There had been an underlying hope that he would come. That want – that unwarranted desire – for him to see Nerine was suppressed, but upon drawing in a breath and sensing him, it surfaced. It consumes her in curiosity as her head turns away from the lull of the ocean tides toward the border where there lies a gurgling river. The acrid scent of the volcano lingers on his skin and rides the breeze to her. It claws into her nostrils, her eyes, her skin. His arrival permeates everything around her and everything she is.
”Magnus,” it’s easier to say his name when she reaches him with a face of forced steel. Her mind has been reeling, distracted, as of late. Stillwater, Lior, she muses with an exasperated sigh. But they slip away from her groping thoughts as her fiery eyes settle on the buckskin. ”We meet again,” she adds coolly as the distance between them closes. Another breath is swallowed - another drunken swig of his familiar scent – before she pivots her body to the side, opening up the expanse of her homeland to him. ”Welcome to Nerine,” the name of her herd is honeyed cocaine on her tongue, addictive and tantalizing. It had taken months for her to accept the coastline as a home. The difference of it from the Jungle is extreme and it once rattled her nerves how quickly the sisterhood diverted from their original heritage to accept this place forged by vengeful magic.
She once loathed this coast.
With a quick, sweeping motion, Nayl turns away from Magnus to observe how the sun gleams off the surface of the distant ocean and how the cliff stands sentinel. ”Come, and I’ll show you whatever you want to see.” There remains a lingering frigidity in her voice, a stoicism in her nature, but it’s warmed by the excitement to explore her home.
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