They were on the cusp of summer, the days grew warmer and longer. The grass above the beach was long and already fronded. Children used their teeth to strip the early seed pods.

Today the beach was only lightly occupied, and it was easier for the dappled tobiano mare to descend among her fellow Nerinians. She wound her way down from her little hiding place above the rocky shore and then trotted down to the water’s edge. Wherever she’d come from before, these shores were now home. The wet sand and seaspray never grew stale.

High rambunctious waves threatened her, called her. Her scars were no longer so stiff and pink. Was it the warm sun on her strong back? The thrilling crash of waves? Agnieszka remembered she was strong and fast, maybe not as beautiful as she might be unscarred and whole but that suddenly didn’t matter. Her limbs were full of the need to move, and the hard wet sand needed the pounding of hooves over it’s dark bubbling shine.

Agnieszka leaped along the shore, racing along the slithering edge of the foaming seawater. Tail tossed high, neck extended, locomotive. Each snorting breath keeping time with the thud of her dark hooves. She hadn’t raced this way since her half-remembered flight, bloodied and almost destroyed. She reclaimed her right to run simply for the pleasure of it...it was a healing thing, even if she was unaware of it.

She slowed and splashed through the water, letting the waves chase her back up the beach when they came in, not interested in letting them take her. It is while she is doing this that she draws near enough to the stallion that it would be rude not to say hello, though now that she has run does not have the usual desire to keep out of company. ”Hi. I hope I haven’t disturbed you.” She says by way of a breathless greeting, staying where she is, so that the waves roll over her hooves and gently bury them in sand, only to pull it away again as they withdraw. ”I’m Agnieszka. Eszka.” Tacking on the shortened version, just to make remembering her slightly less of a bother.

Trying to smother down the rapid cadence of her breath she extends her muzzle to his own, sampling his scent and finding that he doesn’t quite smell of Nerine. She hasn’t been here long enough to know everyone by sight and so had assumed both by his manner and her ignorance that the stallion was not out of place. He looked like he belonged here, on the shore. Smiling she takes his nam and stores it away, it was good to have new things to remember.

”Yes, I suppose it is. Happy to meet you, Wane.”

She turns her scarred face to look over their surroundings, amethyst eyes roving over the long line of the cliffs. ”You’re in Nerine.” She says simply, though it’s really all she has to offer him. She doesn’t know much of Beqanna beyond the meadow and these grey shores. ”I’ve only just come here myself at the end of winter. Were you looking for someone?”Eszka couldn’t help much with that either, unless he was looking for Breckin or Djinni, still she was interested in the stranger who she now recognized to be defiant of his belonging here or not. She was a law abiding thing so far, but something about the loose strength and confidence of his just standing here on a sovereign shore without invitation or a welcome appealed to her. She remembered her scars, she did not expect to be noticed, she only wanted to know what kind of man this was and where he came from.

They did seem to find her didn’t they? These men with stories brewing under their skin. She is clueless now, these are her early days and she’s adding names to her dance card like a debutante without knowing or caring that she’s half a joke to them, a trifle that that they don’t want to take the time to really see. The monster that lives locked away in her head bangs against it’s walls sometimes but she doesn’t hear. Today the black thing doesn’t bother, this one doesn’t seem as dangerous at the other man who comes under cover of dark. Let the girl play.

You maybe. He says and she smiles at the lie, taking it for the sugary treat it is. She isn’t so foolish to see anything more in the words. They make her feel good, and she thinks that maybe she can flirt with this stranger and come out unscathed, and say goodbye to him later without him seeing her broken parts. Just the scars, and those were mattering less to her every day.

”It does call.” She says, speaking in her turn about the ocean, and then watching him delve in, a smile creeping across her lips. Eszka doesn’t balk at the invitation to join him,  but she does linger on the shore, watching the waves break against his body. The water foaming around his bulk. ”Very well.” She says, as if entertaining a boy and not yielding to the whims of a man. Trotting out into the surf turns her dapples dark, nearly black again. She draws out to the depth Wane has chosen, letting him break the waves for her as she settles near him, not too close, but close enough that the water between them quiets in their shelter. Neck arched she peers down through this quiet water to watch the sand at the bottom ripple and twist through the distortion of the surface. Reflected light shimmers over her bicolor features.

She was so ignorant of the politics and histories of this world. Amazons or otherwise, she had little idea herself and perhaps would not have chosen such a home in another life. Now that she was growing more comfortable with venturing down to the beach and among her peers she would likely soon understand the kind of kingdom in which she dwelt.

Maybe she would feel it didn’t suit her? No, most likely not. She had her clifftop hiding place, and so much water all around. Nerine sang peace into her head and heart.

Of course he asks questions. They do always seem to. Asking things that she cannot answer without revealing that she has misplaced herself. She’s disappointed, but conceals this. Instead she simpers a bit as he requests her name once more, taking the bait. ”That’s alright. Its Eszka.”  She wants to remember and be remembered, the stallion could not know how desperately so there could be no malice in the “forgetting”. As for his first question… She could lie to Wane, but she possesses so little in the way of identity and would really prefer that most of the tale she spun around herself were true. ”I don’t actually know.” She replies, drawing away and circling back, a wave breaking against her side. ”Unfortunately I don’t remember.” She didn’t really believe it so unfortunate anymore, what she had lost scared her a bit more than she would want to admit. Hoping to leave it at that she directs the question back to Wane. ”What is your home called?”

Eszka watches Wane and he watches the sea and the dappled woman is not foolish enough to think that she has even a fraction of his attention or admiration even. This Eszka, stripped down and plain is perhaps too vanilla.  She’s trying to conceal what makes her flawed and thereby conceals whatever makes her remarkable. She may realize this later but for now she wants to try to be as normal as she can manage. To try on the skin of someone who doesn’t wake to the sound of her own screams whenever she tries to sleep in the caves that nearly everyone else here lives in. To walk out into the water and not wonder why it bothers her that it only feels like water.

She knows wistfulness, feels that ebbing off of Wane even if he doesn’t mean for it to. She’s still watching him with her violet eyes when he turns back and draws close. He drops words in her ears like wishes into a well and his look is still far away even if he’s come close. So close in fact that she tips her face toward his neck and tugs lightly at the gathered ends of his half-soaked mane. “We…?” she asks absently, coaxing more but not insisting, not expecting more from him than she herself is willing to give.  

She tries not to ask more, but that ‘we’ is full of so much for her. She had more than just herself once too. Not knowing who they were does not mean she just assumes she’s an island. There had been others in her life and she cannot remember them. Is the forgetting harder, or the loss? Would remembering what she’d had break her further? There is no way to know. A little part of Agnieszka would like to hear what it’s like to be without someone and ache for them, how that kind of heartache sits. It’s morbid to long for sorrow, she knows. It’s not so wrong to wish she could pine for people who mean something to her.