Sweat glistened on her neck, foamed on her shoulders, dripped down her haunches. She knew as soon as she stopped she'd chill—but lathered with her emotion, saddled with her frustration, it was easier to keep going than to start thinking. Verdant pines and bare-bone aspens fell away to meadows, and then grass gave way to sand, and then she knew where she was going all along: back home. Here in the Blue it smelled like decay and the washed-up dead, like salt and summer; she heard the cries of the gulls, coasting on the wind off the waves, and saw the chopped gray of a winter ocean, a horizon line without visible end.

Here was the sea, her haven, and there on its shore was someone who both absolutely belonged and did not belong.

Chest heaving, sweat pouring off her steaming hide, Nymeria drifted to a halt. The stranger was... equine in form, but aquatic in nature. Where there should've been skin there were yellowed plates, and voltaic blue ran down from eye to foreleg, spine to stomach. Delicate, webbed fins clawed from bony cheeks and a muscled neck in place of a mane or forelock—and she had a horn. Bright, sharp, like solidified seawater; Nymeria could not tell if she (he?) was beautiful or hideous, marvellous or abhorrent.

She looks cold, Lilómiel thought, unable to keep his fascination from spilling over into Nym's brain. Curiosity piqued, the grullo decided on a course of action, breaking into a lazy trot towards the mare. Now that her drake (flying amongst the gulls) had pointed it out, the stranger did look cold. All her ridges were raised, and the fawning fins on her cheeks were clenched tight; but Nymeria, now that she was here and altogether too close to the fish-horse, didn't know what to offer, or even what to say.

For a moment she couldn't help but stare at Aquila's eyes, so bright and so deeply blue—and then she found herself blushing, embarrassed at her own bravado.

"You look like you're freezing," she said in way of greeting. "Perhaps I could help?"

Nymeria snorted at herself whilst watching Aquila's bony lids shutter over her aquamarine irises (no, not pure aquamarine; there was a ring of earthen brown as well); then she looked back towards the sea, which today sought union with the sky. It was not a welcoming ocean (would that matter anyways?) When she turned her gaze back to Aquila, her fins were fanned free of her neck, and her head was cocked curiously.

Nymeria's head tilted the opposite way; she blinked, once, twice, more owlish than flirtatious. Not many other horses liked to frame their heads that way. It was strange to have her own movements reflected at her—unnerving, just like Kid's skull-marking.

I am. The seahorse's voice was deeper than she was expecting, and her teeth had an extra edge to them that again belied an otherworldliness to the mare. Maybe she's not a beautiful freak—maybe she's a god.  Did gods take on unusual guises? Or was this the goddess of the sea, little heard of and little known? If she was a god, then she could be anything. Why a cold, wet seahorse?

(It's unlikely that my luck is such that I find a god.)

For a moment she was silent and contrite, considering Aquila's words carefully. Then she bared her teeth in an expression walking the line between smile and smirk, and said, "let's find a tidal pool. Something we can stand in. If we can't find anything... then I'll show you in the ocean."