Drawn (Vanilla, Chocolate, Kiwi-Strawberry)
'Verse: Sparksong
Challenges: Vanilla #13 (a day at the beach), Chocolate #13 (humility), Kiwi-Strawberry #14 (rhythm) + Rainbow Sprinkles + Great Outdoors week
Title: Drawn
Summary: Kaya always finds herself back at the ocean.
Rating: PG-13 (thoughts of death)
Word count: 1044
Notes: Longer than usual (it was haaaard!) and funnily enough Rainbow Sprinkles too. And on tablet. Booyah.
The sea, or rather salt water, would never call to Kaya, or any of her sisters for that matter, as much as fresh, and could not possibly compare to the pull of her mother river, but still she found herself drawn downstream to where the land ended. It wasn't natural, as Euria would tell her every time she left the relative safety of the forest to follow Tallulah on Her course, through plains and valleys and past human settlements, to the beach and the Abundance emptying into the sea. It made her feel small like her mother never would. Standing on the sand, the roar of the Tallulah Falls at her back simply wasn't even close to the primordial rhythm of the waves rushing in and the waves rushing out, her mother's waters not only swallowed up, but assimilated by the sea.
She took off her shoes and foot wrappings at the edge of the cliff where the falls roared, digging her toes into the rough, end of summer grass and delighting in the sensation. Faintly, she could hear songbirds trilling in the copse behind her, but the falls would drown out the sound of anyone approaching, so she was sure to hide her belongings. Then she picked her way along the zigzagging path carved into the cliff side (the only sign of people for miles, but they were people that were long gone by the state of the trail) and to the sharp swordgrass at the bottom. Pale brown sand took over beyond that, so she walked as quickly as she dared - getting sliced open by a plant was not her idea of a good time - and was soon standing on a shifting cushion that reminded her of the human's wheat fields by its color.
Kaya hummed a river-daughter song as she looked out to sea, only half-aware of the tune vibrating in her throat, less aware of the potential sacrilege of the action. She was wholly concentrated on the might and glory of the massive expanse of water before her.
She wondered if her distant cousins, the sea spirits, would be watching her, curious about the river-daughter far from home. Would one leave the depths to investigate? Could they? She realized she knew even less about her own relatives than an average human - at least humans could sail. Leave the land behind. A river-daughter could not, would die as soon as she set off. And without a connection to land, never return to her mother.
Kaya realized her song had become one of mourning. She shivered and shook herself all at once, and walked closer to the River's end. Dipping her toes into the swift water, at a spot where she was sure no salt water would mix in, she had to wait only a moment before she felt it.
Tallulah, Abundant Mother, calming her wayward child.
"Thank you, Mother," she whispered to the salt tinged breeze, a surge of love and pride across the connection making her giddy and lightheaded before the tide trickled back out. She was her mother's daughter, no matter what fascination the sea held. She could always return home and her mother would welcome her even if her sisters (Euria in particular, she thought) did not. Especially if her sisters did not.
All things must give way, my dear, Tallulah whispered to her soul. As the land is eroded by the river, and the river empties to the sea, so must the sea be blocked by the land. An endless cycle, an endless dance.
Kaya turned away and started up a tune again, this one a hymn in praise of the River. Almost of their own accord, her hands rose, her feet shifted and her hips swayed: a dance along the sand, a single water spirit not caring if her entire collection of cousins (and there must be millions of them!) were watching. She was dancing her devotion to her mother.
~
Later, she watched the sun sink lower and lower in the sky. Perched on a piece of wood deposited on the shore an unknown time ago, weathered by sun and saltwater and bleached nearly white, she thought she could see a shadow on the horizon. It could have been a mirage brought by tired eyes, or perhaps the very tip of the Caleo Peninsula on eastern Alyenor (though that was a stretch, given that even on clearer days than this she'd never seen the other continent before), but she liked to think it might have been a ship, full of humans sailing to or from the fishing country of Cecipi. Maybe even adventurers, headed to Lahni on the other side to explore the land destroyed by tsunamis years before Kaya was born, and bring back the treasures fabled to still be under the water.
What was under the depths? Gold and jewels, creatures like none ever seen before, underwater cave systems and coral reefs and her mysterious marine cousins?
The bones of Lahnan people, lost forever to the merciless sea?
Would the explorers and other investigators of the disaster site ever even find any bones, or would the sea have eaten them away along with everything else? It was a sobering and chilling thought. Even if she could have gone sailing across the sea without dying, would she really want to? Would she really want to travel over waters that had swallowed an entire country? What if she was caught in a storm or scuttled on a reef, and became one of the nameless, faceless thousands claimed? Would her soul haunt the bottom, unable to return to Tallulah's fold?
Would she... Would she drag other sailors down to be sacrifices to the sea as well?
The sun sank lower. By the time it touched the horizon, she could no longer see the shadow even by squinting. Instead, she focused on the array of pinks and purples and brilliant reds laid out like a painting before her. Another day done. Time again to return to the safety of her home in the forest, where her sisters would be waiting. She'd doubtlessly come back to the beach to stare out at the ocean again, but for now she just wanted to go home.
