it's a guarantee that he won't forget me.
my body little, my soul heavy.
It is the same thing over and again, is it not? Naia returns to Nerine, grows restless, leaves. The smell does not suffocate her any longer, the people are tough but friendly - why does she go? She thinks she has come to terms with her feeling of misplacement (Have you really, Naia? What are you doing stepping delicately over the border once again?).
The violence of these taunts might be the death of her.
No, this time I have a purpose, she hisses back. Rebuking does almost nothing for the jeers merely simper and giggle. The two year old wants to stop, to close her eyes, to run to the very tip of Nerine’s peak and fling herself off. Why does she feel like this? So berated and broken, lonely like the last green leaf clinging to its branch - lonely like a girl abandoned by her mother. Just . . . lonely.
All this time she wasted, lying to herself: she never left Thalassa. This was never her choice. To be isolated from her father and his happy family, to go off on her own. Even if she spent most of her life kicking trees in futile attempts to train for battle, she never asked for this.
What young, social creature asks for the quiet creaking of lonesome bones? The company of abandoned thoughts? What creature would ask for this - this madness, these cycles, I can’t - I can’t stop thinking about it. God, I wish someone understood, I’m so alone. I just, I just wish -
Trees sway above when Naia comes to a jarring halt, the leave’s gentle rustling twisted into ominous whispers. The soil scratches the girl’s muzzle as it hangs so low to the ground, tear after tear turning the sweet brown into speckled black. Perhaps she will not go on, turn back to Nerine, face the music, end it all. She thinks she can no longer take it, the voices above and the faces below - she thinks, maybe (maybe) she is not the curated being she was as a child.
Ever since she met Leilan, every bit of her has shattered, like a glass castle built too precariously on a cliff.
All that’s left of her is just clear crystal pieces on the ocean floor, to be whipped into foggy seaglass by the perpetual years.
It is in these thoughts that Naia arrives, not realizing she had picked up her hooves again - not realizing she had strength left to push back the tide. They have gathered atop the Mountain once again, a group of novel individuals milling anxiously about. Their directions are to rush to the Brilliant Pampas. Perhaps she is not up to the task in her zombie state, but she will ignore that sentiment as she ignores everything else.
Their destination is a brisk trip through Loess. She is unbothered by the sights or scents of others: head held low, ears pushed back, eyes glazed and fixated on the task ahead. When the girl arrives it appears many others have arrived already, most peacefully asleep amongst the blooms but some still lazily drifting . . . to the . . .
Before she knows it, she is but another dark shape rising and falling amongst the weeds.
