Nyxa
Night caves in around them.
Try as she had, Nyxa couldn’t manage to force time to slow for their needs and their pace (brisk as she had kept it) simply hadn’t been enough to close the miles of distance between the Field and the Riverlands.
Now, in the freezing grip of nightfall, the trio will come to stop at the very edges of the Beqanna territory with exhausted legs and little in the way of something to show for it. Even Nyxa, who thinks herself a well-traveled native already, feels the burn of ice in her lungs and the ache of sleepiness in her bones. “Should we rest?” She asks @[Bragi] for the hundredth time, eyes flicking with uncertain worry to where @[Hod] travels alongside him. Thus far the brotherly pair had been amiable companions, the best she’s ever known, but she wonders if they’re both silently sacrificing their personal comfort for her urgency.
Playing the host for the first time unsettles her a bit. Nyxa wonders how her mother got so good at it.
“There’s no rush now - only waiting left.” She tells them, her pleasant smile lost to the blue-dark that blankets them. It was true; where their hooves rested now was the authentic end of her world. Only a few more feet and sand will replace staunch grasses. Beyond that only the dark, churning sea awaited them. Somewhere, cradled in its never ending waves, was Ischia. “I can’t describe home from here.” The winged mare tells them, after a moment’s worth of silence has passed and it feels necessary to say something.
Her nose reaches out into the darkness, hoping to touch the one that stands nearest to her. “This way.” She murmurs, twisting back to trod down the starlit shoreline. A thin crescent of winter moon hangs from a single hinge in the otherwise black sky, casting the group in molten silver as the hungry tide reaches up to meet Nyxa's waiting feet. Despair strikes the yearling mare suddenly; her eyes, wine-colored in the strange night, can discern that high tide is here to stay. A flick of her gaze upwards to where the white bow sits in the heavens and Nyxa feels her heart sink - it will be a long wait.
Deflated, the girl sighs and peers out to where water and sky meet. There’s an inert lump of black silhouette that is her home, Ischia, while the thin strand of a strange, blue glow can be seen ringing its shores. “That odd light is bioluminescent phytoplankton,” She mouths aloud slowly, carefully, so as not to mispronounce the phenomenon only she and Bragi might see. “it rings the shore at night with a mythical blue-white glow and washes in from the sea.” The girl sighs, wistful now that she’s caught describing her favorite part of the island.
A thought darts through her mind and Nyxa’s head tilts to peer at where Hod might be. In the moonlight, with the sharp fingers of a winter’s breeze to tousle his growing mane, he strikes her in a way she’s not considered before. Nyxa swallows, banishing the moment in a flush of embarrassment before snapping her head forwards again. “Can either of you swim?” She asks abruptly, the semblance of a new idea taking shape as the water sucks against the sand.
Wayward daughter of Canaan and Circinae
OOC: So, technically they're at the River looking out at Ischia, but that won't be for long so I threw the thread here
