[P] turn the waves to concrete

[Maude]

The beach called to the girl like it did to most; its wide, open horizon, leading out over an endless canvas of blue on blue, filled her with a sense of smallness that was actually comforting, rather than frightening. It was an odd comfort – like how the cold seeping in through a window into a well warmed house can feel just right, despite it being the one thing you were seemingly trying to avoid, being inside in the first place. She left the hills, crags, and wallows of the Dusk realm to her back, meandering for a day through a forest that was beautiful, but not the same as those at home, and awoke that morning to find herself still full of the vigor that called for adventure. So, she’d arrived on the beach, her pale green gaze falling upon the bob and ripple of the sea against the silky blue of the sky with the same delight and wonder she always looked upon it with. Now, however, there is also the small wonder, the tiniest fragment of hope: was what remained of Helovia somewhere, touching this sea? Or, at the very least, was her family somewhere in this world, someplace, where they might stand on a beach at the same time, staring at this very same ocean, beneath this very same sun? She doesn’t get to linger in the radiance of her youthful hope long. A rather familiar jerboa is hopping up and down the beach, his tiny arms laden with, what Maude assumes, anyway, are shells and stones. She herself is the sort to do just that, but without her magical cloak, the girl finds she collects less often than she used to. It was hard to keep all the treasures you found without endless pockets, after all, and the girl was both materially minded and sensitive; it hurt her to leave what pretty things she found in this world behind. Lifting her head and ears to search for the tall boy who was surely nearby, it doesn’t take her long to find him; trotting down the slight hillside towards the delta Damascus stands in, the maiden nickers hello, her tail slightly lifted to allow its long length to not become ensnared in the grass as she approaches. "Hey Damascus!" she greets of her first Novus friend, truly glad to see him again, "what are you doing over there?" Pausing alongside him and peering down into the water, the often all too oblivious girl doesn’t see the crab at all – but does see algae and sea moss, as well as a few larger shells. Wondering if that algae is the same as the sort of algae back in Helovia, the youth resists the temptation to taste it and see, instead continuing her visual investigation of the shallows. how to be brave how to love when I'm afraid

Image by Araxel@DA
@Damascus