Wheeling Gull Isle flapkrasha

for older pups! <3

dissent rippling through the downy puppyish ranks of sweetharbor.
the demands of the new four eased gently beneath the efforts of the sweetharbor wolves and the moonspear group alike.
heda found more rest for herself, more moments alone. 
and in that, she found something to worry about among her children.
today heda left the youngest pups in the capable hands of @Caracal and perhaps his mother, nursing them soundly before she set off for a much-needed traipse around the island.
but her voice lifted for her little ones, and gently she approached the mouth of the lion's den.
"i want to tell you about a man named bartholomew, and how god tested him right here," she said, turning her golden eyes on whomsoever had followed.

grabby hands at this!!! have a dinah

Perhaps God had been listening to her after all — or maybe He'd just accepted her apology, because today, Mama had a trip planned with no demons allowed! 
And this made Dinah overjoyed!
In her childish glee, her bitterness had taken up a spot on the backburner in place of giddiness and a wiggling little body that bounds alongside her Mama. She is relieved, overjoyed; the light behind sapphire eyes is bright once more. She almost wanted to sing! 
She hadn't paid much attention to the idle chatter, though admittedly, the name Bartholomew earned a perk of her ears. Baaaar-taaahhhhll-aaaa-myeeeeww, she sounds under her breath. Tha's not a real name, is it? 

Eventually little boys grow up and have to leave home.
But that didn’t mean Judah liked it. In fact, Judah hated it!

He hated the way the too-bright sun stung his birth-eyes. He hated how gusts of wind shot down his ears and tickled his brain. He hated the piercing cries of the wheeling gulls, the slam of ocean against the mafic coast, the too-salty air, the rubbing noises of leaves, the ground that was too squishy and swallowed his paws whole like a monster’s mouth.

He didn’t understand why Ami led them all the way out to a hole in the ground to tell a story about Bartswallowpew that wasn’t even his family. When they arrive he rakes a big dark paw across one itching ear.

God must be testing Judah right here.

One look at Dinah and Simeon’s own face crawled with a big, goofy, silly grin! He delighted to see her smile again. She’d spent so many days frowning, he’d been worried she wouldn’t remember how! But God must have heard his prayers, too.

Thank you!! he bounded along while his thoughts reached the heavens, and laughter shaped his mouth all the way to the gaping cave.

While Dee tried to say the funny name, Simeon peered into the darkness with a looooooong crane of his neck and an even longer Ooooooooo! at the spooky cave, and then a lighthearted scoff to his sister, it’s gotta be real! Only papa’d make up names like that!

He made sure to keep his paws firm on the ground all the while, not at all trusting that @Malakai wouldn’t push him into the hole. What a mighty fine joke that would be!

More wolves had come to the lands of Sweetharbor. Not just the new four pups to replace the first four, but adults, too. Wolves of a place called Moonspear. One from a place called Moonglow. Some, like Everett, lived here. Malakai had not much interacted with others outside his parents and siblings, though with the extra helping paws and jaws, his parents were once more able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

When his mother calls for them, Kai is put into brighter spirits. While Judah hated every moment of it, Kai felt just the oposite. He enjoyed the rush of the waters over his paws, the sound it made. How it sucked his paws in the ground, forcing him to use his muscles and strengthen the limbs which were well needed living upon an island. The sun on his dark spine and the wind moving through his pelt. Kai grinned a toothy, dangerous one. Judah was sour and Kai pranced near with much pride.

pride

"oh, no. bartholomew is very real." heda settled in the softer leaves at the edge of the denmouth; she opened her arms to her children and for a moment only savored the feel of their presence, their small upturned faces waiting to be filled with the love of god.
"i met bartholomew when i was very angry," heda began, for it was in this emotion that she had finally recognized her own weakness. "i did not know how to be patient, and i hated almost everyone around me because they kept leaving."
would it surprise them, heda wondered, to know that their mother harbored negativity, that she had fed it inside herself? in some ways she hoped that it would, for it would present itself in the lesson of change.
she explained how she had gradually softened, began to question bartholomew about god. how each day they had shared in the beauty of a new place, and each day he had taught her to give thanks for it. 
how she had told him things that she'd never said before, and he treated her with the same vulnerability.
"in one of my hardest moments, bartholomew taught me that god never leaves. he always finds you."
heda told them about the first things she had seen on the island, the first time he had showed her the verdant detailing of each place. "this is where god tested bartholomew," she told her little ones, gesturing to the darkness. "it's where we brought those who needed healing and needed to be alone, here. it is a place where god speaks in another voice."
heda loved bartholomew, and it veritably poured from her as she continued, telling the story of sweetharbor, its creation, the flock upon the mount which, once healed, sought their own way. it was what they had hoped, that their island would embody god's peace for everyone who came here.
but heda had never wanted to be without the gentle prophet who had drawn her from the waters of strife.
by the telling's end, tears pearled upon her lashes, even as her smile remained radiantly upturned with the memories.

