There is something peaceful about the sea. Something reassuring in the fact that it is always there, in the way it draws away from the shore but comes rushing back again, again, again. Eulalie listens to its breaking waves like a heartbeat, watches the way the sunset paints it in twilight. Behind her on the far eastern horizon the sky grows dark, the first stars blinking into the oncoming night. But ahead of her there is color, bright and warm and dazzling.

She stands with her hooves in the sand, letting the water wash up around her, gently caressing. The breeze tugs on her golden hair, brighter, gilded by the hour, by the slanting light of the sun. Behind her stands Tabbris, her bonded ever as vigilant and faithful. “You should not be out alone,” his voice breaks through her wondering, though she doesn’t look at him, “I’m not alone,” she responds, and cannot help the mischievous smile that turns up her lips. She can almost sense his serious, all-business expression.

“Do not worry, Tabbris. We’ve no evidence the beast even would come so far from the forest. Besides, I can take care of myself, and I’ve got you don’t I?” The ivory woman won’t admit her fears, not even to her bondmate. In truth, they are no closer to discovering what had killed their friends and it bothers her greatly. She is convinced the perpetrator is an it and not a who, for she cannot imagine any sort of equine that could do what had been done to them. Still, the images of their gruesome death imprints in her mind. She cannot forget.

“I really think we should go back to the court before it gets dark,” the gryphon continued, his tail lashing behind him, his dark eyes trained on his bondmate’s back even as his ears tuned into the world around them. Eulalie took a few more moments to watch the sun on its descent to the horizon and then sighed, “Perhaps you’re right, after all,” she concedes. But when she turns to face Tabbris, she hears her name called.

Both equine and gryphon turn toward the sound, and there in the distance is a familiar face. Ipomoea, headed toward them. Her eyes brighten and  she glances at her bondmate, “I can’t very well leave now, that would be rude Tabbris.” He only clicks his beak unhappily and follows as Eulalie makes her way closer to Ipomoea, smiling warmly at the younger man. “Ipomoea, what a pleasant surprise,” she greets, stopping once they have closed the gap between them, “And Odet, a pleasure.”

At his question something in her yawns open in memory. The reason she even had come to beaches, to stand and stare at the ocean in the fading light of day was to think, to clear her thoughts and allow her brain to do what her heart was holding it back from. But Eulalie knows well the feeling of being trapped; imprisoned. She remembers it like she remembers which stall in the market carries Regis’ favorite apples or which shelf in the library holds the books that Somnus seems to return to again and again. And when she looks upon Ipomoea, she understands what he is standing here for.

“Come, why don’t we walk together Ipomoea? Stretch our legs a little bit,” she turns and indicates for him to join her, “It’s a good thing you are here, Tabbris was beginning to worry we’d give Somnus heart failure if he found out we were out here alone. But now we’re together, and all is well.” She gives a wink to the gryphon, who pointedly does not look at her as he turns to follow them. Oh, his grudge will not last long. He is a softy at heart, after all, but she does understand his concern even if she has thrown some caution to the wind traveling outside the court walls by herself.

The ivory woman looks at Ipomoea and can sense his troubles, so instead she tries to distract him. “Do you fancy a race?” And if there is a mischievous sparkle to her earth brown eyes, made warmer by the golden hour, she does not hide it. The stretch of beach before them is empty, and in the distance looms a dark shape. Rocks, she thinks, perhaps. “To that point, down the shore,” and she lifts her nose to draw his attention to it, deftly shifting her weight. A smile stretches across her face of a different meaning this time as suddenly she takes off in a sprint, her laughter drifting back on the air. “Come on!” Tabbris takes to the skies to follow, his great wings casting a shadow on the sand below.

@Ipomoea <3

They are racing along the beach with the sunset at their left and the wind in their face, kicking up dampened sand and, for the time being, forgetting the heaviness in the world. Their laughter is a soundtrack to the dying light, wild and free, cascading from their lips like a waterfall. And the waves crashing against the shore are their heartbeats, budding and blooming and singing, soaring toward the skies.

Eulalie turns to look behind her and sees Ipomoea coming up beside her, pressing closer and closer, until they are side-by-side. The ivory and gold woman pushes herself, stretching her legs farther, faster, and the joy of Ipomoea’s laugh fills her heart. To know that, at least for this moment he isn’t focusing on the dark things hiding in their home, means that she is doing some good. When she glances above them she can see Tabbris gliding far overhead on his large eagle wings, almost effortlessly, and precious Odet following along with them.

The shapes in the distance are no longer dark shadows on the horizon, but great stones reaching high, high into the air. They are looming and black and look sharp, as though they could simply rip through the sky with one touch. When they finally stop running, Eulalie’s chest heaves as it tries to calm her racing heart and fill her lungs with breath.

She catches on his words as they fumble, slightly, and she wonders what he was going to say. “I haven’t run like that since I left Solterra. It’s much more pleasant when you aren’t doing it for your life, but doing it for enjoyment,” and Eulalie says like she is talking about the weather, her dark brown eyes too busy looking at the place where the stones meet at the top, where Odet as perched and Tabbris soars over a few times before lazily circling down toward the ground. She can tell he is still sour about her being out as he looks sharply toward the distant shadow of the forest to the right.

