anyone;

[Izmir]

Water.

For some odd reason, it lures her like moth to a flame. Ocean tides and sandy shorelines, seagulls and horseshoe crabs. It all weaves together like a tapestry, or a blanket, that lulls her each night. For the past few days, she has kept low and undetected along the edges of Tephra, lustfully staring out at the island just beyond her reach. Meticulously calculating, she has considered where the sun sits in the sky when the tide recedes and how much time she is to have should she make a dash.

Young, delicate, and ignorant, Izmir knows what she wants but not yet of how to achieve it. There have been a couple times in which she observed what seemed like a horse – yet it swam so gracefully beneath the waves – streamline through the water toward the horizon. Glancing back at herself, she sees no such thing; there’s no fin, no ability to shift, nothing fish-like except for the patches of scales that glitter in the winter sunlight. A sigh slips from her, but Izmir continues waiting until the low tide finally arrives.

It's a process, but one that she is patient for until she finally steps out into the ebbing water. With some hesitation, she navigates from one sandbar to another, careful to walk where she can reach (will the ocean swallow her? What will happen then?). Her hooves sink into the sand and she squeals before jumping away, fearful of the unknown. It takes a while, but her efforts are not in vain. Step by step, minute after minute, Izmir finally reaches the island. Dry sand hisses as it wraps around her hooves and coronets, but there is no fear this time, only a smile. A glance back shows her what she has overcome, the endeavor that her young legs mastered and overcame.

Excited, but subdued, Izmir looks up at the towering palm trees – everything is so large in the eyes of a child – and takes a deep breath, already finding solace in having reached her destination.