JAXIS

HANDS STEEPED IN BLOOD

The beach was a loud place in the summer, with birds above cawing and crying out, and the waves roaring. They clamored up onto the shore in rushes of water, ebbing back away, but this wasn't what she had come for.

Rather, she made her way toward a certain cliff wall, where a decaying carcass lay. It was mostly down to bone now, but she knew her father's handywork, and she observed a moment, tilting her head. He had done this, for her mother. For Araxes? The mare she had hardly known but saw when she came around, the mare she loved. Her mother. Maybe it was something she could understand; she'd tear someone apart to keep her mother safe.

Jaxis lingered only for a moment or two more, her ears flicking forward before she turned herself away from the body, making her way along the beach instead. Her tall frame was buffeted by the salty air, and it stung at her nose, but she merely kept walking, leaving the prints behind her as she did. Each step left behind a deep gouge in the sandy grains, and she found herself lost in the rhythm of her own steps, feeling oddly at... peace.

Solitude, it seemed, suited her.