Her gaze slips to Ipomoea again as he circles the stone formation, tipping his head back to look all the way to the top. “I wonder where they came from,” she says idly, walking closer now that her breathing has eased. She pauses just before one of the spaces between two of them and peers within. “It’s quite strange, isn’t it?” They appear to almost lean into one another, their peaks intertwining like fingers. She wonders how far into the ground they must go to be stable in the sand like this.

“Tabbris why don’t you take a break from being the big bad bodyguard and come look at this,” Eulalie says, backing out from the rocks and looking toward her bonded. Tabbris flicks his feline tail, but she can see his ears twisting back toward her. She thinks he might ignore her, until he finally turns away from the dark twisting trees on the horizon and toward the rocks. “Fine, but if we get eaten this is all your fault,” he says, but she can see the shine in his eyes that says he’s not mad at her any longer.

Under normal circumstances she might have to fight the urge to laugh, but what he says strikes a sour note within her. Her eyes trace the far-off treeline for only a second before she’s facing Ipomoea with a curious look in her eyes and a smile on her face. “What do you make of them? Perhaps the are the remnants of some strange magic? Or maybe,” and her voice gets conspiratorial low, her eyes widening, “the hand of a gigantic beast?”

“A dragon? Maybe the rest of its body is just… waiting to be unearthed from this very spot.”

@Ipomoea <3

"A man," she says, glancing away from the stones to search Ipomoea's face, "and imprisonment." She assumes he can discern the rest, for knowledge of Solterra's nobility and their want and pleasure of having slaves is no secret, she's sure. Her scars no doubt tell a story, and a few years ago it was far worse than it is today. Eulalie feels no need to hide the painful horrors of her past, as much of a persistent stain as they are. What she has gone through has only made her who she is today.

To continue to love life, to thrive and to laugh and smile. That is how she shows him that despite all the things he has done to her, he has no control over her anymore.

Eulalie presses closer to the strange stones, watching as Ipomoea gently touches his muzzle to the rock. It draws her brown eyes to them, to look closer, where she sees the strange etchings in their surface that he does. She’s certain that Somnus would find them fascinating, and that he would probably spend many long nights attempting to decipher them. But she, she is reverent. The gilded woman only traces each shape with her gaze and wonders what they might have once done, coaxed by voice and magic.

When Ipomoea turns toward her, eyes bright and wide and wondering, Eulalie can’t help the smile that spreads across her face. Her eyes twinkle in the light, a small flame of mischievousness coming to life inside them. “Each one stands for something different, of course,” she says, "Beauty, love, peace. Protection.” She presses her nose to a different symbol with each word that passes her lips.

“What they say, that isn’t the important thing," her voice lowers, her lips twisting into a smirk, “It’s what you do with them that matters.” She winds her way about the stones, stopping on the inside and looking up at the top, where the three massive formations meet. “I bet that if you stood in this spot, under a full moon of course, the light would funnel down to these stones as if they were a conduit. And the runes would glow. What a sight it was, can you picture it?”

The woman glances back toward Ipomoea for a moment, to see his reaction. She can tell that even Tabbris is listening now and her smile widens. “What is it that you seek, they ask. The voices of dozens. No, hundreds. Of their ancestors, of all who have ever been. They ask, and you have to answer. But not with your voice, with your heart.”

“What is it that you truly seek?”

She closes her eyes and lifts her head to the tops of the stones and images them alive with the magic of the moon and of equines long gone and a history that has been lost to time. “Some probably asked for strength, for power, for grace. But what mattered is whether their heart was pure and their intentions true. The moon, she sees everything, she knows who you are. Your hopes, your dreams.”

Eulalie lowers her head and opens her eyes, and the sun is nearly gone beyond the place where the water meets the sky. She begins to move, leaving prints in the sand as she steps from beneath the shadow of the stone monuments. She can almost imagine the prints of hundreds of others alongside hers, as she stops before Ipomoea and smiles. “What do you think?"

@Ipomoea <3

Ipomoea takes to the story much like her children would, were they here. You are never too young for a good story, especially not one of light and hope and wonder. When it comes to those things, there is a little bit of child in all of them, waiting to hear it, searching for it.

But when the last of her words fall away to the coming night, fading like the sun over the horizon and Ipomoea turns back toward her, something is missing in his eyes. “Perhaps the magical and wonderful feats are just waiting for the right equine to accomplish them,” Eulalie suggests, settling her warm brown gaze upon the younger man. “For someone with a pure heart and good intentions to discover who they truly are.”

There is a suggestiveness to her tone, a quirk to her brow, as she says this. Like she could be talking about anyone. About herself, her children. Him. “But you’re right, they do make for the best stories, especially if they can help inspire others.” Eulalie smiles, at last, and is reminded of the story Somnus had told her once about a constellation, of a love so great the gods had immortalized it in the stars.

She remembers wondering if she could ever love so strongly, so deeply.

The golden haired mare takes the offered shoulder, and can tell that Tabbris is relieved that they have decided to return to the safety of the court. But she is not worried, not with the sun haloing them in a golden lining like they are something magical and otherworldly. “Yes, we best get going before we’re discovered,” she laughs, as they head down the beach and away from the strange stone monuments.

@Ipomoea fin <3