oceane
at me, the sea withdrewHer sleep is fitful, her dreams chaotic. Mchawi, the Nau-Aibian arithmancer, visits her — and with him comes the orange-eyed stallion from the desert. The one who had tried to murder the strange golden woman; the same one she had murdered to save the palomino stranger. The stallion's screams echo, looping over and over again in Oceane's head as he and the inky, oily Mchawi advance toward her. Behind them slither the desert sandsnakes she had called upon to end the orange-eyed stallion's life for her, writhing and hissing as their scales reflect in the harsh sunlight.
"I'm sorry," she croaks, her throat tight. She tries to retreat from the stallions but no matter how quickly she moves, she cannot walk backwards fast enough to create any real distance between them. Shadowy tendrils fall from Mchawi's nostrils and eyes; they spill from his mouth when he opens it to join the loop of screaming with his own venomous accusation:
"Traitor. Traitor. Traitor. Traitor."
"I'm sorry!" she cries again, but the words fall flat and give way to a scream as the two black stallions close the gap between themselves and her —
Oceane is startled awake, the sweat coating her sleek opal bodice gleaming in the silver moonlight. On her side, she rocks herself up and inspects her dark surroundings for the arithmancer or the orange-eyed stallion. Neither are present, though the slither of scales upon sand and dry earth has not faded with the rest of her dream. Rattlesnakes, brown and dust-covered with beady black and green eyes, coil in the dust around her. She counts five in total. "What are you doing here?" she asks tentatively of the Loessian serpents, her zoolingualism coming almost naturally.
"You called for us," one of them, though she's unsure which, says in response.
Sudden hoof beats in the distance catch her attention and Oceane draws in a breath. It catches in her lungs and tenses the muscles in her shoulders, readied lest she need to ascend swiftly to the skies. Pivoting in the direction of the approaching noise, the brown rattlesnake that rests between her and the sound lets out a long hiss and raises its head up, up, up — prepared, she supposes, to protect her from whatever is coming their way.
Castile's gold-banded face reveals itself in the dark and Oceane finally lets loose her bated breath. "Castile," she says breathily to the Loessian King before turning her gilded gaze to the serpents that lay around her. "You may go. I am safe," she tells them, and as they uncoil to slither away she adds in a whispered "thank you" to the creatures who had had no obligation to answer her cries in the dark.
Hesitantly, and perhaps a bit shamefully, she turns her bright eyes back to the painted stallion before her. "I'm sorry if I woke you," her amber eyes take note of the way the silver moonlight flows over the sharp ridges of his face, "I'm not usually prone to night terrors. I—" her voice catches and she can simply shake her head before taking a small step closer to her King. "I... I'm glad you're here."
(set in late autumn because babies)
" "
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by