[open] the glad indomitable sea

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

Hath in her veins,
to beat and run,
the glad indomitable sea,
the strong white sun.

The rapids, angry and tumultuous, purge themselves into the dark and churning sea. Sequestered on the westernmost shore of Beqanna where the River becomes the briny deep, Oceane peers into the distant horizon. There are no sounds to be heard over the roar of frothing water, and no thoughts save for her impressions of the horizon's impressive beauty find hold in her mind over the din, either. The white noise relaxes her, settling comfortably in her fluttering ears and pouring into her previously-tensed muscles.

Hours pass with only the occasional shift of her weight from one side to the other, from one cocked hip to the other. She watches as the sky grows dark, first orange and then lavender, over the endlessly seething ocean and resists the urge to unfurl her wings and fly out over the massive expanse of water until —

Until when? Or what?

The itch to wander burns in her legs and in the thick sinew of her wings where they collide with her shoulders. She extends them wide, reveling in the salted breeze of the sea as it sweeps lovingly through opaline feathers. Any sunlight that remains dances against them, shimmering a reflection against the rocks of the riverbed and the silt that makes up the ocean's shore.

It's with one massive undulation of those balefire wings that Oceane nearly ascends from her station, but at the last moment her ears instinctively react to a sound behind her. They swizzle backwards, followed by a quick pivot of her opaline bodice until she comes to face, her wings still unfurled, whoever had happened upon her before she'd departed on her adventure.




@[savage] and any | "WORDS"

neamrel / thedayofshadow

[kensley]

i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
i worshiped at the altar of losing everything

How strange that a dead thing should feel such a vicious ache.
It had taken up residence in a valley between his ribs sometime in the night.
If he still breathed perhaps it would have arrested the air in his chest, hitched it in his throat.
Alas, he did not breathe and the pain itself was a phantom. Because dead things cannot feel pain. At least not the physical kind.
(How fiercely he has felt emotional pain, the only kind of pain that has ever taken him to his knees.)

He does not know why he took to walking. Except that, perhaps, he had thought to blame the pain on geography. Something in all that red clay in Pangea. But walk he did, through the night and most of the day. Without telling anyone where he was headed (for how do you tell someone where you’re going when you don’t know yourself?), he had merely set off toward the horizon.

There is some comfort in it, he thinks, in knowing that he can still carry himself across vast distances. It is easier, too, without having to stop for food or for water or to rest tired muscles. Because he feels neither hunger nor thirst and, though he has not slept in weeks, he certainly does not feel exhaustion.

His traveling takes him to the river. He could cross it, he thinks, test the limits of his new, undead body. Would he drown? Could he drown? Or would he merely be swept out to sea, where he would spend the rest of his days fighting the current, trying to reach shore? He feels a heaviness today and the ache in his ribcage prevents him from casting himself into the water. So, he merely turns and follows the river to the sea.

By the time he makes it there, the sun has sunk heavy and low toward the horizon. He gives pause there and longs to drag in a shuddering breath, just as he had every time he’d caught the sun suspended just above the earth in all the years he’d spent alive. But there is no breath, so he merely watches a moment before moving steadily onward.

But there is something that arrests his attention and he wonders, quite briefly, how he’d failed to notice her. His gaze falls heavy on her frame, the outstretched wings, and it occurs to him that he’d caught her on the verge of something. He blinks, takes one short step backward.

“Ah,” he says, subdued, “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

i'm finding all this well-worn sadness i never knew i kept
and i still chase you into heartache every time you take a step

@[Oceane]

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

Hath in her veins,
to beat and run,
the glad indomitable sea,
the strong white sun.

The pair make eye contact almost in slow motion, Oceane's massive wings still flung wide. The cinereal stallion appears to be just as taken aback as she at the sudden presence of another, relieving any hints of suspicion that he had trailed her on her journey westward. Such thoughts have gnawed at the edges of her mind, worrisome and lingering, since her encounter with Ivar — and then only worsened after the time she had spent on the Mountain, battling Mchawi.

The stranger's gruff, surprised voice draws her out of her moment of catatonia and Oceane finds it in her to smile, albeit tightly, as she retracts her opaline wings to her sides. "It's no problem," she brushes off his apology as her bright amber eyes find his brown ones, "I didn't think I would find anyone else so far removed from... everything else." The borders, the politics, the civilization. Admittedly, Oceane enjoys all of those things and always has, but her pregnancy has increased her desire for solitude and seclusion, which is to be blamed on the past she refuses to delve into.

