you are miles away but i still feel you

Although Tephra is quickly becoming a place of familiarity, Hestoni finds himself frequently summiting the Mountain. There is something about the journey to the very top that he finds therapeutic — the thinness of the air as he climbs to higher altitudes, the stretch and pull of every step, the way Beqanna spreads out below his feet as he moves up into the clouds. Among the birds of the sky and the various hardy mountain-top creatures, the russet stallion’s mind feels somehow cleaner. Each trip to the summit of the Mountain adds another tender suture to the empty gash in his heart.

Hestoni finds himself upon the crest of Beqanna’s heart when the soft blue fairy appears. His thoughts had been a hazy daydream of Scorch and her dragon-fire eyes shining against a background of Jungle fronds and sultry shadows in the moments before the fairy’s arrival. It’s easier for him to think about his wife among the thin air and summertime clouds as if the strength it took to climb the Mountain had burned away the anger and painful sadness that might’ve sunken him otherwise. Yet his thoughts turn away from both Scorch and the reason for his mountaintop visit when he hears the fairy mention the Plague.

He knows very little of the Plague and its characteristics. The russet stallion had fallen asleep in the midst of a blue-eyed summer in Nerine, but he woke to find the jaws of winter and the bones of several years. In that time (which had passed as quickly as a midday nap), an infection had somehow cloaked Beqanna in shades of bright-red blood and deep necrosis. The bodies of natives and foreigners alike fell apart beneath the heat of the Plague. Hestoni spent the first few months away from his wife wading among the dead and the dying.

Perhaps seeking the cure to the Plague will mend the unavoidable emptiness that seems to fill the cavities of his body (a cure to a Plague of his own, if you will). Hestoni’s long feathered legs step forward toward the blue fairy, drawn by her gentle magic and ocean-song voice. “I will search for these seashells.” His voice is the rumble of a low thundercloud in the distance and as serious as the presence of one as well. Without Scorch to lighten his days, the russet has fallen beneath the characteristics of his youthful self — serious and disciplined, yet still with a hint of charm.

Without regard to any others gathered, Hestoni pivots to make his way down the well-traveled trail toward the foothills of the Mountain. He has seen Island Resort in the near distance from Tephra’s sulfuric shores but he has never crossed the stretch of ocean to reach it. The Jungle had rainwater rivers and clear waterfalls against moss-green rocks, but the wilderness of the sea is another force of nature entirely. The stallion contemplates his journey across the channel as he winds between Hyaline and Loess, and then between Taiga and Sylva.

He makes quick work of the otherwise lengthy trip, having traveled the path between Tephra and the Mountain several times already since his arrival in the kingdom. Most of his time is spent in quiet determination — let it be known that there is never a task Hestoni will not finish when his mind and heart are set to it. It’s an unnaturally gray morning when the russet finally arrives at the shoreline. The world is draped in the colors that remind Hestoni of the Afterlife — muted grays and whites and blacks — and he stops with one long leg soaked in the warm Western sea as memories of years spent in death flood into his mind. Remembering the colorlessness and lifelessness of the Afterlife is traumatizing (perhaps even more so than it was to actually be there, now that he can smell and taste and touch things) and the stallion gives a brutal shake of his head to clear his mind.

Hestoni can’t recall a time he has swum this far or for this long. There have been bursts of time spent under the weight of heavy Jungle waterfalls or splashings through shallow creeks, but never has he swam with such depths below his legs or such strength against his sides. Even in the summertime of Nerine, he’d only dared to push up to his chest in the bitter Northern waves, unwilling to release such control to the whims of Mother Nature. Standing at the edge of the water bordering Tephra and Island Resort, Hestoni knows he’s only been as scared as he is now with the deliveries of each of his children.

Yet the russet stallion has convinced himself that he has nothing to lose (whether that is true or not is up for debate) and so he gives a fierce toss of his head to clear his hefty forelock from his vision before diving straight into the waters. Although it’s a gray morning, which might predict a storm on the horizon, the ocean is surprisingly calm and Hestoni finds himself pleased to swim easily for the first half of his crossing.

