This keening soul;
She runs for the sea, as if she there is no other place she could ever be. History ripples across her skin, flickering in the sun like the pages of a ragged book. There is no part of her that she does not wear upon her skin, no story of her people, of herself that is not told in paint and spiritual art.
The sand beckons her, it stretches, supplicant, as the sea rolls in laughing, sighing, reaching. Yet with eyes that blaze, brighter than stars and moons, she stops. Her sides are heaving, as her lungs drag in the salted air. It stings her, it presses upon her lips, its cool soothes the burning ache of salt.
Into a tree, stood sentinel upon the beach, forever watching out to sea, she carves into its flesh the throat of a king, the lips of a kelpie and a sea foaming mane. Every other line that draws this curved rune is made of star-lines and earth-lines. A shell shaped eye gazes eternal out to sea, unblinking, unswaying.
The stone falls as gavels do, landing blunt and heavy and ringing. It echoes in her ear like a sentence, but already she is moving on. Already she is the sinner free as she slips her shackles and steps down upon the sand. Gone is the touch of Asterion’s gaze upon her spine, it is shed like an itch and all the remains is the subtle burn to whisper to her of oceans and seas, swamps and Ilati rituals.
The wind presses salt kisses over her sigils, they crystalise and harden. They grow as scales might, bright and gleaming like the sun that dances across the waves. She moves to the water’s edge, black as a shadow and how the sea rushes to meet her. it reaches, it reaches but her feet remain untouched. Displeasure hisses across the sand as the sea draws back, back, back.
The sea breeze tangles through the snarls of her mane, it toys idly with the bells and bones and whispers of shell song and dances that last more than just a night. For when is the sea ever still in sleep? It is an endless dance and Leto might let it carry her, for yes, she knows now that one night was never enough.
A girl moves, silver-white beside her. The grey girl strides out into the sea and the waters push to meet her. It laps about her ankles and limbs, embracing, pulling, tugging. Yet she does not move but rather turns her gaze from the endless ocean and onto the silver of Leto’s eyes.
Their met gaze is starlight upon a forest, moonlight across a verdant meadow. There is nothing of the sea there, not until Leto lifts her eyes to run, galaxy bright over the crown that rises from the girl’s head. What did she offer a god to have the setting sun eternally held upon her body?
Leto might have asked her, the words are there upon her tongue, behind her lips that part to speak – but already the stranger is speaking. Already she is asking with eyes that know and lips that wonder. The star girl’s ears fall to the tangle of her mane, her soft lips drawing into a hard line. “You have been watching me.” She says wary, fierce little more than a cornered doe suddenly seen by a great cat.
Ah, this girl moves, sleek and feline. Leto has seen another move like this, with a sea salt smile that reaches and reaches up his cheeks. He smiles with knives and daggers – he smiles like the ocean that beckons her home. A bite, a bite, her skin shivers with knowing. It tingles and not even then seabreeze can ease such a sting. This girl fills her full of nettles, Leto thinks, nettles and blood, her flesh the bowl that holds this seaborne ritual.
Closer this strange, feline girl moves. Soft as the moon, sleek and gentle as moonlight with her soft silver skin. Leto is as unmovable as the night sky that welcomes the moon into it, but oh how her eyes burn bright with starfire. Galaxies keen as they watch this creature step closer.
Why?
Why?
Her voice is shell song in a land girl’s ears. It trails across sigils and dares them to defy the calling of the ocean. Fate settles deeper into her veins and her soul. It solders itself into her lips and tongue. Is it enough to say a boy made her itch for the sea? Is it enough to say he made her soul restless as it awoke fate from its hiding place?
And so she speaks its name, “Fate.” And it rises upon her tongue, it laughs through the starfire blaze of her silken voice. It scolds all who touches it as it pushes the Ilati girl a step toward the ocean, toward the creature who watches her with eyes that are not forest green – Leto only realizes now – but seaweed deep.
@Anandi | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
