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"Late one night, my fire alight
Waiting for him to see
My wait was long, o' what could be wrong
Where could my true love be, love be
Where could my true love be?"

The song was swallowed up quickly by the sigh of wind and the crash of waves, a humble offering apparently accepted by her mother ocean. If Earth God looked after the Falls and Moon God after the Edge, then surely Ocean God looked after her. The great ocean had given much, and still comforted her with a warm night lit by a brilliant (and gloriously literal) orange moon.

If the god had approved of her song, she was the only one. A few yards away, her smoke sentry stared into space. He said nothing, having no thoughts of his own. Rather, his head, adorned with only the bare suggestion of features, tipped slightly to one side, a marionette slumping under the weight of his puppeteer's inattention. She straightened him up again. "You're no fun," she grumbled, perhaps more to herself than to him. What good was he if he couldn't even harmonize?

Though he admittedly served little purpose, she found the unicorn's presence comforting. For this reason, he had become her near constant companion. He was a comical little beast, with a horn much too long and legs much too short. Beside her, he looked more absurd still. Even his twisted horn did not reach the lowest point of her muzzle. Still, she'd gladly have his company over none at all.

She'd been wandering, more alone than not, for a few moons now. She'd gotten turned around somewhere amongst the thick trees and dancing shadows of the Threshold, and though she'd been groping blindly for signs of her second stop since leaving the Falls, it was mostly for naught. Even when she thought perhaps she'd stumbled across the lands she sought, she could find neither hide nor hair of another. She'd eventually decided that she simply would not find the Edge without a guide, and so had proceeded down the coast to more familiar territory.

Now as she stood in the surf, eyes lifted to the bright and burning stars, her hooves only sank deeper into the muck below her. It felt apropos for the idealistic mare, but she had yet to realize why. It was just so like her to be swinging on a star while the world was burning down. It was so easy to sweep the creeping unease under some metaphorical rug in her subconscious, to ignore the inherent wrongness of her isolation, to fill an idle mind with stories rather than strategy. Had she any mind for such matters, perhaps she would have realized that time was running short. Even she shold have been sensible enough to realize that confronting Frostfall alone was a fool's errand. But she allowed the crash of waves to lure her mind away once more.

As ever, Cheska stood watching the world rush past around her with her hooves in the ocean, her head in the clouds, and a song on her lips.

"The song it haunts me still this day
Notes of uncertainty
If heaven laughs at prayers of mine
Then it never was to be, to be
Then it never was to be."

OOC] Open to any and all.
Notes] Lyrics to "The Ballad of the Sea" by Marc Gunn & Andrew McKee