"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
The felis marus kitten that she’d found on the beach during the Darkness is now a fully grown cat. He is the lord of the little stretch of beach that Moira considers home, and he announces this to her by butting his head firmly against hers. The nereid groans, and rolls over, and for a few minutes the catfish is contented by playing with the resulting bubbles that float toward the surface.
But then he is back at it again, and with a groan the purple-finned mare resigns herself to being awake. Absentmindedly she strokes the tomcat with ripples of water, and he purrs happily. Overhead, she sees the shadow of the kingfisher that is her constant companion, and knows that he is searching for breakfast.
She breaks the surface and climbs onto the beach, heading toward one of the inland groves where she knows there is good grazing and ripe fruit. She almost turns toward her mother’s beach, but muscle memory is stopped by the reminder that Aquaria is still with family.
Moira had gone as well, but she’s home now, and finds that she has missed Ischia more than she’d expected. She finds herself on a path she’s taken only a few times before, the winding trail toward the central waterfall of the big island. When she reaches the pool at the base, Moira takes a moment to appreciate the view. The cascades of mist hide the distant rocky base, and there is something nearly magical about it.
The nereid steps into water but does not fully shift, instead enjoying the way the water feels against her hooved legs and closing her seafoam eyes in delight at the perfect temperature of the water as it splashes against her sides.
these things the ancient maidens whirl on
with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
She has been experimenting.
It had happened by accident the first time, as these things often do.
She had been thinking about the things she loved the most (her family) and the dark lines between her eyes had glowed deeper than they ever had before and she had suddenly (painfully) sprouted wings. (Soft, downy things that did nothing to lend her the gift of flight but seemed entirely ornamental.) Not only wings, but soft ringlets of a mane, too. Her tail had shortened considerably and her heart had expanded wildly in her chest until she had felt like it would burst free of its ribbed cage.
She had gone straight to her mother, who had patiently explained the magic to her. The third daughter truly was the embodiment of love, the creator of life.
She and the shadow wolf loiter beside the waterfall today, where she tries to call upon the downy wings at will and the wolf distracts her by chasing after tangible things that it cannot catch between its intangible jaws. So, she is a mane-less, wing-less thing when the other mare emerges and steps into the water.
She remembers what Aquaria had said when her family had first arrived in Ischia. She had said that there were others the girls’ age, but Neuna had never made any effort to find them. She had been too paralyzed by her grief for too long, but this young mare in the water seems to be about her age and she creeps closer, smiling brightly.
“Hello!” she calls above the roar of the waterfall, studying the young mare’s fins with delight, “my name is Neuna, what’s yours?” She has never had to introduce herself to anyone before and she hopes this is the correct way of going about it.
Even as she enjoys the cool mist on her face and the warmth of the water, Moira is aware of the hollow churning of her belly. She’s not eaten since noon the day before. She’d spent the evening catching up with the pod of dolphins that roam the waters in what Moira thinks of as the Ischiandres Sea, the volcanic warmed straight that separates the black Islandres sands from the pristine Ischian white. Collapsing with exhaustion in her coral nest near midnight, the young nereid had slept soundly since and her hunger grows ravenous.
She should have eaten before she came to the waterfall, Moira decides, but has just decided to try some of the duckweed at her feet when the sound of a voice distracts her.
Amethyst eyes open to find a girl as pink as a conch-heart standing at the edge of the water. Moira is surprised but happily so, and she turns swiftly to face the other horse. The lack of hair along her neck makes finned Moira sure that this is one of the triplets. She and Acionna had counted them even if they hadn’t met them, and Moira is still very sure she’d one seen a blue quadruplet once, but it might have been a dream.
She hadn’t been able to walk easily on land for long periods until recently, and realizes now that she has many more opportunities opened up to her. This too makes her grin, and she comes closer on dark legs hatched in gold and blue-violet scales.
“I’m Moira!” She says, grateful to be in shallow water when she first introduces herself. Her voice is lilting and ariose, carrying with it a summons to the water that she does her best to dampen. She opens her mouth to say something else.
But nothing comes out. What exactly does she say to someone that has lived on the other side of the beach for most of the daylight that Moira remembers? What would her mother say, Moira thinks?
“How...how are you?” She is uncertain in her words, but still visibly merry. “Did you come here to swim?” Perhaps she’s getting in the water already, Moira thinks. She might not even notice the siren song. Though she’s never seen anyone but the kelpies in the water, her mother has said that horses do sometimes swim. The nereid has difficulty imagining it, but perhaps she’s about to find out.
these things the ancient maidens whirl on
with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
She is received with kindness and the relief that surges through her is so potent that the twin lines between her eyes begin to glow from the fondness that gathers in her chest for this finned filly.
