Wheeling Gull Isle he's half the man and you're twice as tall

we need to go, @Judah.
the island had become — suffocating. it was like dinah had set off a domino effect of madness, of ghosts she hadn't seen in what felt like years, pushing and pulling she and he. bitterness seeped back into her heart. the audacity of malakai to show his face to her again, of john, even of gramma towhee; it was
too much.
dinah wanted to take her brother and sweep him off to the rise, to show him the snowmelt and the streams which broke the land. she wanted to be alone with him. she wanted to feel the warmth of mulherin again. she wanted — her mom. she wanted her mom.
she did not come to him with demands, only a panicked, antsy plead. her eyes spoke of her desperation as she paced the greenhills just outside of the once-abandoned den. i can't-- i can't take this anymore. this is all too much, it's-- i can't believe everyone thinks they can just, just, come back, as if everything is fine. as if-- ugh.
please, she settles down for a moment, head between her elbows; her voice shakes. please, juju.
don't make me stay here.

Dinah came to him with whitecaps on her voice, an ocean pushing back, vigorous. John and Simeon, Towhee and Malakai- she did not share his great relief to be reunited with her family.

Judah had wanted to hold onto his self-righteous anger. He had wanted to find someone to blame. None of this would have happened if they hadn’t all abandoned Dad. It was mom’s fault. Dinah’s. Mal and Simeon’s. His death bloodied their paws. They’d all turned their backs on him that day- every last one.

But they had been children, and in the end, he loved them too much. And when he found his heart unwilling to forgive, he’d hold dad in communion, with all the old spirits of the deep. It was the island that saved him.

It was not so for Dinah- something worrying was happening to her. There was a new sallowness to her full face, her eyes were emptying. She wasn’t happy here, Judah saw it. It was the first time he realized the island would never again be Sweetharbor.

Judah shifts his weight, reaching to gently cradle her tired cheek in his palm. He didn’t mull his thoughts over, for long they’d been welling in his mind.

“Ok. Let’s go.”

dinah didn't even realize it, but she devolved into a bundle of exposed nerve endings, collapsing at judah's heels in a bough of tears which she had not allowed to fall in many weeks.
the island was not home anymore.
when she had returned, some small part of her had expected to find it exactly as she had left it. the dove white clouds against the backdrop of deep cerulean, the seafoam snarling against the endless beach and the waft of lavender on the breeze; all of it was still here, right in front of her, so close she can reach out for it, and yet — all she sees is a muted sky. all she smells is blood. the death rattle churns beneath her skin, the milky haze which settled over hazel eyes.
this was not home.
this was not sweetharbor.
daddy was not here, only the rotten remains which were sown into soil. and they would never find him again no matter how hard they searched.
she leans into the touch as another wave of agony crashes against her; silent tears trace her cheeks, forming dark rivulets against her pelt.
we'll l-leave in a few days, she whispers. say our goodbyes. and then we'll go-- we'll go somewhere, we'll find ava. find ourselves.
it's just-- i just feel so suffocated here, she warbles, steadying her voice with a pitiful sniffle. it's like i look around me and all i see is him. sometimes i th-think i see him. i feel like i'm losing it, like we're both going to just-- go fucking insane out here. i-i-i don't even want to see them. they left me to take care of mom. they left me, judah, they;
she was crumbling, her face burning and her extremities beginning to quake; delusional, delusional, delusional; i w-want to see mulherin.

Find himself out there?

What’s out there that could rival their divine island? Wheeling gull with its salted lookouts and untouched beaches and violet spring meadows. He is yanked back into childhood, an entire lifetime ago, when Dinah had left him for the sea. He understood then that he was doomed to root in place like a weed while his siblings were whales riding the greater oceans.

“I see him too. He’s everything. He is the island.” And Judah needed it that way.

A grunt clobbers in the boy’s throat, one that consented out of necessity- for her. His sister was not well here, and the longer he listened to her cries the more convinced he was that he needed to get her away from the isle. It is a realization that tears his heart asunder.

But it is a different sentiment that turns his eyes upon her now.

