i hear the ocean calling; Posted on November 27, 2023 at 11:27:00 PM by charybdis
"come with me instead..."
At first, she is met with relief when the familiar figure steps into view, but a moment later, she recoils from that soft certainty, and is glad he has wisdom and restraint enough in the moment to keep his distance from her, and not…
In silence, she listens, and it takes no small amount of willpower to keep from curling her lip at the name he’s long since called her exclusively. Where once it had softened her, and stirred feelings of endearment, here, and now, fighting a battle within herself that none could see, and not even she could hope to understand, she felt monstrous, and undeserving of even little devotion.
In spirit, she has become too much like the ocean, a wild force of nature that is indifferent to all things except the pull of the moon and the push of the wind; it has made her blind to some truths, and cruel. “I did not ask for any of dat, not from you.” There are so many things that lie drowning in the depths of her… Biting anger. A venomous accusation that she could never bring herself to utter; why do you not watch over our daughter, instead? - because she has done far worse things than allow one of her own to wander freely and grow into her own. And a reservoir of affection that she has long shied away from peering into for any length of time.
It’s better - safer - for her to be alone. Only, she cannot find the words, and so, in her desperation, Charybdis would seek to push Nahual away. Cut the physical ties between them, so that, just maybe, the hungry sea wouldn’t clamor after his soul, the way it had so many others whom Charybdis had loved, only to lose.
“You show de ‘eart of yourself too readily, σκιά.Shadow,” she says, her voice still holding fast to its cold warning tone. “Guard it better when I am gone, for dere be monsters dat would seek to tear ‘im out of you...” And, tearing her gaze away from the manchado stallion, mouth twisting bitterly when she was sure he could not see, Charybdis resumed her wandering, realizing, after a moment, that she was heading for the bounds of the Lagoon. This only gave her momentary pause, and then she picked up her pace, seized by a sense that a current had caught hold of her.
Nothing could divert her from this course now, and somewhere deep inside her - warring with the grief she felt over the loss of two young stallions who’d sought to defy their fate - and paid heavily for it - there came a strange sense of some promised euphoria, as though - if she bathed in those blue waters, she might reclaim a silvery sliver of the essence of all that she had lost.