Effin Paradise

◤ THE SEA SAID GOODBYE TO THE SHORE SO THE SUN WOULDN'T NOTICE

Perhaps the stench of oblivion, of death and cessation, hadn’t sunk its teeth so far into her horrified, rapidly capering heart to leave her utterly frozen, speechless. She registers the nonchalant shift of the colt’s hoof with lethargy, trepidation bubbling up in the back of her throat until she cries out—"Stop!"— and time is suddenly too fast, too far ahead of her, she lunges forwards with foolhardy valor and then sinks her hooves down into the damp earth with a wet squelch as the animal flies through the air and towards the shore.  Thoroughly halted, she gazes off after the creature with shock, thinly aware of the ringing in her ears as the colt speaks, something about his mother and father, and as the shameless revulsion fades away from her demeanor it is speedily reinstated with a sort of righteous indignation. Her nostrils flare, her foreleg raises and her hoof meets the ground again with a smack, and the nimbus haloed around her rapier blazes. "Don’t ever let me see you do something like that again," she thunders, even as her ears snapped towards the filly’s speech, "every creature deserves respect. No matter… no matter how odd this place is. That was inexcusable." She softens her voice near the end, unsure of where her fury came, mother had never exactly been gentle, driven half mad with grief, but she’d always tried to teach her what was right. 

There are preambles and names and a spit of words like fire from the girl, Castiella, but her mind drifts, caught in a tide back to something Abigor had said, something about her father and his mother and ah, there it is, vivid and dazzling at the back of her mind. Maybe her words seem out of place then, as she directs them towards the boy, perplexed vexation in her stare. "I never knew my father." Did she truly look like his mother? Who was his mother? Krieger’s name fell blankly in her memory, a incongruity, oddity. In truth, she can neither answer the inquisition into her blood nor deny it, mother never told her father’s name and Azarel would only decree she had been forced, a vulgar, contemptible thing. She’d never wanted to know him, abhorred him with guilt that was hers for being alive. Her voice is flat, genuine in the way she looked, spoke. "But he was a monster."

And she was like him, she knew she was, because the only thing she carried over from mother was the lightning down her spine, the mottle of her horn, even Azarel wasn’t like her. Cahira was milky, and ruddy and terribly different… but laughter brings her back, and then Castiella is circling her like a exhibit, a display, and a discomfortable sensation fills, spreads along the nerves beneath her skin. "Azarel said it was a gift," she won’t tremble at his name, won’t react, not in front of these foals. "From the deities for sojourning in their realm. The Lady of Light bestowed it to me in the sands of Arazar," and indeed, Abigor spoke truth. The girl was lovely, nevertheless, there was something baffling about her giggling, and it left her confounded.

@Castiella @Abigor

THE SEAWEED THAT WRAPPED ITS ARMS AROUND YOU ◥