When I was very young, I pretended the sea was my friend. I would chase the waves from the shore, leap at them when the tide drained them away, collect the tiniest seashells I could find, then rush back when they returned and the beach was flooded with light and foam. I was a lone child in a very small island and any such pleasure was the sole reason for my existence – I would adorn myself with seaweed and hide in the pools and shallows made by the corals along our shoreline, I would spend hours at an end in the water, until my mane was matted and dry from the salt, and when I learned to fly and took to the skies, I would skim at the surface of the sea the way I saw seagulls do.

It did not surprise me, then, when she was born consecrated to the river we all revered. She was of the land, natural and wild, savage and ruthless, my daughter, and so very conscientious of the caste she was born to, the caste I was inferior to: dark where I am light, all the dusk and mysteries of the river in those golden eyes I was quite helplessly in love with.

Water, I heard an aged shaman say once, water is the essence of life, the soul without which we cannot exist, water and breath...

Perhaps it was because of her that I was there. I felt tired; I had not flown in a long time, and my wings felt heavy, clumsy, even, which was unusual for me. I had flown quite a bit during the pregnancy, it was never that, but a land-bound daughter was limiting, to say the least, and after she disappeared…

I made straight to the sea, whether by accident or some subconscious intent I could not say.

The wind felt warm, warmer than usual, and it felt so good I almost lost control entirely. It was familiar in a way most things in this place were not, and so welcome I almost wept for it, which was pathetic. The sea lapped at my feet as it always did, hot as the tongue of a leopard, and the sound of laughter surprised me seconds before I realized it came from me.

Gods, I needed this. I needed the sea, the heat, the sun and the utter dryness of the desert – the desert…

She was born in the desert. Perhaps then – but no, why would she be here, when she could be anywhere? And, she has no wings – and more than a cursory glance at the few horses scattered around this land told well enough the sort of creature expected here. Which… wasn’t surprising, after what we found at the margins of Iunu.

Ah, racism.

Meraki.

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”
— T. S. Eliot