It seemed today was going to be a long day. Mariael left Salem and, rather than turn for home, found herself wandering in a very different direction. Luthien. On account of her father, Mariael had never come to this island. He’d told her and Maziel when they were very young how they were never to visit it and then, when Mariael was older and he allowed her to step in as Queen of the Bay, he told her the exact reasons why.
Nephilim was on his daughter’s mind. Every year when the days crept closer to summer and she hadn’t found one remnant of his body, she relived the wretched day of his disappearance. It was cruel to think as she patrolled in her land she was searching for an uncovering of bones to finally have closure in the death of her father, but Mariael was. There had been so many instances she’d seen a scattering of bleached white bone and her heart had fell as she moved slowly close to it, her blood rushing in her ears… only to see it was the skeleton of a caribou or moose and not of a horse.
Curiosity pulled her to Luthien, and a longing to be near something close to her father. He had hated this island and the memories it possessed, but it was still a piece of him… and that was all Mariael had now… pieces of her father.
She climbed from the surf, her legs sore from their travels over the last twenty-four hours, and blinked at the sight of the forest bursting before her. It was strange to think this was the place her father had been born.
A stirring in the forest pulled her attention and Mariael blinked as Persephone walked from the shadows of her home, having clearly been on some sort of path toward the sea. She was pulled from her reverie and the memories of her father, smiling faintly at the sight of her ally. “Hello, Persephone. I hope you don’t mind the unannounced visit.” Mariael said, and then reflected on Persephone’s prior stride. “I’m sorry if I’ve caught you at a busy time,” she said. A fondness touched the corners of her smile – Mariael had rather liked Persephone when last they spoke. They shared a familiarity at their core, which was something Mariael didn’t often find in horses that lived away from Tinuvel.
|
