hold fast to the break of day || any

[Warrick]

we are crooked souls trying to stay up straight

She is easy to talk to, he decides. Her presence has distracted from his thoughts (as tumultuous as the sea itself), and somehow feels a bit lighter despite the bitterness of grief that resides in his chest. It is a dull and frantic ache, one that he had not felt since the day he had lost both his mother and his twin sister to the mountain and their stars, and though it is a familiar feeling, he knows that feeling it means he is vulnerable and distracted - something an Overseer should not be. It is why he had sought out the darkness of night (though he would not be able to find sleep anyway) to use the starlight as a thin veil, to perhaps hide is troubles at the depths of the sea and never speak of them again.

Her words cause his bright eyes to glance her way, a curious look sparkling in their blue depths. He presses his lips together in thought, turning her statement over in his head, before looking back out the the black and frothing waters, illuminated by the moon and starlight, as well as hazy and grey from the volcano’s smoking brim. His breath catches in his throat as he begins to respond, and instead inhales deeply to get rid of the feeling. He tries again, and this time is successful: “What is to keep me anchored?” His voice is rumbling and deep, a low tone that is nearly lost on the sea wind - the question he asks mirrors a special moment to him, and it is hard to reflect on it; especially here, at the sea’s mouth, with the stars winking sleepily down at him and his companion.

How is it, that though he has not ventured beyond Tephra in many seasons, that the ones he finds solace with are still finding their way to him? She is akin to him, somehow, just like so many others. He had come to Tephra in the need to find his family, but has instead found one without blood relation that has offered him so much more. This woman, pale beneath the moonlight, he could see staying here with him, looking endlessly into the seas and stars and questioning life and existence together as if they had known each other since birth. Her words are a comfort (and so had Ellyse’s been, and Tangerine’s, and Wound, and Amorette…), and despite the turmoil in his gaze he knows that they are the truth, and that her truth had already been known to him, deep within his being. He only needed to remember them.

“Those who love you,” he begins, turning his gaze from the sea to survey her gently. “are they here?”

Or are they amongst the sea? Amongst the stars?

Warrick