The scent of salt was still upon her skin. A swim she had lied to a girl who asked why the air amidst the books smelled so much of sea-spray and sand. There was a partial truth in there, Sereia had been for a swim. Yet also she had eaten. It was a blessing the library was not filled with the scent of blood and bone too. Yet Sereia’s guilt was rife within her belly, it twisted and clawed at her sides until she almost vomited her meal back up upon the sands.
Her sorrow is ebbing, slowly. But it is why she is curled up amidst the stacks of the library. Here there is no bloodstained sand nor a breeze coarse with salt. The only sound is the soft sight of printed leaves being turned. The whispers of scholars, the scratch of pen across paper.
Sereia tumbles down into a world of words and fantasy. She drowns herself in the stories of others. She feasts upon words strung together like art. The kelpie reads until her golden eyes grow blurred with their effort, until her knees ache from their kneeling. Yet still she does not rise to stretch her limbs, to escape the aches of her body. No, she simply turns another page and falls back deeply into another world. Submerged, contented. She thinks reading a book might be like finding Atlantis at last. A whole world to explore.
Excuse me.
The words come sharp and sudden, startling the sea-girl from her book. She looks up and is grateful her makeup was so careful this morning, painting over the sides of her too long lips. Yet she still lets the curtain of her hair fall across her face. She tips her gaze up from beneath it and smiles small and lovely. Closing her book, Sereia rises at last. “Of course, I know the library reasonably well. What topic are you looking for - I will see if i can help.” The smell of Terrastella clings to her skin. It is the scent of stars and dreams and sunset skies. “You are from the Dusk court are you not?” Sereia says and casts a sideways glance from beneath her lashes, “My sister lives there too.”
@
an unspoken soliloquy of dreams
~ Ariana
