The sunset in front of me is beautiful. I stand on the westernmost edge of the island, my dark eyes cast upward. Beside me, I hear the quiet gasps of Raene and Delphi, and turn to look at them. My friends exclaim over the sunset and then set about looking for pretty shells, and I wonder how long it has been since they last did something like this for themselves. It seems strange to me that they are so content to spend their days and nights in such monotony. That life has never appealed to me, though as a child there was little I could do about it. I am older now though, and have begun to do things like this: taking my friends in Ivar’s herd down to play at the beach. It has always felt strange to call him father. He has never treated me like his child, so I do not think that he minds. He acts as father to some of my siblings, but I am not jealous. Delphi has told me that he is no kinder to his kelpie children than he is to those of us bound to the earth; he’s just unlikely to eat those when they displease him.
I have done my best to not be eaten, and have survived now to my third spring. This is the
The changes had started mid-winter. I kept waking and finding myself knee deep in the ocean. Sleep-walking, I assumed, though it had never troubled me before. Terrin, my brother, promised to keep an eye on me to stop it happening again, and within a few weeks the unconscious drifting toward water had stopped. Then came the odd sensation that my whole face was growing. It was like losing my foal’s teeth, except it was my whole head. With no still reflection, I could not see what had happened, and it took Angelique staring at me one night in the same stupefied manner that she stared at her parents for me to realize what had happened.
If I was right – and I am sure that I am – stepping into the ocean will reveal some final change in me.
I’d brought my two companions with me as an excuse, and the two of them splashing about in the water gives me good cover. Moving forward slowly, I move across the stand with a single-minded purpose. I stop in the wave-marked sand and wait. The water moves slowly, lapping gently at the white shore, never quite reaching me. I take another step forward. The water touches my white fetlocks, and I exclaim in surprise.
Nothing happens at all.
Nothing except my friends looking up from their play, startled. I shake my head, embarrassed, and wade farther in.
Still nothing.
I sigh and begin to wade the opposite direction from my companions. Raene has changed her colors to match Delphi’s, it seems, and the two seagreen tobianos frolic at the water’s edge. My own coat is similarly pied, though black where theirs is green and spotted sapphire blue where they are simply white. The tide is out, as it always is this time of day, and I find myself wandering farther and farther west. I know these sandbars well, having played on and around them often as a small child. Though I was no competition for my more aquatic siblings, I had always been fond of the water. I follow the highest sandbars, never more than knee-deep in the water, and eventually find myself on the dry land of Ischia.
I’d wandered without thinking, and I glance back at where the others still stand. They are lost in their exploration, as simple-minded as children after so many years of my father’s hypnosis. They will not tell tales.
I might not have transformed into a glorious kelpie upon turning three like I had hoped, but perhaps I will have my first adventure instead. Curious and eager, I give the island of Kelpie one last look (it is beautiful here, shining golden in the sunset), and head into the jungle.
@[ Tiasi]
I have done my best to not be eaten, and have survived now to my third spring. This is the
The changes had started mid-winter. I kept waking and finding myself knee deep in the ocean. Sleep-walking, I assumed, though it had never troubled me before. Terrin, my brother, promised to keep an eye on me to stop it happening again, and within a few weeks the unconscious drifting toward water had stopped. Then came the odd sensation that my whole face was growing. It was like losing my foal’s teeth, except it was my whole head. With no still reflection, I could not see what had happened, and it took Angelique staring at me one night in the same stupefied manner that she stared at her parents for me to realize what had happened.
If I was right – and I am sure that I am – stepping into the ocean will reveal some final change in me.
I’d brought my two companions with me as an excuse, and the two of them splashing about in the water gives me good cover. Moving forward slowly, I move across the stand with a single-minded purpose. I stop in the wave-marked sand and wait. The water moves slowly, lapping gently at the white shore, never quite reaching me. I take another step forward. The water touches my white fetlocks, and I exclaim in surprise.
Nothing happens at all.
Nothing except my friends looking up from their play, startled. I shake my head, embarrassed, and wade farther in.
Still nothing.
I sigh and begin to wade the opposite direction from my companions. Raene has changed her colors to match Delphi’s, it seems, and the two seagreen tobianos frolic at the water’s edge. My own coat is similarly pied, though black where theirs is green and spotted sapphire blue where they are simply white. The tide is out, as it always is this time of day, and I find myself wandering farther and farther west. I know these sandbars well, having played on and around them often as a small child. Though I was no competition for my more aquatic siblings, I had always been fond of the water. I follow the highest sandbars, never more than knee-deep in the water, and eventually find myself on the dry land of Ischia.
I’d wandered without thinking, and I glance back at where the others still stand. They are lost in their exploration, as simple-minded as children after so many years of my father’s hypnosis. They will not tell tales.
I might not have transformed into a glorious kelpie upon turning three like I had hoped, but perhaps I will have my first adventure instead. Curious and eager, I give the island of Kelpie one last look (it is beautiful here, shining golden in the sunset), and head into the jungle.
@[ Tiasi]
