moons of evening stars
To know the sea was to know her heart, and to watch it lap at her fetlocks was to watch blood unfurl from a wound.
Aehra smiled at her reflection as the tide cast upward, a cascading sheet of white froth and blue wave that longed to consume her. And so, too, did she ache to be consumed; if only her little lungs would open up wide to inhale that ethereal bloom. Then, maybe, might she be pulled down among the coral and the grit, to dance with the electrified tendrils of her off-white hair as the sea unspooled her simple threads. She had next to nothing to ask of the world, to tip her young face heavenward and plea to her mothers’ gods, but oh, did she have so much to ask of the sea.
A quiet nicker left the plush grey of her lips as the water slapped harshly at her knees, colliding with the knobby legs of a still ungainly filly, and she splashed the surface with a caerulean hoof in playful answer.
This land was so new—so terrifying! Her childhood had been thick with opportunity for adventure, but never without the guiding hand of a beloved adult. Otherwise, she undoubtedly would have gone careening wildly into trouble well before now. But she had never been so perfectly alone before, with only a brushing promise echoing through her ears, and the tender kiss of her family’s love below the newly budded horn at her brow.
She had parted with Aelin’s blessing, needing nothing more from the Fair than her undying approval, and a profound affection that the silver mare had begged of her daughter to pass on to her other mother. And oh, Aehra would without question. She was bursting with the anticipation to be reunited with Jahra, and to share in this journey as she ought to have agreed to from the start. What a silly fool she was, to not have gathered her few things and gone bounding after her dam’s footsteps—just as she had since she was but a teetering, cumbersome girl.
Still, she had begun this adventure with certainty in the extravagant flourish of her footsteps, but as she inevitably came to collide with the beloved ocean once more, she was bemused to find answers did not lay in its violent surface. Only ripples, as mysterious and lovely as she longed to be, gazed upon her glittering brow.
The sunlight reflected her face, and the mirrored image of her youthful features were lovelier than she could ever hope to be.
Yes, she thought—the sea was her most complimentary advocate, always seeing her better than she might ever see herself. A roll of foam wiped her image away, and she barely caught the reflective flash of her glistening smile as she withdrew from the lapping tide.
She paused as she turned away, and whether it was habit or loneliness, she threw a few choice words over her shoulder.
"Vidisti eam?" There was a hearty pause through which the sea rolled and the wind howled. Aehra only sighed.
"Bene," she groaned. "Quid ego hic si facitis ea... placere."
Please. Oh, please.
She understood, for once, why her mother had always gone stumbling after her when she wandered too far. It was an ironic sort of karma.
