's that it wasn't without reason. Dinah is the evil one, Dinah is the one who must repent a thousand times over! But—
Her tummy flip-flops. Is she? Isn't she?
This isn't what God would want, she wanted to say, scream it high-pitched up to the clouds and beg Him to do something, show her the correct way, and yet she doesn't.
Okay, and her paws carry her in the direction Gramma Towhee had pointed. She begins a slow, agonizing trudge off to the shoreline, where she decided she would bury herself in a blanket of white sand and pray herself anew.