marina -----
by el barroco out of melody
It is a little odd being back here, alone. It had been very hard to leave her mother and sister and grandparents behind, knowing that she wouldn’t have any family to turn to. But Marina has always been the more adventurous of the sisters, Lyric preferring to shadow everyone else, never wanting to let them out of her sight.
It’ll be easy enough for Marina to not have to focus on how lonely she may end up being: she’s on a mission. Her mother and grandmother have spent many days regaling her with stories of her mother’s youngest days, spent from the very beginning in the Forest of Luthien. Her grandfather had been King of Luthien in those days, so their lives had been relatively untroubled.
Marina has thought of nothing else since she’d finally found the islands again. Since she’d been born here, she knows the general layout of the place, and she is careful to avoid looking at Atlantis as she swims past it. She really had loved living in the Harbor, but since her father had died there and her mother had whisked her and Lyric away so soon after, those last dreadful days are the ones that have stuck in her brain.
She almost gets herself turned around when she realizes there’s an island missing. She’d passed Salem some time ago and has spotted the abundantly green Luthien without first meandering around Cimarron. Her blue eyes crease in confusion but at the moment she is far too tired to put much effort into trying to solve the mystery. She practically flops onto dry land, managing to come ashore early enough that she’ll still have several hours of daylight to work with.
As she pulls herself to her feet, her golden figure sodden and dripping frantically, she looks wearily ahead of her; the flat expanse must be either the Prairie or the Savanna. Looking to her left, however, she sees the beginnings of a forest rather closer than she had expected.
She only allows herself a few minutes of respite, shaking off as much of the salty water as she could in the process, before heading off toward her mother’s birthplace. Her heart rate quickens as her excitement and anticipation grow; she’s created a general picture in her head from the stories she’d been told, but her grandmother had warned her that she would never get the Forest’s true beauty without firsthand experience. That had been the trigger for her decision to return here.
Her white legs are still a little sluggish, her black mane plastered to her neck as she trudges onward. As Marina takes those first steps into the trees and her eyes adjust to the filtered light, she takes a deep breath and smiles. The feeling of being home courses through her. She’d definitely made the right decision, no matter how hard it had been to say goodbye to her family.
The mare searches intently for the one landmark that she’s been dying to see more than any other: the old willow tree that her grandmother had claimed during her time in the Forest, and under which Marina’s mother had been born. Many of Telyn and Melody’s stories had centered around the weathered tree, and, knowing that it’s on the border, Marina is determined to find it.
It doesn’t take long at all; there the willow stands in all its weeping glory. Marina stares at it, at the representation of a thousand tales and a hundred dreams. Her dam’s life had begun on this very spot – how many others could pinpoint such an exact location? For Marina, this moment is a culmination; her life has been leading her here all along, and she’s glad that she’s finally here.
five - buckskin splash - spanish mustang x shire/criollo - 15.2hh |