Salem. It was the only island that Ava had never visited – a surprising feat for someone who had roamed the Lost Islands for as long as she had. There had never been any reason for her to go there before. There was no reason for her to be here now either, but rather there were reasons for her not to go to the other islands. Tinuvel was filled with nothing but death and gore, empty with the children that were no longer there. Luthien was tainted by the memories of Inevitable and abandonment. Likewise, Atlantis held nothing for her now – although she had still visited it upon her return, as dutifully as a widow might attend her husband’s grave. Salem though. Salem was unchartered territory – the desert lands, that was all she knew about them. It would be ignorant not to educate herself further, Ava had resolved, and thus she had set out for the island after her short tenure on the Crossing. When she arrived she found that it was exactly what she had expected, and yet it surprised her still. The land was almost completely sand, but unlike Atlantis they were not cool and damp – they were hot and dry, shifting beneath her hooves with a grainy whisper. They broke the horizon in gentle orange slopes, growing only warmer still as the sun climbed above them, brighter and more unforgiving than it had ever looked to Ava. And yet she did not falter beneath its gaze. Once, Ava might have wilted in a climate like this – soft and delicate as she had always been – but time had hardened her like the slow weathering of a rock. Though she had lost the child-like naivety that had always been so endearing to her lovers, her good nature had not been stolen from her. The melancholy had faded and she had returned at last. Her emerald green eyes swept across the land as she wandered further from the shore, locks of damp ebony hair clinging to her gold and white pelt. A few dark splodges marred the horizon, although they shimmered beneath the heat in such a way that Ava could not make out whether they were trees or horses. |