Moira, she says, and Neuna smiles, filing the name away.
And she is beckoned closer by the young mare’s siren song, moving toward the edge of the pool as if it is a decision she has made for herself.
(How inviting the water looks in this light, she thinks, cool in the heat leftover from the fading summer. She is unaware that these thoughts are not her own, unaware that they have been influenced by the song. But even if she had been aware of the young mare’s pull, she likely would not have minded. What a wonderful magic this is!)
Alas, she stops just short of stepping into the pool when Moira speaks again. And how Neuna smiles. Because she has finally settled into life in Ischia. She never thought of herself as a thing of the water, but she has adapted to the sand and the surf just as her sisters have. She still misses her father fiercely, but she no longer dreams of returning to Pangea to find him.
“I’m good!” she answers and finds that she means it. Really, truly, and she is so grateful for this, too. “How are you?” she asks, thinking this must be the polite thing to do.
She had not come to swim. Or, at least, she doesn’t think she had. But she’s looking at the pool now and the water seems to call to her, beckoning. She had crashed through the surf with her sisters, laughing, free, when they were young. But she doesn’t think that was the same as swimming.
She glances up from the water then, meeting Moira’s eye with an apprehensive grin. “I don’t know if I know how to swim,” she confesses, heat pooling in her cheeks.
Her smile widens at the other girls’ answer, both in empathy as well as relief that the greeting part of their conversation went so smoothly. Moira feels rather accomplished, and thinks that her mother would be suitably impressed as well. More importantly though, the other girl is coming closer to the water, which Moira is sure is already an answer to her second question.
Except it is not.
“You don’t...you don’t know how to swim?” Her happy expression turns to naked shock, with no small amount of concern in her green eyes. She might as well have said she doesn’t know how to walk, Moira thinks. How can she not know?
But then, a little belatedly, Moira remembers being taught how to walk on dry land. She - a creature of the water - had struggled to walk on land, so it makes sense that Neuna, born on land, would need to learn swimming as well. She’s being rude, she realizes belatedly, and as soon as she does, does her best to compensate.
“Could I teach you?” She offers, the brightness returning to her voice and expression. “The best parts of Ischia are below the water.” Moira hadn’t been able to teach Helion how to swim beneath the waves, but perhaps she will have more luck with Neuna. She is not a sun, after all, and perhaps water will not be so contrary to her nature.
these things the ancient maidens whirl on
with rushing thread of brazen spindles.
What a lovely thing it is to be alive, she thinks, while heat pools in her cheeks as the young mare’s expression collapses around the soft edges of shock. This is Neuna’s first taste of embarrassment, you see. But because she is a thing built for adoring life, she does not get swallowed up by shame. Instead she delights in it, the vicious churning in her gut and the uncertain smile that creeps across her own face.
She shakes her head, smiling still, but cannot bring herself to speak.
Had it been a foolish thing to admit that she had never learned to swim? It must have seemed counterintuitive, she thinks, that she and her sisters had come to live on the island at all. But their mother had crafted a raft of clouds to spirit them away from Pangea and deliver them here and though the girls had splashed in the surf, they had never ventured beyond that.
But Moira does not make her feel like a fool, offering instead to help and Neuna’s smile shifts from something uncertain to something genuine and beaming. Her heart beats fiercely in the cage of her chest as she moves even closer to the pool, the dual lines between her eyes beginning to glow with fondness as she nods eagerly.
The shadow wolf lurking in the darkness nearby mutters bitterly and lies down to sleep while she steps into the pool.
“Please!” she exclaims but does not immediately venture any deeper into the water. “I would love to see them,” she adds, unaware that she never will.
Neuna comes closer to the water, and Moira takes a step back with her hooved forelegs, moving deeper into the water to allow the other girl more room to wade in. Her curious eyes flick over the other girl’s pale skin, curious what color the other girl’s scales will be. White and pink like her hide, or something bolder?
When nothing happens, Moira frowns, then realizes that she’s once more forgotten herself. Or rather, Neuna.That neuna is not a nereid. Flustered, the grullo shakes her head, and it is her turn to feel the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks.
“Can you, um, go underneath the water? That’s where the corals are.” She gestures in their direction, a patch of sea that from above looks no different from the rest of the waters around Ischia.
“I’m learning to make air beneath the water?” She offers, but it does not sound hopefully, as is followed by: “I’m not very good at it yet though, and that wouldn’t be good if you can’t swim.” Moira feels very small now, having offered something only to take it away.
Will Neuna be upset, she wonders? She hesitates to look up, and when she does it is from beneath lowered golden lashes.
