there are many paths to tread
He is watching the ocean again.
He is always watching the ocean now, when he has a moment to himself. Once he had hated the sea, hated the way it frothed and roared and beat itself against the shores. You’ll never make it, he had wanted to tell the waves the first time he landed on Novus’ shores. No matter how hard you try, or how long you claw at the sand, the earth will never be your’s.
Now he hopes selfishly, angrily, that the sea would rise and crush the whole world beneath its weight, if only so that the anchor around his heart wouldn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.
His brother would laugh and say better to burn than to drown. But Toulouse is not so sure anymore, is not as convinced by his twins’ words as he used to be. And that is why he comes to the beach again, to stare at the grey waters and wonder what Novus would be like if his ship had sank while carrying him here.
The wind is tearing at his hair and at his scarves, but he doesn’t care. His curls are tying themselves into knots, hanging heavy and wet against his gold skin, and Toulouse pretends to not notice. All the beach is empty, save for him and the waves and the clouds; he paces along the shoreline, stopping to paw and dig up seashells and smooth pebbles that he can fling back into the waiting ocean. Again and again, sand-dollars and shark-eyes and scallops and mussel shells, all of them tossed like so much trash.
It’s mindless enough for him, enough for him to not need to think, and the repetitive act makes his heart begin to beat a little bit smoother in his chest again.
He doesn’t know how long he’s on the beach, tossing rocks and shells into the waves, before he sees her. And he thinks he recognizes the haunted look in her eyes, as she draws lines in the sand with her hooves like she doesn’t know what pattern she wants to paint.
Maybe it’s because she’s as golden as he is that he turns towards her, and makes to intercept her path. Or maybe it’s because there’s still a little bit of wolf left in him that wants to tear at her, that sees her pacing as weakness instead of sameness. Either way, Toulouse lifts his head to her, and stops only when she’s near enough to hear him.
"I know that look." It’s echoed in his own eyes, even when he tries to hide it. The look of torture, and guilt, and a little bit of madness. And as he looks at her he wonders if her stomach churns the same way his does, the same way the sea does; and he hates the part of him that knows how to exploit that, the part of him that wants to make the seas shake.
"Would you like some company?"
