N y x a
In a strange turn of events, she feels sorry for him.
Where the emotion arises from she can’t be sure, but as Maugrim’s voice rises over the silence of the sea, Nyxa detects an absence of feeling or depth. There’s the sharp prick of being watched that causes an itch to form between her shoulders and, gliding almost lazily into the waiting ocean, her head flicks back once more to confirm the suspicion just as the strange, green stallion fades from view.
“How long has he been down here?” She wonders, the sadness in her chest constricting her airways. “What is the sea without her trenches, without her creatures and corals and treasures?” The paling filly thinks wistfully as the tug of his powers begins to grow in strength. How could he have come to be like this, so empty and mute? “Does the absence of love spark the beginning of evil?”
These are childish thoughts, though. Ones that keep her company as soon as the tide rips up from behind her in a swell of glorious magnitude. For the brevity of a second she feels the thrill of riding the underwater wave - catching the current beneath her fluttering wings to ride it as the seahorse pushes her further from shore and out into the unknown - and then the uncanny gathering of things he’s upset in his wake begins to swirl around her, over her, and Nyxa can sense her initial excitement quickly turning to dread.
She had not thought this through. What was the saying they had always been pounding into her head since she was a tiny thing? Never talk to strangers, right? And now she’s gone and given herself over to a complete unknown, (a missing ghost, transformed into the water completely so that when she struggles to glean his form out of the tumbling fish swirling about her, she comes up empty) someone who’s drug her farther out to sea than she’s ever been in her life.
There’s a first time for everything, she supposes. “And a last time for everything too.” Her conscious supplies, working against her once bright and hopeful feelings.
Nyxa swallows her doubts as the darkness rises to engulf them.
At first she hardly notices the absence of her wings; they’d been irritating her at the start of this journey, bumping into the clutter of debris and sea creatures Maugrim had forced along with them. So, naturally, she had wished them gone. It was about as extensive as she’d managed to grasp the power of them - summoning, creating, shaping … none of this has ever been an option, she’s only ever thought of them as I want my wings or I wish these annoying things would get out of the way and, subsequently, her body reacts.
Now, though, as they plummet through the gaping cavern of a low trench (perhaps a tectonic plate, is this the true edge of Beqanna?!) and the eels slip with eerie grace from their nooks and crannies she notices how they’ve left her sides. A grateful sigh bubbles past her lips; nothing more. The deepness of this trench does little in the way of making her uncomfortable - Nyxa feels the satisfying *pop* of her ears and then, she’s drifting softly down to touch her hooves against the black earth beneath them. Silence envelopes her on all sides, the dim bit of stray light lucky enough to reach this far hardly enough to offer her anything in the way of visibility but she settles nonetheless, blinking softly into the dinge as Maugrim finally chooses to reveal himself.
“Is this …” She hesitates, shuffling softly as the faint lines of his eyes become clearer, “ … your home?”
Every kiss is a door, Can I knock on yours?
@[Maugrim]