“Mulherin?” he questions. Who the hell is that?

i can't stand it. i n-need to be away from-- from it, from all of it. all it does is make me remember. because her memory was like poison, slowly killing her from the inside out.
dinah shifts slightly away, gathering herself with sniffles and coughs so that she may look her brother in the eyes. he, too, was sad, at least to her — he had aged, yes, and his face was now cloaked in a dark silt which had not been there when she last remembered seeing him. he looked so much like mama with his thin jaw and deep eyes; he did not look like daddy the way she did, and yet she still saw it in him, heard the same intonation in his voice.
he said mulherin's name the same way she'd imagine daddy would.
oh, dinah straightens herself up, eyes widening and ears pulling back. h-he's, um, he's a-- what was he? her boyfriend? her casual-make-out-buddy? some guy she'd met on a beach far away from here? were they even anything yet? would they ever be? a-a guy i like. wait, oh my gosh, not in that way, no, not-- um-- you'd like him too, i think, her lip curves into something that almost resembles a smile. he's from a place called redtail rise. w-we could... go visit him? maybe? once we get out of here? i don't think it's that far.
holy hell, she was talking way too much.
he was not going to buy this at all.

It’s the ugliest name he’s ever heard.

And still nowhere near as ugly as the acute feeling that coils in his chest like a barbed vine.

“Not what way, Dinah?” Mismatched eyes rake across her face, catching a forbidden warmth there. She’s nervous. He burns with jealousy.

She’s going to leave him. She’s going to forget all about him if he doesn’t put a stop to whatever is going on between his sister and Mulherin.

“This guy can handle himself. We need to find Mom and Ava,” Judah cuts, his tone sharp. To hell with ‘the rise’.

the mood between them shifts so quickly. it takes dinah a moment to register that judah is being completely serious; she doesn't think she's ever seen this side of him, at least not in such a brusque and abrasive manner.
this wasn't right. why was he looking at her like this? some ancient, primal instinct turns her stomach into knots. she recoils, the nape of her neck bristling as reactionary anger spills from her; her voice is suddenly frigid and oozing with resentment.
mom and ava don't want us anymore, judah.
mulherin is a good guy, she all but scoffs. he's-- he's good to me. he's sweet, and he's fun to be around, and he understands me. us. he knows what it's like! our mother is a fucking whore who replaced her d-dead husband's kids with the spawn of some-- some guy who's almost our age! and she had the fucking gall to try and get me to accept them as my brothers.
her breathing grows shallow in her chest, a painful lump forming in her throat. regret for raising her voice singes her tired features. i'm-- i'm going to go see him. you can either come with me, or i'll, i'll come back here to get you afterward, if you don't want to meet him. and if you still want to see mom, then we'll go to-- to rivenwood. after. but i want to see him, judah.

A good guy!

“So you’re leaving me! For him,” he snaps!

Dinah spills her own ugliness, staining his ears with words he’d never heard before and others that were certainly blasphemous! He turns to her with furious, incredulous eyes and teeth bearing down the inside of his lips.

“What is it you’re doing with Mulherin that’s so important to get back to, huh? You stand there and call mom a whore?” His heart pounds furiously, hating the thought but fearing more the idea that this might be it-

“It’s supposed to be me and you! I can take care of you, Dinah. We don’t need anyone else.” They’d promised! They'd promised to stay together. Oh- but hadn’t he learned? A Redhawk’s promise is as sacred as dirt.

you left me!
the tears that prickle in her eyes burn like hot magma, her lips curling into an agonized grimace. you left me. simeon left me, fucking malakai left me, everyone abandoned me to take care of mama. only for her to replace me right in front of my eyes! replace-- replace daddy! you don't know what it was like, ju. you don't.
why was he being like this? like a newborn fawn she feels the inescapable urge to flee deep in her gut, and yet she stays put; an icy, immovable force. the way he says mulherin's name makes her want to vomit.
why are you making me choose between the two of you? her eyes narrow into slits, cheeks darkened yet again by tearfall. i love you! you're my brother. but it's-- it's different with him. y-you can't do what he does for me. but that doesn't mean that it's not still me and you, judah. don't you fucking dare put words in my mouth like that.

“Put words in your mouth?” His twin planets flare, “you’re the one saying I left when I stayed to help dad! I never left you, everyone abandoned Dad and me! I was trying to get back to you when-”

The words cease in his throat and he swallows back their bitterness. His eyes blur with ruthless tears he moves quickly to swipe at. Dinah should have never had that pressure put on her, just as Judah should never have been left the sole carer for dad. Two children, forced into parental roles. If the boy had a moment to think, he'd realize it wasn’t about Mulherin. Not truly.

He stares at the ground, fighting a shake in his one front leg.

“I love you. I never thought I’d see you again and now I’m so… damned terrified of losing you.”