Wheeling Gull Isle can you paint with all the colors

The Sun dipped low towards the horizon and the sky became a palette of orange and pink. Seal sat on the beach and dug her toes into the sand as she looked out over the water. The landless horizon went on and on. Had anyone ever tried to swim across the sea, she wondered?

Suddenly a crab scuttled across the sand. Seal had never seen one alive, before! For some reason, she had never pictured it moving sideways, as it did.

there were other children here. ava was instructed to be polite, to be mindful -- but as she looked upon the visitors, she could only think of how they had come on the heels of her sibling's departures.

why could it not be the visitor to go missing, instead?

her gaze burned into the back of seal's head; she paused from her collection of flowers for psalm, peering over a bundle of queen anne's lace at the stranger who sat mesmerized by a crab.

The crab was so fascinating to Seal that she stooped down to get a closer look. Her nose twitched as she inspected a barnacle on its leg. When she did, the defensive crustacean reached out and pinched her snout with its vice-like incisors.

“Ouch!” Seal cried with a yelp as she backpedaled, trying to escape. The crab, who had been attached to her snout, was flung away in a high arc up, up, up, and away. Right over her spying cousin’s head.

ava could have predicted what came next. innocent puppy, posed with an age old question: is decapod friendly?

a little life lesson: anything with more than four legs and pointy ends was fundamentally unfriendly. especially when those two delineating factors were put together: eight legs, two pincers? completely un-friendlike.

the crab pinched. the visitor yelped and flung her head back. cue the most unusual sight: a beast of the water-order being launched into the kingdom of birds and things with wings.

ava could not help the giggle that spilled from between her mouth of pearly flowers.

When the crab detached Seal fell backwards right onto her rump with an Oof! The whumped girl cupped her nose with both paws, rolling from side to side as small tears beaded in the corners of her eyes.

“It- it bit me!” She exclaimed in disbelief to no one… or so she thought.

Little giggles revealed that Seal had an audience. She rolled onto her belly, propped up by one elbow, and saw her younger cousin hiding out just yards away. Black fur with a distinct patch of red… there was no doubt, in Seal’s mind, that this was Ava Amara.

Suddenly the crab reappeared from behind a clump of seagrass. Dazed by its trapeze act, it waltzed like a drunken sailor.

Seal let out a battle cry. “Common’, Ava! Let’s get it!”

She kicked up the sand, eager to put crab cakes on the dinner menu.

her laughter seemed so loud! ava rose a paw to her mouth as if to catch it as seal bucked in the sand, but it was too late. she was heard, and seen. 

there was no feigned shock in ava’s gaze. of course the crab had done what crabs do. she glanced from seal — almost dumbly — to the shuffling menance behind her. 

instinctively, she moved her back away from its raised pincers. it seemed disoriented. painfully, ava wondered if it felt the way she had when the whale —

seal was striding towards it, a war cry strung from her lips. overcome with a sudden sense of solidarity, ava tugged wordlessly at her sand kicking cousin with the bushel of flowers still hung in her mouth. no! leave it alone!

Seal only knew crabs as one thing and that was food. Her Da had once brought one, already dispatched, from a venture to Moontide, and the girl had thought its flesh so sweet and delicious! Who knew they could be so onerous?

Seal, ready to go full Fight Club, pelted it with sand. A long-range projectile was clearly the most reasonable choice for prey armed with their own weapon.

She had expected Ava to join in like Orca would have when suddenly she felt a tug on her fur. She looked back, sort of confused. Ava didn’t want her to…. “No?” Seal parsed. She ceased her assault. The mountain girl was no sadist.

ava had admittedly not thought this out very far. crabs as she knew them were often food -- she recalled the crabs that stormed their den, and how thousands (really, dozens) of carapaces had been smashed delightfully underfoot.

but that was before;

seal's advancement paused. this surprised the girl, who only ever knew absolute resolve - she could not even have said if in her place, she would have done the same.

ava pulled back. for a girl with no way to express the hundreds of conflicting, confusing emotions that bubbled under her cauldron skin, she sure had a lot of things she wanted to say.

instead she put down the bundle of flowers and extracted a handful from the group. these she gave to seal before collecting the rest and motioning for her silvery cousin to forget the crab, and follow her to something far more exciting.

Seal wished to form a bond with her cousins more than anything (even delicious crab cakes). To be connected with family was something Seal felt was more than just important. It was part of her identity, born from the way of the village Moonspear.

Age and impulse control certainly helped, too. Now an adolescent, Seal felt more herself than ever before. Of course, this was bound to change with puberty lurking just around the corner.

“Okay,” she agreed amicably as the crab retreated.

