07-23-2020, 08:41 PM
The lack of trees here is strange, and a small frown furrows across her brow as her dark brown eyes wander the landscape. It reminds her of the bare stone that floors the too-warm waters off the Tephran beaches, a black and rocky sheet that is nothing like the lively coral reefs of her home. Lumina had never wanted to linger there, beneath the water on Tephra. Nothing did, save a few creatures accustomed to the harshness of the place.
The Isle has its own such creatures, Lumina finds.
He appears from the shadows, openly wielding an unfamiliar magic, and the young mare pauses.
Her head tilts, just a bit, as she takes in the appearance of the stranger. Tall and heavily built (at least compared to Lumina), he’s possessed of glittering scales in a myriad of colors. The length of his tail, the spikes along his neck, and the claws that fade in and out of view suggest both that he has a form other than the one he currently wears and that whatever shape he takes is near the apex of the food chain. If that were not enough to make her wary, this is also the first creature she has met that is not family. Lumina had not quite thought through the ‘meeting strangers’ part of adventuring, but the weight of it grows larger as the bay roan steps closer.
‘A kelpie on my shores’, he says, and it takes Lumina a moment to realize that he means her.
“An easy mistake to make,” she replies with an understanding smile. “I’ve less a taste for flesh than my siblings. I think perhaps I’m a nereid? It would make more sense than a kelpie that doesn’t like fish, don’t you think?” Delphi and Svana had agreed with her logic, anyway. And if Fool wanted to argue against it, well, she was exactly like her name; who is she to be an expert of the ways of magic, anyway?
The enchanted beauty that had come with adolescence is a shared trait between Kelpie and Nereid, after all. The finned tails are also shared with their Kraken cousins, as is the ability to breathe the water as well as the air. It would have been easier to know for certain if her womb mother were there to ask, but she had gone the way that other mothers have gone since – there one morning and gone the next. All Lumina remembers of her is a spotted side and brown eyes just like those that stare back from her reflection.
Those same eyes look up at Leilan now, bright with good humor.
“And what, pray tell, are you? I have heard tales of snow bears and furred elephants, but none about anything quite like you.”
The Isle has its own such creatures, Lumina finds.
He appears from the shadows, openly wielding an unfamiliar magic, and the young mare pauses.
Her head tilts, just a bit, as she takes in the appearance of the stranger. Tall and heavily built (at least compared to Lumina), he’s possessed of glittering scales in a myriad of colors. The length of his tail, the spikes along his neck, and the claws that fade in and out of view suggest both that he has a form other than the one he currently wears and that whatever shape he takes is near the apex of the food chain. If that were not enough to make her wary, this is also the first creature she has met that is not family. Lumina had not quite thought through the ‘meeting strangers’ part of adventuring, but the weight of it grows larger as the bay roan steps closer.
‘A kelpie on my shores’, he says, and it takes Lumina a moment to realize that he means her.
“An easy mistake to make,” she replies with an understanding smile. “I’ve less a taste for flesh than my siblings. I think perhaps I’m a nereid? It would make more sense than a kelpie that doesn’t like fish, don’t you think?” Delphi and Svana had agreed with her logic, anyway. And if Fool wanted to argue against it, well, she was exactly like her name; who is she to be an expert of the ways of magic, anyway?
The enchanted beauty that had come with adolescence is a shared trait between Kelpie and Nereid, after all. The finned tails are also shared with their Kraken cousins, as is the ability to breathe the water as well as the air. It would have been easier to know for certain if her womb mother were there to ask, but she had gone the way that other mothers have gone since – there one morning and gone the next. All Lumina remembers of her is a spotted side and brown eyes just like those that stare back from her reflection.
Those same eyes look up at Leilan now, bright with good humor.
“And what, pray tell, are you? I have heard tales of snow bears and furred elephants, but none about anything quite like you.”