Challenges: Vanilla #13 (a day at the beach), Chocolate #13 (humility), Kiwi-Strawberry #14 (rhythm) + Rainbow Sprinkles + Great Outdoors week
Title: Drawn
Summary: Kaya always finds herself back at the ocean.
Rating: PG-13 (thoughts of death)
Word count: 1044
Notes: Longer than usual (it was haaaard!) and funnily enough Rainbow Sprinkles too. And on tablet. Booyah.
The sea, or rather salt water, would never call to Kaya, or any of her sisters for that matter, as much as fresh, and could not possibly compare to the pull of her mother river, but still she found herself drawn downstream to where the land ended. It wasn't natural, as Euria would tell her every time she left the relative safety of the forest to follow Tallulah on Her course, through plains and valleys and past human settlements, to the beach and the Abundance emptying into the sea. It made her feel small like her mother never would. Standing on the sand, the roar of the Tallulah Falls at her back simply wasn't even close to the primordial rhythm of the waves rushing in and the waves rushing out, her mother's waters not only swallowed up, but assimilated by the sea.
She took off her shoes and foot wrappings at the edge of the cliff where the falls roared, digging her toes into the rough, end of summer grass and delighting in the sensation. Faintly, she could hear songbirds trilling in the copse behind her, but the falls would drown out the sound of anyone approaching, so she was sure to hide her belongings. Then she picked her way along the zigzagging path carved into the cliff side (the only sign of people for miles, but they were people that were long gone by the state of the trail) and to the sharp swordgrass at the bottom. Pale brown sand took over beyond that, so she walked as quickly as she dared - getting sliced open by a plant was not her idea of a good time - and was soon standing on a shifting cushion that reminded her of the human's wheat fields by its color.
Kaya hummed a river-daughter song as she looked out to sea, only half-aware of the tune vibrating in her throat, less aware of the potential sacrilege of the action. She was wholly concentrated on the might and glory of the massive expanse of water before her.
She wondered if her distant cousins, the sea spirits, would be watching her, curious about the river-daughter far from home. Would one leave the depths to investigate? Could they? She realized she knew even less about her own relatives than an average human - at least humans could sail. Leave the land behind. A river-daughter could not, would die as soon as she set off. And without a connection to land, never return to her mother.
Kaya realized her song had become one of mourning. She shivered and shook herself all at once, and walked closer to the River's end. Dipping her toes into the swift water, at a spot where she was sure no salt water would mix in, she had to wait only a moment before she felt it.
Tallulah, Abundant Mother, calming her wayward child.
"Thank you, Mother," she whispered to the salt tinged breeze, a surge of love and pride across the connection making her giddy and lightheaded before the tide trickled back out. She was her mother's daughter, no matter what fascination the sea held. She could always return home and her mother would welcome her even if her sisters (Euria in particular, she thought) did not. Especially if her sisters did not.
All things must give way, my dear, Tallulah whispered to her soul. As the land is eroded by the river, and the river empties to the sea, so must the sea be blocked by the land. An endless cycle, an endless dance.
Kaya turned away and started up a tune again, this one a hymn in praise of the River. Almost of their own accord, her hands rose, her feet shifted and her hips swayed: a dance along the sand, a single water spirit not caring if her entire collection of cousins (and there must be millions of them!) were watching. She was dancing her devotion to her mother.
~
Later, she watched the sun sink lower and lower in the sky. Perched on a piece of wood deposited on the shore an unknown time ago, weathered by sun and saltwater and bleached nearly white, she thought she could see a shadow on the horizon. It could have been a mirage brought by tired eyes, or perhaps the very tip of the Caleo Peninsula on eastern Alyenor (though that was a stretch, given that even on clearer days than this she'd never seen the other continent before), but she liked to think it might have been a ship, full of humans sailing to or from the fishing country of Cecipi. Maybe even adventurers, headed to Lahni on the other side to explore the land destroyed by tsunamis years before Kaya was born, and bring back the treasures fabled to still be under the water.
What was under the depths? Gold and jewels, creatures like none ever seen before, underwater cave systems and coral reefs and her mysterious marine cousins?
The bones of Lahnan people, lost forever to the merciless sea?
Would the explorers and other investigators of the disaster site ever even find any bones, or would the sea have eaten them away along with everything else? It was a sobering and chilling thought. Even if she could have gone sailing across the sea without dying, would she really want to? Would she really want to travel over waters that had swallowed an entire country? What if she was caught in a storm or scuttled on a reef, and became one of the nameless, faceless thousands claimed? Would her soul haunt the bottom, unable to return to Tallulah's fold?
Would she... Would she drag other sailors down to be sacrifices to the sea as well?
The sun sank lower. By the time it touched the horizon, she could no longer see the shadow even by squinting. Instead, she focused on the array of pinks and purples and brilliant reds laid out like a painting before her. Another day done. Time again to return to the safety of her home in the forest, where her sisters would be waiting. She'd doubtlessly come back to the beach to stare out at the ocean again, but for now she just wanted to go home.