Then, she was handed a bundle of long-stemmed flowers with clusters of white petals. Without any other context, Seal assumed they were a gift. After all, Dinah had also fetched her flowers. “Aww, thanks,” she said to Ava.

Seal picked up the flowers and followed her younger cousin, curious as to where she was being led.

when seal said thanks, ava flashed her a strange look -- but it was short lived, and the dark girl was already on her feet headed towards the bay.

she would occasionally look behind her to ensure that her older cousin was following. after two such maneuvers, she was confident seal understood the assignment. her pace quickened.

it took a few tries for ava to find her. the first bend of rolling sea and tidal flats, she wasn't there. the second spot, where caracal had shown ava tunicates once, was also empty.

but the third spot! ava's features brightened in excitement as she saw the familiar shape waddling out towards sea. she sprinted now, little flowers bobbing in the breeze.

her target slowed and regarded the puppy in silence: now, the pied-faced girl was a familiar sight -- but psalm was a wild creature many years their senior -- she had not gotten to such age by trusting blindly.

ava turned to seal in excitement, motioning for her to push the flowers towards the giant sea-turtle as she had, and watch!

The white blooms bobbed off-beat with her steps as Seal loped behind Ava, full trust in her tour guide. Like Dinah, Ava led Seal to new and exciting outlooks, each island feature more wonderful than the next.

First, the tidal flats. Seal couldn’t help but ooh and ahh at the wide stretches of wet stand painted magenta and orange as they reflected the sunset from up above. Then, they hopped through the tidepools – little ecosystems of weird and alien plants and creatures. Here, Seal lagged behind a little but made a mental note to return and explore later.

She caught up to Ava who had run ahead. A great lump, like a smooth riverstone, moved in the sand! Seal’s head perked up as she galloped with a spring in her step. What creature had Ava found?

She sidled up next to her cousin to observe the large animal. Its beaked head… that broad shell…. was it truly…?! Seal gasped. “I love turtles,” she exclaimed as a memory from her childhood came back en force. But this turtle was different than the ones back home. Instead of feet with long claws, it had flippers.

Versed in the ways of testudinata, Seal was careful not to spook it. She mimicked Ava and nosed her bundle of flowers towards it.

about a month before present date, ava had discovered psalm had a predilection for flowers. it had originated with her flower-gathering mishap with dinah and towhee -- and later in a fit of rage, she'd destroyed nearly every flowering head she could and then sent the rest out to sea.

during one such episode, she'd discovered psalm -- and watched in awe as the turtle ate her offering.

since then, it had been her small little routine to collect what budding fronds she could, offering them to the great water-beast. some were handily accepted, and others turned away -- as the days passed ava gathered a better understanding of psalm's palete, and a sense of kinship grew.

to share this special thing with someone else was a rare moment of vulnerability for ava. she watched, breath baited, as her cousin stepped towards the regal creature. seal called it a turtle -- ava remembered this word, turning it over in her mind as she watched psalm lumber forth.

the sea-leviathan's flippers churned in the sand. in what seemed a huge effort, it turned its head sideways and greedily set in on the bouquet, all the while watching the terrestrial duo with a pair of knowing, intelligent eyes.

Once the flowers were deposited Seal backed away and laid in the sand. She tucked her chin between her paws in an attempt to control her excited vibrations, though her tail wagged to-and-fro with a rapid tempo.

Her gaze flicked over to Ava and then back to the turtle as she waited for its deliberation.

Then – yes! – it turned itself and began to eat the flora they had brought. Seal swore she saw a delighted shimmer in its dark, glassy eye.

The mountain girl sucked in a breath as a wide smile curved from ear to ear.

“Wow,” she gasped with wonder. “It likes them! How did you know?” Seal turned to Ava. What other secrets did her cousin harbor?

seal crouched to the ground, tremors of excitement rolling up and down her frame. ava's gaze darted from seal to psalm, a kindred energy thrumming through her.

there was a collective pause, a hang of baited breath from both as psalm turned! and then the rewarding crescendo in their act as beak ground plant matter into fodder, a grating munch back and forth in metronome.

ava found seal's questioning eyes upon her. how had she known? the girl gave a mute shrug of her shoulders. she was an island thing, and so was psalm -- maybe seal had her own inland secrets ava would never know!

she dashed forwards with an idea, her nose trailing the wet sand as she looked for more things to offer psalm in a game of 'will-she-like-it? will-she-not?'

A shrug telegraphed that the was no answer. Seal, mesmerized by the way the turtle devoured the gifts lagged behind Ava when her cousin struck out to the beach. A moment later Seal was beachcombing beside her under the colorful evening sky.

