[open] i must go to the seas again

[Oceane]

for the call of the running tide

Her iridescent violet wings have long since dried, though sand and salt from the island Kelpie still cling to her outspread feathers. Oceane soars uncomfortably high - perhaps higher than she ever has before, the thin air causing her to gasp for each inward breath but she doesn't care. She should be nothing more than a birdlike speck in the sky as she flies over her Loessian home.

She doesn't want to face them yet. Not with the odd, unwelcome weight of discomfort that sits like a stone in her gut..

The pegasi had secured her escape from the small isle north of Ischia theoretically unscathed, but the feeling of danger still lingers in her mind.. The recent obscured memory of it, of the invisible tethers that had bound her to the earth, draws a disagreeable chill down her crest and to the base of her spine despite the fact that she cannot quite place what had happened within the territory of Ischia. Oceane descends just low enough, now that she is out of Loessian skies, to warm her limbs and heat her lungs.

Finding a small clearing in the dense expanse that is the Forest, the opaline pegasi coasts in a small circle. Lower and lower she goes until she gives a few mighty flaps to slow her descent and then, finally, her hooves fall upon the needle-blanketed forest. Her nostrils flare at the scent of petrichor. The smell is so different from the sea salt of Ischia that it calms her almost instantly.

Ruffling her wings as she folds them, Oceane settles her feathered limbs comfortably to her sides and turns her gilded eyes to inspect her surroundings. The forest is calm and quiet, and the scent of the trees and their leaves overpowers the smells of any other equine who had recently meandered through their trunks. It's peaceful. And for the first time, Oceane feels no need to explore the dark depths hidden between timber and brush. There is no tug of curiosity or desire in her core to learn what secrets the forest hides.

Perhaps she will find time on another day to ponder over this loss of intrigue. But for now, she curls up in the very middle of the forest clearing and settles in a nest of pine needles. Her amber eyes turn towards the tree boughs before her and find movement; a blue-and-gold parrot hops to the edge of a larger branch and peers down at her from amidst the leaves. Oceane lifts her head, a semblance of a smile finding the corners of her mouth as she greets the avian.

"You tried to warn me. Why?" she questions softly and the bird bobs its head, lilting words tumbling from a yellow beak:

'And yet... you did not listen.'

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