Reef lingers for several days near the waterfall, taking solace in the water's constant churning movement. It has a different cadence than the hush and swell of the sea as it pours over the cliff, but it is still comforting to be near something so powerful. This particular interlude on the Crossing has refreshed her. Once again, however, wanderlust has begun to make every inch of her itch, and soon she will follow the river to the shore and find her way to Salem. The blue roan lifts her head from the water's edge where she has just slaked her thirst, only to find herself no longer alone.
The waterfall is dangerous in this way (not like the ocean, which might yank one under the waves and tumble them helplessly within its current despite appearing so calm on the surface), masking the sounds of others so that Reef almost believes a water sprite has materialized while her face was lowered. How else to account for the sudden presence of another? One marked exotically with a vivid wash of red down her withers under a shock of black mane, the rest of her coat bright as sunlight flashing off the water.
They spot one another at the same time and Reef freezes, startled, entertaining for a moment longer the idea that the spray off the falls has manifested itself in the form this striking horse. And, while it is obvious that the roan has just drunk —water still drips from her chin— there is nothing inane about the question posed to her. "Peace," Reef blurts, still rattled. She draws in a breath in an attempt to regain her composure, and captures the other mare's undoubtedly equine scent. "Of a sort," she amends, still eyeing the other with a sort of bewildered wariness.
There is an intensity to the stranger's tone that marks this conversation as something more than just passing small-talk. Reef marvels at her accent, for it sounds as if this mare has come from very foreign shores indeed. In all her traveling these five short years she has never heard anyone else speak so. She returns the question in kind, carefully reverent with her choice in moniker: "And you, nymph?" |