Dusk threw its purple mantle over the sea, casting long shadows beneath it.
How calming it was, the perpetual push and pull of the waves—it reminded him of home, or at least, where he had been born. The brine swirled around his ankles, a welcome contrast to the hot summer air that pressed heavily against his skin despite the maritime breeze. Florestan exhaled softly, watching sea-birds play above the horizon. It had been several weeks since his hooves had landed on his strange soil; he couldn't say that he enjoyed every moment of it, but this place wasn't too bad as far as strange places go. At least there were flowers, and the sea, and golden nymphs offering salves for sunburnt noses. A little smile curled on his pink lips when he thought of the lavender girl—she was one of his very first friends, Novus or elsewhere.
He pressed on deeper into the waves, feeling the coolness of the water enveloping his belly, his chest. Florestan did few things well, but one thing he could do was swim. A childhood spent along the sea's edge had made him effectively amphibious, although he couldn't claim the ability of breathing underwater (yet). His pale hair swirled in the water as he began to paddle, head tilted upwards above the waves and a too-big grin playing on his youthful face. A curious gull swooped down to investigate the strange swimming boy and he laughed, wondering if the bird had ever seen a horse in the water.
The last rays of daylight played in the sky above him, causing purples and oranges and red to play in the sky above him. For the first time in a long while, the rain boy realized that he felt at ease with both himself and the world and that perhaps life wasn't so cruel after all.
Asterion was still testing his new-made bond with Cirrus; this evening, like many evenings of late, the big gull was flying far ahead to see how far their telepathic connection remained intact.
Once she was out of eyesight, their verbal bond vanished, but the bay could still feel the sense of her ahead. Right now, she was all joy – playing on the updrafts, dipping her slender wings into little eddies of wind like ocean currents, now and again reprimanding the smaller shorebirds with her throaty cry.
For his part, the Regent walked behind, unusually at peace. He was headed to the shore, for one, and the first hint of brine and salt-grass always calmed his nerves, the endless lull of the waves a dreamer’s lullaby. It was twilight, and the sky is not dissimilar to his coat, little places of color and light amid a larger darkness. It is the tail end of summer, the kind of evenings that seem to go on forever, and for once Asterion does not war with his thoughts.
There was a flash of white ahead, fading sunlight on pale wings, and Cirrus circled overhead once, twice, before gliding back toward the shore. Come, she said, less of a voice and more of an impression on his mind, there is a boy in the waves – maybe he is a kelpie? But her tone is curious, not alarmed, and the moon would not be full for another week.
As soon as the dirt turns to sand below his hooves the bay eases into a lope, leaving a line of prints behind him in the gathering dark. It takes him a moment to spy the colt – there is little to see but the last of the daylight glinting off a thrust of a horn – and Asterion stills and watches, for a while. Once he is sure the boy is not in trouble he smiles, and wades out into the water until it swirls around his knees, each wave a little tug as it goes back out to sea. Come with us, they seem to say, and oh, he wishes not for the first time that he could.
There seems little use in saying anything, over the breeze and the gulls and the susurrus of the waves as they turned themselves to foam on the sand, and so the Regent only waits to catch the stranger’s attention. Cirrus, for her part, wings back out to watch, and swoops low across the swells and troughs, laughing at the boy in her rough voice.
