Wheeling Gull Isle amen

His family had returned but there was no coming back for Caracal. He dimly registered their presences gathered around him but he was too far gone to do anything about it. He couldn’t even tell them what had happened to @Judah, explain that he was repenting for his role in his son’s death as well as all his other sins.

Someone had moved him out of the water. Though they might have tried to revive him, he only slipped further away. Caracal did not fight to live, not at all. He hoped to be reunited with Judah. Perhaps he would see the others too, though their papa hoped they were still alive out there somewhere…

At some point, he opened his eyes and saw her there: his writer. Caracal couldn’t make much sense of what he was seeing but he sensed solemnity from her. She held something in her paw—no, her hand—and she shook it back and forth. She laid her other hand on his head.

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he reopened them, his mom was there in the foreground. She was bent over him, looking like a wreck. Caracal couldn’t see her anymore but he could still feel God’s hand on his head, smoothing between his ears.

“Don’t worry, Cackle…” she murmured from behind Towhee. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Don’t worry, mom, everything is going to be okay, Caracal tried to tell Towhee, because of course she wouldn’t be able to hear.

Towhee refused to leave her son’s side. He was clean and dry now, though he still looked like a corpse. He’d somehow survived the night but she feared he would not last another. Any effort to dribble food or water into his mouth had less than promising results and she sensed that he was beyond help. She would stay until he took a turn, one way or the other.

She was staring into space when Caracal’s dry, cracked lips moved, just barely. It was impossible to guess what he was saying, if anything. Towhee bent over him as if listening and felt his breath, gentle and warm against her cheek. She blindly found his nearer paw and grasped at it.

He felt his paw slip into his mother’s. Caracal gave it his best reassuring squeeze. He tried to smile at her too. God was here with him and he was going to be okay.

He heard something hit the floor and glanced past Towhee to see two small objects settle on the ground beside her. His mom didn’t react but Caracal couldn’t stop staring at them: two little white squares covered in black dots.

“Okay, Cackle,” God signed resignedly, “it’s time to go. I’m gonna take you somewhere where nothing hurts anymore. And I’ll be with you the whole time, okay? And more importantly, you’ll always be with me.”

She stood up behind Towhee—she stood on two legs, freakishly tall—and moved around to his other side. Caracal felt comforted as she bent down and picked him up in her arms. He let out one last breath and pressed his face to her chest, feeling the beat of her heart and knowing he would be at peace there.

She thought she felt his paw twitch in hers. Towhee sat up a little and brought her other paw forward so she held his in both of hers. She stared down at his face, the fur all over her body suddenly prickling as she sensed: this was it.

Towhee had the presence of mind to call for @Heda and the kids before she slipped down on the floor beside her son. She let her head rest lightly against his chest. She had been there for his first breath and Towhee was also there when Caracal took his last.