It is not often that the sea offers much of interest. Nerine’s coast is so wide and varied, but still it is predictable. Driftwood and flotsam and dead sea creatures, none of which she has too much care for. No, she more often spends her time adrift in the sea of vision, flitting from one to the other, a silent, invisible fly on the wall. She has always learned so much this way, gathering bits and pieces to tuck away, to use or discard at her whim.
Often she is not even home in Nerine. Often she is out, collecting information, expanding her delicately lain web, cultivating and nurturing carefully chosen relationships. Giving an entirely new meaning to the phrase ‘oh what tangled webs we weave’.
But today, of all days, she is not.
Today, she does find something of interest in the ocean, catching her attention like a faint glint on the horizon. And so, when he washes ashore, she is there waiting for him. After all, it is not every day that Nerine has horses wash upon her golden beaches. Her gaze, cool and blue, fixes upon him as he collapses to his knees, gasping and spewing saltwater onto already laden sands. For a moment she wonders how he had survived the journey, how he had not been pulled under, claimed by the sea. But she is a fickle mistress, the ocean. And she had seen fit to toss him back, to allow him to live to see another rising.
Heartfire is something of a connoisseur of curious things, so it should really come as no surprise that she had found her way here. Besides, he seems no threat, as wet, bedraggled, and exhausted as he is. Not that she has ever worried terribly much over what might be a threat or not.
“Well,” she finally says by way of greeting, stepping nearer to him that she might better scrutinize him. She doesn’t try to offer aid; it’s clear he’ll survive. “That was not the most intelligent thing I’ve ever seen.”
