She takes longer than some to pull herself back together. But she stands regardless, brushing the sand from the dark purple of her skin as she takes a minute to find herself again. The sun is warm, like a blanket of heat over her shoulders and the soft line of her spine, drying her mane in soft curls that hold with the film of the salt still there. It is only once the adrenaline pounding wide rivers through her veins finally slows, her heart no longer threatening to rip through the paper of her chest, that her attention returns to the task at hand.
The group who made it across the sea to the island have split into two seperate directions. Half to the left, to an expanse of beach that is bare and open to the sky for as far as she can see. The other half to the right, to a beach half-hidden beneath a cluster of structures she does not recognize.
Logically speaking, shells should be literally anywhere out here on the beach. But as she looks down towards her feet with furrows in her brow, she realizes this is not the case. The beach is bare and white sediment, grains of silk sifting beneath her like the shushing of the wind. Which likely meant that there would be nothing different about the beach to the left, wide open just like this spot. Not unless some kind of underwater current had an inlet up that way to carry the shells from deeper places.
But it seemed more reasonable to look for a place different than this spot, and the structures to the right are about as different as she could have asked for. So she turns right without another word, moving stiffly down the shore as her wounds are woken up and begin their gnawing protests.
My touch is black and poisonous and nothing like my punch-drunk kiss
bright goes right to the structures