Tinuvel, as a whole, was quiet.

Mariael suppressed her sorrow and guilt the longer time went without her finding her mother. Whatever had become of Hollowshank was Mariael’s fault, or so Mariael had decided. Anyone might have come and tricked her mother into leaving Tinuvel, or maybe without additional numbers in the form of a herd, she’d fallen ill, hurt herself, or become prey to the predators of the island. Whatever fate had befallen her mother, Mariael decided she was to blame.

She and her father, who hadn’t stayed behind to protect the herd.

Though she knew if Maziel fell into the ocean and became victim to strong tides she’d follow her again and again.

She remembered how sternly her father had spoken to her when she’d come to on the shores of what they’d initially thought was another of the isles but quickly learned was the mainlands. He’d been angry she’d followed him after he’d jumped in to attempt to find and save Maziel. She should have stayed home with the herd. But even as he’d said it and they’d fallen into a lapse of silence they’d both known Mariael would always go where Maziel went.

“Mariael.”

It was her father’s voice. She turned her ears back and then forward, regarding him with a cool stare. It was easier to blame someone else and so, she blamed him. Nephilim had always been her hero. She’d always loved her father and looked at him as if he put the sun in the sky each morning and hung the moon each night. Yet growing lost on the mainlands, losing a year of time at Tinuvel, Mariael had begun to direct her anger toward him.

And he let her. She wanted a fight, but he took that away from her too.

“I’ve been thinking.” Her father started quietly. “I know you’re young yet, but you’re half a year older than I was when I first took command of the Bay.”

Mariael frowned, watching him closely. Maziel had stirred from her sleep (her warm body was tucked against Mariael’s side) and flicked her ears, listening just as closely as Mariael was.

“I think, for now… maybe for good, I shouldn’t take command of the Bay anymore.”

Both girls didn’t know what to say. Mariael felt her heart pound in her chest. “You… you’re leaving?” There was both fear and anger tangled in those words.

“No.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll be here still, the Bay will always be my home, and I will do my best to protect whoever comes… but,” his gold eyes met her blue ones. “Mariael, I think it’s time you led the Bay.”

She felt Maziel tense at her side. Mariael’s eyes went wide in surprise as she regarded her father. Lead? She’d never before thought of it – she knew she didn’t want to leave Tinuvel, but she’d never thought…

“You’ll do great.” He said, and it seemed as if he was fighting away a smile. Mariael yearned for nothing more than their relationship to be the way it was before, where she could press her face into the hollow dip of his neck and feel protected and whole. Too much had happened for it to ever be so and it seemed Nephilim recognized it as well.

“And I’ll never leave you.”

Mariael drew a breath of crisp, cool Tinuvel air. It was the first air she breathed and she had always thought when she died, it’d be the last air she’d taste. “Thank you, father. I’ll see to it the Bay is what it once was.”

Better than it once was.

Maziel lifted her head and gently, comfortingly pressed her muzzle to Mariael’s wither.