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Looking up at the sky, he had to squint to make the shape right, but eventually he found it. He had never believed in the whole turning into clouds thing, not really. Not like the others did. His memory was too good for that.
Though, Mopple supposed, there was something nice about it.
So, as he had done many times before, he sat, looked up at the clouds, and talked.
“I don’t know if you’re there. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you are and you can, we miss you.”
“Mopple, what are you doing?”
He turned. Lily. Always.
He smiled. “Come sit with me. I’m talking to Sebastian.”
Lily’s ears twitched and she tilted her head at Mopple. “But I thought you-“
“It’s hard to explain, Lily. I know what you told me about what you saw, both in the sky and on George’s step. We both know what really happens to sheep and people. But we-“
“-Have to think there’s more than that?” Lily guessed. And she was right. Of course she was. She always was, Mopple thought with a smile. He nodded and looked back up at the sky.
“Have you done this before?” Lily asked, sitting down beside him and looking up at the vaguely ram shaped formation in the sky.
“I’ve done it a lot. I’m not sure if they can hear us, but it helps me when… when I miss them too much.”
Lily hummed and stared up at the sky. The two sheep sat side by side, silently sharing their heartache together for a few more moments.
“You would like Rebecca,” Lily said finally, “she’s very nice. I don’t know how much you saw but she saved all of Caleb’s sheep! Our flock’s a lot bigger now. She keeps a list of all our names so she doesn’t forget. Her memory’s not as good as Mopple’s.”
“That’s kind Lily,” Mopple added, laughing a little. “The list must have helped Rebecca though, she doesn’t need it so much anymore.”
Lily got excited about her next comment, “She read us a different kind of book! It wasn’t a story this time! It was…” She broke off for a moment, a worm of heavy emotion wriggling into her heart.
Mopple waited, and let her come to it on her own. Remembering hurt sometimes, but it was always, always worth it.
“She read us George’s words.” She took a shaky breath in. “He wrote his own book about taking care of us. I… I think you would’ve liked it.”
“You’re really good at this, Lily,” Mopple said softly.
Lily didn’t say anything, instead she just scooted closer to Mopple and laid her head on his side. He hummed and leaned closer to her to support her better.
They sat like that, looking up at the clouds for a while until something small joined them.
“Hello,” a little lamb said as he approached them.
The two older sheep smiled at the smallest of the three winter lambs that had been claimed by the flock. The human one was in the caravan, and they looked up into the cloudy shape of the one who had been their strongest.
Lily looked at the little winter lamb and said, “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
“To the clouds?” the little one asked, clarifying.
“Yes, to that big one up there,” Mopple encouraged.
The winter lamb smiled and shook a bit on his still little legs. He was still the smallest of the flock, but he was getting bigger, stronger by the day. There was no doubt in Lily’s mind that one day he would stand as strong as both the ram before him and his human namesake.
The winter lamb cleared his throat in a very Sir Ritchfield way, but said shyly to the sky, “my name is George.”
As Mopple and Lily moved to stand with little George between them, they could have sworn they saw the cloud they’d been looking at nod.
And there was a hole in the cloud now, right where one would think the mouth would be. Nothing too serious. Just a small curved sliver.
Almost like a smile.