The return home had been a difficult decision to make, one that the sea mare had dwelt on longer than perhaps she should have. Once more she was being pulled in two very separate directions. This time, however, it was not only the choice between the oceans and the land that she struggled with, but between two loyalties that she'd never expected to find.
Home. There would always be home calling her back, the island tugging at her as insistently as the waters that surrounded her. She'd never imagined that she would find reasons not to return to it. Not until she'd come across Oceane, the clever mare who's friendship she'd fallen into quite suddenly, and who's turbulent life had drawn not only Aquaria, but her sons in as well. When first Alcinder and then Oceane herself had been captured by a kingdom the Ischians knew nothing about, when silly, brave, unthinking Cormorant had traipsed after his new friend, she'd known she couldn't leave.
But now her son was returned. Alcinder was returned. And Oceane, clever as she was, had gone quietly into her captivity. Pearl white Aquaria felt an ache deep in her chest as days went by, knowing every day passed was a day she was ignoring the ties to her own home, to the loyalty she had so recently pledged to Eva and their island. Their own herd may need guidance in the coming days, and she knew she couldn't abandon them.
She'd found her boys, together, and had explained to Halcyon's understanding and Cormorant's outrage, that home needed them. She had found Alcinder, and promised that they would visit again, that she knew he'd be well taken care of by his kin and that she knew Cormorant would see him again. It was one of the hardest conversations she'd thought she'd ever have.
Then they'd been off, back the way they'd come without the addition of the companions she'd thought they'd be bringing with them. This journey had been far more subdued, more so when they passed through Taiga and upon questioning a stranger, found that Pteron had left. Had not been seen there in some moons, and that a stallion named Aten now governed the redwood land. Her heart stuttered at the news, confusion and hope vying inside her at the news. Was he home, waiting for her to return? She barely allowed the thought room before squashing it back down.
That was a kind of naive hope that she'd learned very rarely bore fruit. She had Cormorant. And... She glanced at the prowling tiger, so far grown in the time she'd cared for him. So much a part of her now. The memory of their first day in the kingdom of Loess brushed her mind, the absolutely alien figure he'd become to greet Oceane and her new son. Alien and familiar and not something she'd allowed herself to dwell on much since. He was hers, blood be damned.
If he was Pteron's also, well. Blood be damned twice over.
By the time they returned home, she felt exhaustion in every inch of her. It had been a long journey, several days of walking and traveling on variety of terrains, the landscape so little changed she had to wonder. Had they been gone a whole year? Had time sped by so quickly as that? But spring seemed to have landed, exactly as it had on their way east, and the sons who traveled with her were larger, held much more stamina than the ones who had followed her then. Too long, they had been away too long.
Her eyes glossed in the sunlight when Ischia's sand spread beneath her feet again. The boys were quick to run off, to return to their haunts and to inspect their collections and treasures. What would be left, after a year. Cormorant's sullen temper from the trip evaporated at the sight of their home, and she knew they had done the right thing. They would be alright, her little family. She only hoped Oceane's would fare as well.
Back on familiar beaches, the pale nereid drifted like debris on the waves, uncertain what, if anything, had changed. Coming to a rest beneath an accommodatimg stand of palms, she breathed a lungful of fresh, salty air. Savored the tang of the breeze. Wondered when, exactly, she had come to expect the world to be so cruel.