[P] the shape of the water

[Ossian]

He lilted beneath the primitive scream of the sea singing and cavorting behind and before every inch of his body, enveloping him in its protective embrace as though he were a shell's most beautiful pearl. Ossian dreamed in blue: the sky was his rooftop and the ocean his bedrock, everything in between was immaterial beyond his great cerulean fantasy. There could be no mistress, no other woman, no distraction from his devotion - only his adoration of Ama had come close to rivalling such an ancient love affair. But she was gone now, forever, and still the sea remained: perpetual, aborigine, beautiful. With long, well-practiced steps Ossian swung toward the water; there was no need for haste when greeting any old friend, she had waited this long and she would wait for him still. Within moments of lingering within the sea's clutch, however, the boy felt an arctic cool settling over his bones as he met the waves. Starless black fur licked down against virgin skin, chilling him to the core, but still he did not pause, moving deeper into the opaque shallows until the tide lapped at his abdomen. Sun orange eyes danced with a bitter joy, for he knew this reunion could last only a minute or two before hypothermia would force him back to the shore.

"Are you a child of the sea?”

The sea-boy shuddered, his body undulating from an amalgamation of bewilderment and curiosity as he turned most swiftly to face whomever had addressed him. From behind impossibly wide eyes - eyes which could not conceal his childlike naivety - Ossian studied the woman, mid-speech, upon the sand. 

"Yet for a moment, I thought you a siren washed ashore. It was too tantalizing an encounter to ignore.” 

Wasn't she wonderful? A vision of crimson and sylphlike beauty, adorned by the closely-kept wings set low upon her shoulders. Before arriving upon the wild front of Novus, Ossi had never encountered the species he'd come to know as Pegasi, and even now it remained something of a mystery to him how she had grown wings as though she were a summer-seeking bird. Perhaps it was this fascinated thought which jolted him from such a considered silence, or, perhaps, it was the chattering of bonewhite teeth belonging to a night-skinned boy freezing in a winter sea. Ossian jolted forward, the water gushing to part for his exodus - it was quite a sight to see oh-so bleached hair trailing many feet behind such a starkly black man. Finally, shivering still, he dipped his head in greeting (an act he had seen many a Terrastellan diplomat conduct), and allowed his lips to liberate the dulcet voice within: "Nothing to disturb - oh no, oh no." If Ossian had been any paler the ethereal girl might have seen a flush of embarrassed colour against his marbled cheek. "I missed her, that's all," he nodded toward the lapping waves, a tender smile lighting up the untouched corners of his face, "Ama told me sirens were dangerous creatures - I am no siren, ma'am."

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@cyrene apologies for this disjointed ick ;c i'm so artless atm