[private] I'll be there when your reality drowns; Ehko, Locheed

[Ehko]

Ehko asked her mother once who she could trust, and her mother had said ‘yourself’. At the time, Ehko had kept quiet instead of disagreeing or questioning why, but she thought about it as she drug her hooves through the sand. The sky was dark, but for Ehko this was normal. She’d been born in the absence of light and so thought nothing of missing it, like a foal born without a limb or sight. The little dragonet-horse hardly felt the absence of something she’d never had to begin with. To her the darkness was as typical as anything, and so it should come as no surprise that she felt comfortable walking among it by herself, in search of the twin brother who seemed to avoid her more and more.

Brash was getting bigger every night. Bulkier, like their father, and he was starting to outpace and outweigh his sister in the natural way. Ehko thought little of the changes; her mother and father were the practical type - they had their unique ways of parenting - but they weren’t the kind of parents who glossed things over. Her brother was probably maturing and in his eyes, Ehko might look strange too.

She smiled to herself. The leathery wings that usually stayed tucked by her sides stretched open the tiniest bit, overbalancing the filly’s steps and making her stumble a few strides. She folded them close again and thought about the day when she’d be able to extend them to their fullest, picturing herself holding them proudly above her head in a brilliant display, and then lift off into flight whenever she liked. Someday, she told herself.

The shoreline rolled dully on, leading her farther north to the topmost tip of the Island. Ehko trekked until she needed a break, huffing to a stop near the mouth of the bay. She looked behind her at the way the land curved back out into the sea, and thought about the rocky dunes obscured by the jungle - the ones she’d passed earlier, where the wooden statues leaned in the sand and cast odd shadows over the already dark sea grasses. For some reason, Ehko had wanted to touch them, but the mystery surrounding their origin (bedtime stories, legends passed down through the generations of Island inhabitants) scared her.

Someday, she told herself. The waves she’d forgotten about crashed erratically, and Ehko remembered her purpose in coming this far north as she turned back to see the black ocean suddenly burst into spray, and the fine shape of a creature’s head rising up from the shallow depths. What was that? It couldn’t be a dolphin, could it? Sharks didn’t surface like that - Ehko knew that much. It was too small to be an Orca, and seemed to be headed toward the beach anyway.

The thing cut through the waves like a knife, curling this way and that over the surf like an eel, and though Ehko was afraid (a slender, red-hot needle of fear that crept out from inside of her, like magic) she was also fascinated. Walking slowly up the beach and morbidly curious, the little dragonet flicked her baby ears towards The Thing as it stumbled up onto the sand, and when it came to a rest she paused, waiting.

“Are you okay?” Ehko asked, pulling her forelegs together shyly.

@[Locheed] @[Waverly]