As he approaches the halfway marking, the russet realizes that his muscles are not used to the repetitive motions of swimming. His chest begins to heave beneath the weight of the ocean and yet he is trapped. There is only forward or back — and to go back would mean to abandon his promise to the fairy atop the Mountain. Hestoni presses on, but a few more rhythmic strokes prove that he is growing weak. The sudden appearance of a large rocky outcropping in the midst of the channel quickly becomes his saving grace.

Thick tendrils of seaweed cling to the dreadlocks of his mane as Hestoni climbs atop the outcropping to catch his breath. The waves lick at his heels with perhaps a touch more vengeance than their happy kisses before, as if attempting to drag him back to their arms and then to the floor of the sea below. The sound of singing dances through the punctuated heaviness of the titan’s respirations, causing the stallion to twist his ears forward amid the dripping tendrils of his mane. Picking his way carefully across the rock, Hestoni spots a unique creature lounging on the suddenly-shared miniature island.

A long, scaled tail snakes up to a pale torso and two elegant arms. Although the creature appears to be hairless there are long, dark tendrils of something akin to a mane making waves down the creature’s back from atop its head. The scales of the tail are a patchwork of pale shades of green and blue — on any other day they might blend with the colors of the ocean, but for now, they are a stark contrast against its sullen gray. Hestoni knows that the creature is undoubtedly the one singing, for it turns to reveal a slender face with two dazzlingly blue eyes, a petite nose, and a mouth curled into the shape of a song.

Although she is unique and unlike anything he’s ever seen in Beqanna, she is beautiful.

“Please come love me, Hestoni.” Her voice is as gentle as a dove’s wing and her enchantment leaves Hestoni wondering if she is more perfect than his own wife. He does not even realize that her body is purring against his — winding across his deep chest and against his broad shoulders, snaking beneath his abdomen and around his neck — but he is caught up in the fact that she is soft and supple beside his skin… Something Scorch never was. Her dragon-burns and battle scars never allowed them the luxury of seamless touching and endless dangerous curves (yet he loves her regardless) as this siren has graced him. “I am better than any other,” the creature whispers in his ear, all while her scaled tail has tightened against the deep red of his throat.

He nearly agrees. The sway of her enchantment, the gray of the ocean, the bitterness of deep sadness in his chest — it all urges him to agree to her soft-spoken words and fall against the sweetness of her skin. Yet there are two things that cause him to quickly pull away from her: the faintest hint of dagger-sharp fangs poking beneath the curve of her supple lips and the sight of the pale green fronds of Island Resort looming in the near distance. “No, thank you.” His voice is stern and as cold as Nerine’s granite cliffs, but the siren is angry now. A hiss rattles from her throat while the suspected fangs are fully revealed. “I must have you!”

Instincts suddenly push past the hazy cloud of lust that dazzled Hestoni’s mind. Her siren-body still twists around his body and the russet knows that if he were to toss himself into the sea, she would surely overpower him. Instead, he resolves to drop against the sharpness of the rocks and violently twisting his body against the ground. The siren gives a vicious scream but pulls away from his slick sides. Soon-to-bruise scrapes and thin cuts litter his shoulders and back from the action of rubbing against the wet rocks, but Hestoni barely identifies them as the siren approaches him once more.

“Get away from me!” She is writhing and terrifying, a complete opposite from the soft-faced beauty she had been moments before. The chestnut titan pivots and delivers a gunshot buck into the siren’s approach. A sound like fish-meat hitting the deck of a sailor’s boat tells Hestoni that she has dropped beneath the weight of his hooves, but the stallion doesn’t care to find out if she is unconscious or actually dead. He tosses himself into the gray waves and pushes quickly toward Island Resort’s shoreline.

By the time he drags himself upon the sand, his lungs are heaving with anxious air. Each stroke against the water brought upon the image of a fanged-siren sinking her teeth into his legs and, thereby, sinking his own body to the bottom of the Western ocean. The salt of the sea stings the still-bleeding cuts against his skin, but they are minor pains compared to what could have been. Satisfied that he is alive, the russet pauses to catch his breath once he is completely out of touch from the tide’s grasp. When Hestoni turns to spot the outcropping in the midst of the channel, there is nothing but open water.

hestoni