Hyperactive as little Dinah was, she was a good child. One who listened when she was told to, one who carried her heart on her sleeve.
And as Mama tells her tale; about wisemen and lions, hardship and faith in God — abandonment, forgiveness, resentment, love; Dinah listens.
Dinah is not unlike her Mama in this way. She tries to imagine what Bart-all-a-mew must have looked like, her Mama before she and her brothers were born. Mama was her own person, her own wolf. She, too, was a child once. A fretful one, a troubled one, an anguished one. A little girl with big shimmery eyes and an alabaster pelt dirtied with mud.
And God saw her and showed her light and love, peace of mind; bestowed upon her the gift of the Isle and all it provides.
If Dinah had the brain power to make sense of such a thought, perhaps she would have wondered if she reminds Mama of herself at all.
But right now, what she sees is her Mama with tears along the waterline, and so Dinah reaches over to wrap her little arms around her leg and give her comfort. Don't cry, Mama, and that is not a request nor a command.
Silence on Dinah's end follows, but only briefly. Can we meet him? she inquires, a softness to her voice. He sounds cool!

His mother spins a story and in his young mind her words string together in murky succession: bartswallowpew, loneliness, healing, faith and a lack of it, rivals and kings, ravenous lions, his mother’s anger and God’s voice.

He stares up at her from against the plush paleness of her chest, wide eyes clinging to every parable. It all seems to culminate in a single sentence that seeps into and fuses with his forming bones: God speaks in another voice.

He understands, he thinks. Or he is beginning to. That the hollowness he feels in his parents’ absence, or with siblings’ independence, is healed by God. God speaks to him in another voice. His bi-colored eyes hold over the depths of the Lion’s Den.

A warm droplet upon his ear shatters his revelation and he gazes up at his mother. She has the water in her eyes: she is sad and he doesn’t understand why.

“Ami?” he murmurs and hoists up onto her shoulder, to skim the tears of her eyes with his tongue.

Kai came into the open limbs of their mother, beckoning Judah at his side as always. It was here that the blood-born children listened to their mother's tale. 

She was filled with angry, hate and impatience. It was not something Kai could quite wrap his head around, having only known his mother of being only patient, happy and accepting. In the case of his new siblings, perhaps too accepting. 

Bartholomew (which he would not attempt to say anytime soon, perhaps never) had been the man which had taught Heda of God and in such, she had found the light which was herself this day. Kai liked this. The idea of seeing the beauty of the world, of meeting others and directing them to the right path. He could image the great happiness and pride it would bring him and knew in this, too, he would be blessed by his accomplishments. 

Malakai, as he lay, leans towards the great open entrance of the lion's den, water trickling in with little 'pitter-patters' off the earth and down below. Maybe their four littlest siblings needed to be tossed in here, so that they may find God and healing. 

His head lifts and turns at his sister's words, his twin's question. Now he too sees the tears welling in Heda's features. Lowly, he asks, Where is he? He must be yet another who he left her, in the end, like all the rest. But, it seemed, not without a well lesson: Heda needed only God to prevail.

ahhh since i dropped the ball on this i think ill end my posting here! can always have updated ones! <3

the sweetharbor wolf was unsure how to answer this; her children turned their eyes and their faces in curiosity of her grief. but heda did not dash away her tears. she allowed them to fall in slow and silent rain until their end. breath caught in her chest as if it were briars, but heda let it go.
"bartholomew went away a while ago. he goes where god leads him," she explained to her little ones, hugging them gently. "if god took him from sweetharbor, it's because we already became a flock. a place for god. it was rebuilt by your birth, but it was always a place of peace and light."
a smile for them all, her love eternal and leaping. "i pray he comes back. i want him to meet you, and you to meet him. i think he could teach us all more things."
what would he think? heda, a mother; heda, a wife.
once she had wanted to be his, but bartholomew had put his love for god before them both, and this she saw as the importance of their bond.
determined now to shake off her malaise, heda cleared her throat, wiped her face, and stood. "all right. i have some clams drying, but better than that, i found these very special shells," she told her babies with a secretive grin that encouraged them to trot along with her, back to their emerald den tucked in the greenhills.

last for me!

His mother fades behind a green bluff. He hears the giddy squeals of his siblings at the promise of new playthings. There’s a persistent wind sweeping forward, into the mouth of the lion.

Judah stares long into that abyss.

Then he dashes up into the hills, sheets of sand adrift in his wake and with a call of “Wai fow me!”

same!

Her tears shed, but she did not shy away. She embraced them. Held strength despite them...or maybe because of them. 

Malakai could see from the corner of his gaze, his siblings looking to their mother but Kai did not look away from her either. 

Gone. It was confirmed. He went where God lead him to go. A missionary, as one day perhaps Malakai might become. Right now, they were a flock and made a place for God's people. Maybe one day, this wolf would return to them and Kai could meet him and hear his tales and learn his ways. 

Then, after a sharp nod, he is off after his mother, leaving the past where it was, down in that dark, damp hole.