Suddenly, a realization. Since the meeting, Ava had not uttered a word. Was she deaf and really good at reading lips? “Hey Ava,” Seal asked to get her attention. -“Do you speak with Ptero?”- her gestures signed the words.

Then, Seal found a wide, flat ribbon of green kelp and picked it up between her front incisors. She tossed her muzzle to the side as if to ask, what do you think about this?

the pair combed through the beach, heads down. ava heard her name and paused, a strand of kelp hung loose from her jaws. 

seal’s paws moved in a mesmerizing motion; the visual pattern remaining in little repetitions long after her arm lowered. ava had seen this before — in towhee — and her skull tipped quizzically to the side, as if questioning.

Phox found that each day that passed on the island became more difficult for him. He thought of Niamh, of the children he never really knew, and all those dreadful months of not knowing what had happened. Of how an entire group of wolves hid his wife's death from him. He had not been in a downward spiral like this since... well, since he had found out that the mother of his children had died. He was itching to return back to the mainland, but he knew he should stick it out until Towhee and Seal were ready to head out.

He came upon the latter doing something with one of her younger cousins up ahead, though he couldn't quite make out what exactly they were doing. Only when Seal began to sign did Phox approach, his jagged gait slowing when he saw Seal pick up a piece of slimy green something.

-You kids gettin' into trouble?- he jested, pushing down any inclination to damper their fun with his sad emotional whirlwind.

A small tilt of the head was Ava’s only response, which fascinated Seal. Surely Uncle Caracal had tried to teach her cousins? Or maybe Grandma Towhee had tried to instruct them as she had taught her Moonsperian nieces.

Did she wonder? Was she curious?

“Ptero,” Seal mumbled aloud, the ribbon of kelp still cinched between her teeth. “Like, speaking with movements instead of your voice. Like Grandma Towhee does.”

She loped over to Ava with her findings in tow and sniffed the orange piece her cousin had found. How many kinds of seaweed were there?!

“I think the sea turtle will like yours best,” she said.

-“Seaweed,”- she said and signed at the same time.

Suddenly, Phox’s familiar tripod silouette came into view.

“Hi Granda!” Seal called, beckoning him over. “Ava’s showing me the beach,” she said cheerfully.

seal’s hands moved in a fashion too articulate for ava to imitate. the kelp hung loose in her jaw as she replayed the motion in her head.

could this be the bridge between her lonely world and that of the spoken tongue? a sorry kind of longing flared in her gaze before becoming extinguished.  

a figure limped into view. ava studied the greyscale cast of this stranger — she recognized him as one of the visitors. when seal loped over to him with friendly body language, ava loosened and turned back to psalm. 

she slid the ribbon of kelp to the turtle, quietly imitating the motions seal made moments before.

Seal greeted him with a friendly salutation, inviting him to take a look at whatever "trouble" they were getting into. It was a curious thing, whatever Ava was doing with the strange squishy grass Phox had never much cared for. It certainly wasn't edible as far as he knew... but as he continued to watch, he saw the turtle pop its head above water, snatching the sliver of green and disappearing back below the surface. It was not something he had seen before, and he was intrigued by it.

Phox watched also as Ava "spoke" the name of the squishy grass: seaweed. He remembered the badger he had once found for Fennec, hoping it might give her even more independence. Phox wondered if Ava had a similar relationship with the turtle, though he found it difficult to imagine how they would properly help one another if one was of water and the other of land. Then again, considering Ava had spent her life on the island, maybe that wasn't so hard to believe.

He hopped his way over closer to her, watching where the turtle had disappeared into the saltwater a bit longer. It popped its head up a moment, then disappeared only a moment later. -Turtle your friend?- he asked.

seaweed ava mimed into the open space between them, whirling to pin her sights on the hobbling man who now stood besides her.

she rose carefully as psalm slipped into the waters. the man’s arms moved too; this was the dawn of a wide world of possibilities for ava, who had never once drawn a word from her little mouth. 

she watched the signals in fascination, but had no way to respond. she looked back to where the turtle had been, gradually peering at phox again. she raised her paw but stopped, watchful.

“Yeah, that’s it Ava!” Seal encouraged in a bubbly voice. -“Seaweed”-

Then, the ancient creature took its leave into the ocean’s depths. Their elder posed a question, but the only response from Ava was a curious shine in her eyes. Her paw hovered, signless, but Seal took this as an indication that she wanted to say something but didn’t know the signs.

“Ava just learned her first sign in Ptero,” she explained to Granda Phox.

Seal would do her best to teach her cousin the gestures for ‘turtle’ and ‘friend’ that evening and continued to play together until it was time to sleep.

Last from me!