"What brings you to the sea this evening?" she asks, searching for answers in the silvery stallion's brown eyes. The sun's altitude warns her that she should be making her return towards Loess right about now, but the opalescent woman cannot resist the potential for creating a new acquaintanceship, even if by the light of the impending moon.

"I am Oceane," she adds as an afterthought before shifting her weight to stand more comfortably as she braces her sleek frame against the sea's buffeting breeze.




@[kensley] | "WORDS"

neamrel / thedayofshadow

[kensley]

i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
i worshiped at the altar of losing everything

There is a spark of guilt at the center of him as she folds her wings against her sides again.
Don’t let me keep you, he wants to say but doesn’t.
Because he has learned that there isn’t a soul alive who needs his permission for anything.
And, without the warmth that had buoyed him through his youth, such a remark would likely fall flat. He has learned that, sometimes, it is better not to say anything at all.

So, he merely smiles (a drifting, wayward thing) in the wake of her reassurance. If he tries, he can convince himself that he only looks tired. That the lack of light in his eyes can be blamed on exhaustion and not something else entirely, something much darker. But he knows. Of course he knows that they know. Each and every one of them. They can tell it just by looking at him that he is not like them, not anymore. Because he had been arrogant enough to believe that he was somehow above death. (Though, really, it had not been arrogance at all but rather something desperate, something that did not care if he died). And death had made him pay for it.

He glances at the horizon. He had not expected to find anyone this far out either, though he admittedly had not given it much thought. He had passed hundreds of horses in the time it had taken him to arrive here and he had paid them no mind. But there is nowhere left for him to go now. He has reached the proverbial edge of the world and it is just the two of them here.

Her question is simple, certainly. There is one singular thing that set him in motion and, if he tried, he could probably determine exactly what it was. He has had his fair share of introspection as of late, however, and there is a thick beat of silence that follows before she offers her name.

“Oceane,” he echoes and then smiles that same placid smile because what a fitting name it is, “I’m Kensley.” Kensley, he says, because he has thought of nothing else to call himself despite the fact that the name does not fit him anymore. No, Kensley had been someone else entirely. “I suppose it just felt like a nice day for a walk,” he muses and drags his focus back to her face, thinks that it complements the splendor in the sky behind her. “I guess I lost track of time.” Still, he smiles because, though he lacks warmth, he is still good-natured.

“And you?” he asks then, tilting his head as he studies her.

i'm finding all this well-worn sadness i never knew i kept
and i still chase you into heartache every time you take a step

@[Oceane] i'm so sorry for the delay!

[Oceane]

O C E A N E

Hath in her veins,
to beat and run,
the glad indomitable sea,
the strong white sun.

In the failing light of the sun, there's some unplaceable oddity that coils around the grey stallion. Whatever it is, it draws Oceane's amber eyes and her curiosity as she attempts to decipher what, exactly, feels different about him. He doesn't feel dangerous, though she knows that looks can be deceiving — but there's an air of fatigue that lingers in the air and gathers in the hollows of his eyes. Perhaps he is simply tired, and this solution is one that will sate the woman's intrigue for the time being even if it's not indefinitely.

He repeats her name and it curls from his lips uniquely, like smoke. She takes a step closer to him, drawn in somehow, but then pauses atop the rocky outcropping she has secured for herself, thinking differently of closing the gap between them. "It's nice to meet you, Kensley," she says, but while it sounds like a formality, there's true authenticity in her statement. A gust of wind assaults her again, buffeting her opalescent frame from the side and she steps closer to Kensley and further inland to shelter herself from the sea squall.

When he answers her inquiry, Oceane flicks an ear in his direction, though it's mostly obstructed by the tangled mass of lavender mane that sits at her crest. She chuckles as he comments on losing track of time, as she often falls victim to the same thing.

"I just needed to wander, I think. I'm prone to feeling quite stir crazy." Her wanderlust has worsened throughout her pregnancy; the safety decision would have been to wander the hills of her home, but there is only so long Oceane can go without a change of scenery. Her gaze turns briefly to the horizon which has just swallowed the sun, leaving behind a sky of purples and blues, before looking once more to Kensley with a kind, close-lipped smile. "Perhaps you'd like to accompany me back towards civilization?"



@[kensley]
" "

neamrel / thedayofshadow