Shh, shh.

        She speaks long before Caneo catches the vast curve of her shape, or the pale flickering of her many tongues. Her voice conjures memory, and like static on a screen, images of the past reel through his mind: himself, a glint of pale light like a fallen star; the bite of salt in his nose; the fear of the unknown and the soft curls of red surrounding another figure down the beach. Roland had worn autumn well and carried the sea in his eyes, so it is to the autumn sea Caneo journeys now. Uncertainty haunts his footsteps as it never did before, a lean and hungry thing grown huge by time and fat from loss.

        He is alone on the beach.

        Moonlight catches the narrow tip of his horn when at last he crests the dunes. Through several long breaths, he is a ghost, a creature of the present staring through the eyes of the past, and the sea crawls black and massive up ahead. Instinctive fear squirms through his body at the sight of her, but age and wisdom temper it to such a narrow sliver it all but disappears. Salt water means no harm; it is an empty body devoid of intention, moving only because the moon commands. And the moon is a hook in the sky above, and she laughs at him. For a brief instant, Caneo's eyes narrow and a sour expression flashes up through his pleasant features, but then it is gone and he tilts forward.

        No implication of intention forces urgency into his gait, so he meanders a while through the sand, gazing up every now and then at a star-studded sky. Eventually the frothy tips of the waves bite his toes and Caneo turns to move parallel to the ocean's course. She would grab him and pull him into her darkness if she could, but he does not fear the mindlessness of her grasp, and he stays well beyond its strongest point. He didn't come here for the ocean, anyway.

        When he tires of watching the moon rock on the waves, he turns his attention up the beach. The blue of his eyes is a little too keen for a casual observer, though he isn't certain if he expects what he wants to show up. It seems Helovia is full of other faces these days, things he learns without passion and eventually turns away from. Maybe it's a symptom of growing old, that he looks so fondly backward now. Maybe it's a terror for the future, and what awaits him. Caneo isn't philosopher enough to muse upon the topic. He only feels drawn to the places he once knew, as if the people he cherished will be there, as well. As if their ghosts are enough to pacify his heart.