The sweet peal of the Flats’ gentle tide was nothing like the soft rumbling of the Endless Blue, but it was soothing enough to draw Essetia closer to the water’s edge. As she fawned over the resplendent glistening of the stars scattered along the shivering tidal surface, the mare imagined her children alongside her. She pictured doing things far differently and with more patience than she had ever possessed. Yet, somehow she had again found herself entirely alone…

“Not truly,” Romul whispered begrudgingly, his voice just as strident as the many times he had scolded her for losing her composure as well as her family. Though it had become more a force of habit than of merit, Essetia turned toward the wolf with her eyes cast down, “I’m sorry.” Romul appeared to acknowledge her sentiment, but continued to trace the long stretch of sand as it blended into the careful eternity of starlight. The former spy looked on after him, compelling him to forgive her for her slights, but received cool silence instead.

It wasn’t until Romul had turned, his gilded scrutiny focused elsewhere, that Essetia became aware of her onlookers. In situations prior, her wolf had always come to greet strangers before her, but things had changed so drastically that the mare wasn’t surprised when her companion remained at a distance. Somewhere inside, Essetia’s heart was being torn, but she hadn’t the time to show it. Rather, she confronted the approaching maiden and her extraordinary consort with some practised caution.

In the shadows of the seamless astral plane, everything appeared much more surreal. Starlight glanced across the polished skin of what could only be an oceanic creature, though Essetia was unsure how it had come to exist alongside the fairer woman with sea-kissed hair. When the stranger called out to her, the spy was nearly speechless in her attempts to reason how a Leviathan had blurred the boundaries between land and water. “Companions... Romul initiated from afar, “defy more than we know to be with their bonded.” His answer was reminiscent of the love that had developed when first they met. It had been quite some time since Essetia had been able to coerce a caring word from his mouth. “So it seems,” she responded more hopefully.

“It is a wondrous night,” Essetia conceded when at last the stranger and her Leviathan were close enough to reach out to. However, at that point, the young whale had taken to hiding behind her companion whilst the spy fixated on the piercing blue of her eyes. “I’m Essetia,” the mare replied when she’d returned her pale stare to the seafaring mistress, “and that is Romul,” she stated flatly while gesturing toward her bonded. The two pairs were nothing like one another- it had been far too long since Essetia and her wolf had been on the same page, let alone on the same plane long enough to dote upon each other. It was something that had become lodged between them like a splinter, painful and irritating, and caused friction every time they spoke.  As the wolf’s name slipped from her tongue, the beast himself seemed to take a renewed interest in his companion and her dealings. She wasn’t sure if it was returning customs or envy that brought him back to her side, but his curiosities were focused solely on the juvenile orca and the way it peered innocently up at Essetia.

“My apologies, this is the first time that Romul and I have seen anything like your Nimue,” the spy offered sympathetically. Despite her concern for the wolf’s intensive behavior, he continued to brood over the whale as the two mares made merry above.