The sun was setting over the ocean as she crossed the bridge.

It glowed in fiery white, bathing the ocean in red and yellow. It watched on like a single white eye, blind and seeing all at once; Nymeria could feel it watching. Light pressed against her skin, warm and comforting, turning her coat from shadow to steel. It illuminated the path ahead. Wet rock glistened. The ocean roared. Gulls cried. And there she was—silhouetted against the sunset, black against red, the waves crashing around her and foaming up in a furious crescendo of white.

She had never been to the other side.

She remembered that once she had stood on this bridge, crafting with her magic, making shapes out of the dark water below. There had been a boy at the time as well—a winged boy, electrified earth. At the time she'd thought his eyes remarkable; now she remembered nothing of his eyes, or even his words, at all. Would I regret this, were I still my younger self? It was hard to say for certain. Her younger her had been a fickle thing, both more vain and more self-conscious than she was now.

How rapidly she was becoming accustomed to change.

Lilómiel flexed his wings, coasting above her in the sea-salt air. The smell of the ocean, the way it pressed in on her, was both unsettling and comforting (it reminded her of Abraham; it reminded her of her.) As she walked she lowered her head, stride lengthening, mind wandering. She didn't want to taint her—her optimism—with unfortunate realities.

(Realities like: I need to hold my ground, do what is right, do what is necessary. Realities like: I need to leave the Falls.)

Sweat begins to shine on her skin as she takes the final steps, breath coming a little shorter as she halts before the shrines. The ledge looks out over the sea; above is the rim of the volcano mouth, glowing an eerie blue. Viscous lava flows and streams around the path, emanating heat. It is not hard to avoid, and instead only enhances the divine atmosphere.

Her pupils dilate in the darkening light.

Prayer does not come easy to her but she says them anyways.

Words, rising and falling: a stream, a river, flowing and ebbing, sometimes poetic, sometimes mournful, sometimes thankful. And in the end she finishes simply, without request, without animosity. "Show me the way."