| Charybdis the water has been waiting long enough |
| The phantom, draped in her blood-red mantle, had haunted the shores of Atlantis for far too long. It was time for her to leave, but still, she lingered, in the hopes of catching sight of her wild, elusive children. She rarely strayed far from the shoreline, knew that they belonged to the very heart of the rugged jungle landscape, but sometimes, Charybdis fancied she saw them standing high of the clifftops, looking out to sea. The winding path she followed now, though, led her not to her own son and daughter, but two young stallions, and a little spitfire of a girl.
" ‘im cannot give de answers you seek," Charybdis found herself saying, stepping through a swathe of ferns. Though she spoke in reply to the little golden mare, the half-blind wanderer’s focus ebbed and flowed between the three of her companion. " ‘im been on a journey, went so far, found ‘imself in a place not meant for de living." She ambled along as she spoke, for she was just passing through. "But ‘im... ‘im come back, because in de ‘eart of ‘im dere’s a strength dat prevailed, burning like a flame dat never goes out." She was forever drifting, in her thoughts, in deeper things that very few would understand (there had been one, two, but in her heart Charybdis feared that she’d lost them both, and she mourned in her own way - giving her tears to every outgoing tide). Faolain might not have understood, but she’d accepted, and for that, the pallid mare would always be thankful. "De darkness, de darkness come upon dese shores," the saltsinger intoned, stumbling to a halt, ears turned back. But she swung her head around to fix her seeing eye on the chestnut stallion, and at the sight of him, uncertain as he was, the tension that had crept into her posture, the thrum of fear in her voice, rolled off her like sea mist. It was why he had come back - because the Ridge needed him, even if he did not yet know why. (Even if he never knew why.) Because he was like a beacon in her eyes. A light to banish the Darkness Charybdis had spoken of. The very same darkness her Eidolon asked her about, the very first time they’d met (in this life, in this place). De islanders t’ink dey have peace, but dey are wrong. Eidolon, I t’ink de war were not de end, but de beginning. Eidolon was gone. Faolain and her silver-crowned other-half was gone. It was time for her to leave, too. "Dere is no place for me here now. De water, ‘er call me like ‘er called dem." Atlantis, the Ridge, could only be saved by those who belonged to it as this silent, red stallion before her did. Her roaming twins. Perhaps the slender grey male (whose ears curved subtly in a way that was familiar) and the fierce spotted girl, too. "I feel lost, must leave, and find myself again. If you find de Rivers... I will come back if dey have need."Charybdis felt the mournful note in her voice reverberate in the spaces between the bones in her chest. No more lingering. She turned away, and there, at the edge of their vision, she paused, twisting her head around, to fix the emberglow stallion with a milky stare shrouded by thin wisps of her ivory forelock. "I would come back for you, also. For Faolain. No need for calling. De water will guide me." And then, she was gone, swallowed up the rainforest, for the tides were ebbing, and she would submit herself to the will of the deep waters. |