It was not unusual to find Osiriis standing belly deep in the strokes if the ocean that bordered one side of his land, his fathers land, staring longingly at the depths of the dark blue waters. His vermillion eyes searching for some reminant of his mother, he missed her so much his heart ached.
His back beaded with sweat and sea salt as he looked to his mother homeland. Life had become a stale circle or border patrolling with his father and playing with the animals that would let him get just close enough before sprinting off. He needed more, he longed for more.
With a flare of his nostrils, the ocean salt spray coating the inside of his nose distracting him only momentarily, he started into the water daring to go farther than he'd ever gone before.
His vermillion legs kicked at the water, his hooves finding contact with soft sand and coral as he pushed towards Ischia. He needed to be apart of her world, apart of a different world than his own. A smile of triumph crossed his slender face as he made contact with Ischia sand. He dragged his water drowned body from the cool comfort of the ocean, sweat beading almost instantaneously along the black that faded to vermillion along his body. His thick black mane and tail were plastered haphazardly across his face, back, and legs. His muscles ached from his recent journey but it didnt degrade his excitement of finally standing on his mother's land... though it wasn't much his mother's land anymore, was it? His vermillion eyes sparkled beneath the heat of the sun.
@[Cormorant]
04-06-2020, 07:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2020, 07:19 PM by Cormorant.)
He was a son of saltwater and clear skies, every bit the islander his mother was, but perhaps with wider desires. Ma loved her home. He did too, but the world was so much bigger than that. She'd shown him that, and then taken it all away again. Brought him and Hal back to the shores of home without even asking if they wanted to.
It wasn't fair.
Worse, he was missing Al. They'd spent the better part of a year together, growling from exuberant infants into gangly yearlings together. He missed always having someone by his side. Hal was okay, but he more and more often wanted to go off and do his own thing. That left Cormorant alone to wander the island that felt no more familiar than the landscape of the moon.
It was their duty to return home. Ma had a responsibility to their tiny, quiet, nothing-ever-happens-here home, and that meant they all had to go. The sea colt kicked at the sand viciously. Duty meant very little to a boy who's best friend was on the other side of the world.
He'd been walking, something he did a lot of these days. The island wasn't very large, not so that he couldn't get all the way around it in a day if he wanted to. The beaches were thin strips of gold today. The tide was in, leaving the waters deep enough to obscure the sand bars most horses used to travel between Ischia and the mainland. Another reminder of how cut off he was from the rest of the world.
His seafoam eyes glanced at the water for the hundredth time, roving over crystal waters capped with white foam. Colors reflected in his own sleek skin. His eyes skimmed the horizon, before he blinked, looked again. Like a curious sea bird, his head tilted from one side to the other. Something, someone was coming. Not Alcinder (he always had to push that hope aside when he saw someone new these days), this head was dark, dark black. As it drew nearer, he saw the shape of neck and shoulders emerge, followed by a back and barrel. At last emerged a sopping wet horse, looking like he'd been dipped in blood and not the ocean.
With as much puffed up dignity that he could manage, the porpoise colt strutted up the the stranger as he dripped on the beach. "Who are you?" He asked, maybe a bit sharply. Ma might nip him if she saw his standoffish posture, but right now Cormorant felt the need to be big, big enough to protect this island his mother loved so much, big enough to feel the emotions grew didn't want to know were simmering inside him.
@[Osiriis]
Osiriis' eyes drifted slowly over each golden grain of sand as he stopped to catch his breath. His sides heaved up and down, the salty taste in his mouth feeling natural. He tucked his head down between his legs, catching the way the sun shimmered off his brilliant, deep red legs before throwing his head back up to shaking the water lose from his thick mane followed by a quick shimmy of his body. The blend of his deep black and red body rippled beneath the heavy heat of the sun.
His ears perked as he heard the boys footsteps come closer followed by his question. Osiriis peaked at the boy between sheets of soggy hair despite his best efforts to rid it of the salty water. His vermillion eyes inspected the other boy cautiously, curiously, and slowly. This boy was ment for the island, anyone would be able to see that. His light coloring, and dark aqua markings as if he was one with where the water meets the beach. Most obvious though was the way his mane did not stick to his sides but rather stuck straight up as if he were a fish of the sea, with a tail to match.
Interesting, very interesting.
After what must have been a pretty uncomfortable silence Osiriis finally answered, "I'm Osiriis. Who are you?" His father had taught him to get to know strangers before giving to much away. A name, he guessed, would be a good start. He wondered if he knew his mother, Adria, or if he had spent his whole life here on the island, and if he, like himself, was lost as to who he was suppose to be.
He watch the puffed up, sharply spoken boy curiously, his posture relaxed and nonthreatening... unless one counted his inability to catch his breath completely after his journey.
@[Cormorant]
There was a quiet moment where both boys examined the unfamiliar in each other. It wasn't terribly common to see someone so very darkly coloured on the island. Aunt Eva's newest babied were a deeper purple than their mother, but they still glowed with islander airs. This guy was different. Black and red and... Oddly ordinary. No wings, no horns or fins or anything else to mark him as anything other than a horse.
Born so squarely in the ocean, Cormorant felt a little off-center seeing someone without obvious magic. It was enough to intrigue him, to soften his posture and bring forth the curiosity he'd been given to his whole life.
One thing this other colt did have on him was size. Cormorant was not a tall colt. He was not a broad colt. He had muscle, but it was lean and streamlined, and very much developed for the sake of swimming endless hours. He was not an intimidating creature by nature. Deep emerald eyes blinked at the darkly coloured boy's introduction, storing away the archaic sounding name. "Cormorant," he answered, giving as little as he got.
With as stern a look as he could manage, he squared up to the wet fellow, unwilling to give an inch until he was sure the boy meant them no harm. He had to do his part to keep his family safe. "What are you doing here? Most visitors take the sand bars." Swimming in at odd times struck him as suspicious.
@[Osiriis]
Oddly ordinary, if Osiriis had only known what the other boy thought of him he probably would of hung his head in dismay. Though he was tall, a trait he could attribute to his father, Osiriis was unusually soft and uncertain of himself. He was ordinary, so extremely ordinary it was unfair. His father was crowned with two giant horns and the thickest skin a man could have, a bull in every sense of the word except he wasn't he was a horse. His mother was one with the sea, like apparently every islander was.
Osiriis' vermillion eyes stayed steady on the other boy, admiring and coveting the boys physical attributes all at once. He would give his hulking height and sturdy physic for an ounce of his mother's magic or maybe even his fathers.
Anything that wasn't... ordinary.
His eyes glisten with curiosity as the boy replies, Cormorant he said his name was. It was an interesting name, he wondered momentarily if there was any meaning behind it. His father told him names always hold meanings. His ears shift as the boy continues.
His red gaze darts from the boys to the edge of the island's lush foliage and then back towards his home as Cormorant mentions the sand bars. Of course, Osiriis knew he was right, any other visitor would have waited for the sandbars to emerge and simply walk across. He was tired of walking, of the feeling of sand and hardened magma beneath his hooves.
"Maybe I don't want to be like the other visitors?" though it was ment to come out as a statement the question pounded across his inner consciousness. Who or what did Osiriis want to be like? "I wanted to see where my mother used to call home. She used to lead this Island, she used to protect it. Last I knew this Island was open to all looking to get away from their lives for a bit. Was I mistaken?" the muscles beneath his obsidian and blood red hide rippled with nerves. Where he was once relaxed, now his heart pounded. Maybe he had made a mistake by coming here. His eyes widened in anticipation as he waited for the fish boy, @[Cormorant], to answer.
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