| CHARYBDIS never let me go |
|
Charybdis lay on the sandy stone floor of one of the smaller ocean-hollows, humming beneath her breath. The sound reverberated in this small safe place of hers, harmonised with the incessant hiss of the sea, and this melody trembled in her bones, so that she shivered not from the cold of the unrelenting stone beneath her, but felt herself moved ever-so-deeply. There was nothing more beautiful, nor powerful as the sea, and there was only a single thing that she loved as much. A whistle of wind joined in her song, coaxing the strange mare to raise her head, and ever unguarded to this force, Charybdis rose to heed its beckoning, and she peered out from the mouth of her cave, attention drawn to a figure emerging from the surf. Instantly, Charybdis was mesmerised, though her mind tumbled within her, a flurry of seafoam wiping her mind blank as she sank into a reverie. Even as the phantom-pale mare stood with eyes wide open, curled against the jagged lip of stone, she fell into a waking dream. She saw herself there, on that beach, in another time, and a stranger draped in darkness had appeared before her. But things are never as they seem –the slender mare was no stranger, for though this had been the first time Charybdis had been blessed to behold her, there was a sense of knowing and of needing that was impossible to explain. And for her shadowy appearance, so stark and striking against the half-blind mare’s own boldness, this one was not an omen to be feared. She spoke of darkness, yes, but within her was a light so pure and bright as Charybdis had never seen, nor believed she would again. This Eidolon of hers was here to save them all, and would defend against the darkness to her very last breath. In her company, Chaybdis became whole, where she’d once been a battered and broken thing, grieving over that which she had lost. And even when she couldn’t see Eidolon, she felt her still, and doubt did not exist for the pallid woman who returned always to the sea. Eidolon would always hear her, and in the moments when Charybdis needed her, she would always come quickly to her side. Charybdis had grown to find the sight of the Marwari mare’s inky coat as comforting to her soul as the sound of the sea itself, and so it was little wonder that she felt so perturbed to see that same silhouette striding inland, bleached of colour in the manner that she herself was, but even more-so, for there only remained smudges of black upon that bone-white hide. What did it mean? Fighting against the feeling that everything she’d known was being pulled away from her by a riptide she could not break free from, she turned her face into the breeze coming off the ocean, so that the tears that had pooled in her eyes dried upon her cheeks. “Eidolon,” she murmured, beseeching the mare across the distance to turn and look at her. But the slender white creature on the beach did not sense her, and Charybdis sagged against the rockface as she watched the figure walk away, to be swallowed by the jungle. A groan of anguish left her lips, and Charybdis lurched away from the cliff, throwing herself into the shallows, swallowing mouthfuls of seawater along with her sobs. Her sorrows were drowned quickly in the ocean, and she heaved herself to her hooves, already turning inland, resolved to follow whatever path it was Eidolon walked. ‘To me!’ came the cry on the wind, and with a ragged, rasping breath Charybdis whispered back: “I am wit’ you, always.” What a fool she’d been, to believe that Eidolon would forget her, no matter how the trials she’d faced had changed her. It was not for Charybdis to deny her that which she needed to do. The mare, whose soul was as deep as the ocean, could only remain true to the one whom she loved with all she was. So without hesitation, the Morgan mare took off running, heart roaring within her like the ocean itself, a never-ending rhythm. It was a crooked path she cut between the lush vegetation of the Ridge. She scattered the herd as she crashed through their midst, skittering to one side so as not to hurt any of the bright little souls that shone bright as stars – catching sight of Faolain and Rivaini, and the firehearted Siobhan. Prima was there, but Asphodel, Asphodel, he was not. Where? Where was he? With Eidolon she hoped - with a fierceness so intense that it burned her, searing the inside of her throat as she swallowed it down. The pale mare, her damp skin speckled with sand, angled her head strangely as she bolted, so that her seeing eye could sweep the blurs of green-and-brown as she stumbled onwards, searching desperately for that sleek white figure she’d marvelled at so deeply, but she was lost, had fallen so far behind. With emotion rising in her throat (even as behind her, at the base of the cliffs, waves spilled across the threshold of her cave – the rising tide was relentless and hungry), Charybdis staggered to a halt, listening for a whisper of guidance delivered by the wind that rustled through the leave high overhead, chest heaving with the exertion of her plight and the fear that Eidolon had felt not so long ago – that she had failed the one who mattered above all others. |