Wheeling Gull Isle Eulogy

little makeshift memorial for @Towhee (assumed dead) :c all on the island welcome to join, no pressure and no posting order <3 @Simeon @John @Malakai @Dinah

All the beauty of wheeling gull shrouded in funeral mists.

He’d returned to sweet harbor where he had reconciled with his siblings and achieved a certain amount of peace only to lay an empty grave for a grandmother whose life had been stolen.

The island fell into ugliness. Death was everywhere. He pictured grandma’s blood gushing into the sea, swallowing pieces of his loved one into oceans of fire. He heard the mockery of seals and each time it sent a bolt through his heart.

From the shore he carried one large shell of abalone and set it beside the grave of his father. Over her alter was laid a tangle of satin wildflowers.

And then was it. He stepped back. There was nothing else to do. She was gone.

He hung his head.

Hey- it's been a while. Can you hear me? I really need you right now.

Judah couldn’t speak, his one good leg was shaking the whole of his body too badly. So he raised his voice in an ebbing howl, calling all to home.

Judah.... His brother's howl bellows through the gloom which hung over the island and Malakai's call is returned to his brother, his name whispered in the wind. 

Soon, he would see his twin, settled at the grave of their father. Settled at the new monument of their grandmother. He takes quiet, slow steps into his direction and then comes to sit at his side, his mismatched color gaze fixed on the water beyond the lavender field. 

When it was thought you perished in the sea, they mourned you as they had mourned father. I did not. A sharp eye cuts to the side, to see his brother from the corner of his gaze. You were not dead to me. Not unless I saw it with my own eyes. Don't give up on her just yet. She's old, but stronger then anyone else I've met. He was not particularly close to his grandmother. He wasn't particularly close to anyone savor his twin and @Nakano who had kept him alive all this time. Still, he spoke truth to his brother.

“Maybe you should have mourned. Nothing’s been the same since,” a breath bursts from his throat. He stares numbly ahead at the breakers on the horizon.

If grandma returned, would she come back whole? Or would the sea also strip her of sanity?

“Sorry,” tears prick at his eyes but he blinks them back. He looks at Mal, hesitating. His brother was so different now. Sharper; broader; but his eyes still looked out at the world with the selfsame strength. His cheek falls heavy upon his twin’s identical silver shoulder.

“Dinah left... I'm going too. I have to go find mom and Ava,” he tells him, "I'm going to ask John to take me." Silently his eyes asked the question- was he coming?

Malakai's jaw tenses at Judah's words, his lips pulling back in tight frown of disapproval. He is quiet, as though waiting for Judah to reprimand himself for those words and to his brother! Who always sought to protect him, even if it meant being stern and sharp. Cruel, as their sister might say, whom was always filled with chronic dissatisfaction. 

And there, the apology given and Malakai looks to his twin as he does to him. Time and turmoil had sculpted him into a rangy and wiry figure. Scarred of both body and soul. 

Judah's head falls to his shoulder and Malakai takes a heavy breath and sigh. Now he too stares back out over the salt water. Find your way back through God's word, Judah. He urges though whispered words. Now, with more certainty, he speaks the word of God, And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

Alas, the words of Judah fell after and fell hard. Malakai's body tenses, but he does not move from his brother's side. He had finally, like Lazarus before him, returned to life and returned to Malakai by their island, only for they to be parted yet again.

Judah's silent question lingered, as did Malakai's answer, until finally he spoke, I will be here when you return. For him, it was not an "if", but a "when". When the mainland chewed him up and spit him out. When everything which was good and holy was sucked out from him. When their mother failed him again and again. (When he was sick of Dinah's shit). When he could not longer hear God's voice. 

Malakai would be here, waiting.

The boy was weakened, bled of a will that instead suffused within his mirrored half. God’s proclamations conferred upon his brother’s tongue, and when God went silent, Malakai spoke His potent words.

God; Malakai; speaking divine laws as strong as the ocean’s current, pulling all things great and small toward the heart of the world, and Judah along with it.

Redhawks only ever left the isle in disgrace. He feared the mainland and the type of person he would be so far from his island; so far from God’s voice. But Judah would not dare ask aloud for Mal’s company, fearing more to be pinned beneath his twin’s disfavor.

A muscle in his jaw clenches. The boy rights himself and nods stiffly, avoiding the identical two-toned gaze, instead focusing on the slow dance of petals upon Towhee’s grave. His head bows, eyes squeezing shut over the threat of more tears.

“She is safe, with dad.” Judah presses close, ears leveling, cold nose nuzzling into the cheek of his brother. “I will return to you, Malakai.”