there are many paths to tread
The way down the cliffside had not been easy - however, Toulouse had landed on these shores once, when the boat he had bartered a ride upon had dumped him unceremoniously on Terrastella’s rocky shores. He had found a similar path then, one that twisted its way up the side of the rock and deposited him safely on the grass above.
Perhaps that was why he had braved the cliffside now, with its treacherous path and the sea wind clawing at his hair - because of experience. He would have laughed then, if he wasn’t concentrating on where to put his feet.
Toulouse picks his way carefully along the past, and his relief is nearly palpable when the cliffside opens up and reveals a cave cut into the side. Any sense of caution is thrown to the wind then as he lets the shadows swallow him alive, and he treads where only dark and vile creatures dwell. Somehow it feels right, although he doesn’t admit so even to himself.
His footsteps ring out against the stone floor, polished smooth by the waves and the wind and whatever chisels the carvers had used. They echo across through the cave, bouncing off the walls - and as he pushes aside the cell door, he sees for the first time that he is not alone. He had half expected to find a prisoner here - or perhaps the remains of one - but one looks tells him that she is no outlaw, and she did not write the note that has been left for them.
He draws alongside her silently, and tilts his eyes up to read.
Laid to waste by that which eats but has no mouth,
Always hungry, fed by those black of heart.
Roman greensward west by south.
He lifts one brow, mirroring her expression.
“Not even a bit.” His voice is smooth, almost lazy; as if it had been a small amount of effort that brought him here. He looks at her from the corner of one eye, gaze lingering over the smile that turns her lips upwards.
That which eats, but has no mouth…
A thousand possibilities race through his mind, but only one seems to fit.
“The ocean carved these caves, at least in the beginning, before Terarstella’s builders further remodeled them,” he says slowly, thoughtfully. “The ocean. It eats away at the rock until only a pillar remains, and that too, eventually falls prey to it.” Perhaps that was Novus’ fate, to one day be reduced to sand to line the bottom of an ever-growing ocean. He shakes his head.
“We?” He looks at her properly now, with interest. She would do nicely. Toulouse had not intended to accept help from this venture - but she was offering. And the innocence he found in her voice was strangely alluring. It reminds him distantly of the boy from Dawn, the pegasus that was only too eager to say whatever it was Toulouse wanted to hear…
He smiles back, and the wolfish glint in his eyes is fleeting. “Is there an island south of Terrastella, do you know?”
@
I love jun
