Essetia

The sound of the ocean had always soothed her. It was monotonous and true, an invariable entity that never failed to exist. At times Essetia found everyone to be changing around her while she herself remained the same. Others had managed to afford themselves new positions and new lives while Essetia had chosen to have children (of whom she couldn’t yet understand). Her son was more content to waste away the days alongside his father while Gyda preferred to wander wherever Romul would allow. Essetia had certainly grown to miss her companion, but enjoyed the solitude of being childless and alone. Somehow she had grown to desire the quiet of her thoughts where not a single soul was about to taint them. They were a fragile collection of hopes and dreams that threatened to decay almost daily now… yet, the spy couldn’t muster the strength to move forward anymore (or backward... or in any direction for that matter). She was alone again and that made sense to her. It was something she had come to expect.
 
The trip to the Endless Blue felt far too short beneath a warm and comfortable summer sun. It was not as overbearing as it was in the South, which Essetia appreciated after waiting out the worst of the TallSun heat in some form of agony or another. The whitewashed sands that greeted her upon arrival were nothing like the red, callous shores of the Throat either. Somehow, they even felt softer and finer than the average southern coast she’d grown accustomed to. As she debated the texture of the sand, she began to realize just how large a part her wolf played in keeping the mare sane. Without him close by, whispering sweet nothings (or sarcastic somethings) in her ear, Essetia felt somehow naked and vulnerable. And bored. She had never been this long without the wolf beside her. It forced her to become her own being despite the bond that was inevitably strung tight between them.
 
After a short time studying the bleached shore, Essetia waded knee deep into the lapping waves. They were kind that afternoon and nothing like the monsoons she’d witnessed years prior. It was certainly a perfect day to spend at the beach… even if she hadn't anyone to spend it with. However, instead of brooding over the many tribulations that had brought her to the Blue, she fancied other, more romantic ideas, at the expense of feeling like a giddy, young filly. The waters rushed up to graze her belly and she stared out toward the horizon, forcing images of Ulrik and her children from mind. Essetia was finally alone and that made sense to her… It was perfectly fine that it was something she had come to expect.

Essetia

She imagines she hears the thrumming of footsteps along the shore behind her, but Essetia is hesitant to turn, to acknowledge, in fear that history would somehow repeat itself. The last time she’d traversed the sands, Ulrik had been waiting. What it would do to her if she stood face to face with him again, when at last she wasn’t full and round with child. Somehow the mare had managed to shed her maternity weight fairly quickly, even if it had stripped her of the muscle and mass she’d been known for—she was no Arabian after all. Instead of entering into a dance that the spy knew all too well, she moved to avoid the company headed her way and contemplated the waves as if they were actually capable of speaking to her. They roared and roiled miles away, toward the horizon, but when they splashed onto the shore, they whispered all too sweetly. It they hadn’t been so accommodating, she wouldn’t have heard her name lifted above the salty gale and she wouldn’t have turned to find Caneo descending from the grassy knolls beyond. 

He appeared overjoyed by the sight of her, which troubled Essetia, but a soft and knowing grin still achieved to turn the hard line between her lips upward. The spy only had a small amount of time to recover her manners before the stallion threatened to invade her close quarters, but she turned toward him out of habit, a warm hello waiting on her tongue. “Caneo,” she breathed when he had bustled to a halt before her, “You look well yourself.” Of course, her fellow spy looked astonishingly better than Essetia and now entertained the company of a companion that the mare had never seen before. The serpent he had bonded to appeared comfortable nesting within the folds and ties of Caneo’s mane, a perfect fit. “And who is this?” she questioned of the snake, her curious eyes searching stupidly for an explanation for the loss of time between them. When last they’d met, Essetia had been much more robust and willful instead of the quiet, hopeless mess she’d become. 

As if overlooking the issue made it disappear, the mare ducked her head in order to study the sandshed as the waves rushed inland, carrying shells and rocks from the ocean’s depths. Briefly she consulted Caneo when he’d summoned the nerve to ask what she was doing in the Blue, but she only shrugged, still lost for a reason herself. “It’s relaxing wouldn’t you say?” she asked sensibly. With the Throat and her responsibilities waiting for her at home, the spy didn’t feel any rush to return, at least not yet. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you. Surely there’s a lot to discuss,” the mare pressed with a more familiar smile. They’d been friends after all, hadn’t they? Even after all these years, Essetia still considered her Dreamer quite dear to her heart, even if he was ever changing and she was still the same.

Essetia

If he would have passed her by, left her to drown soundlessly by the sea, she would have forgotten the liberties he rendered her. When Essetia first met Caneo she had been a different animal altogether, a fine point to oppose his soft curves. Now, he appeared different, more attuned to himself than to the world that surrounded him, and that was a miracle worth achieving. He was no longer rounded, but hard. However, both the spy and the dreamer existed on polar planes of reality— when she was dark, he was light, and vice versa. Somehow it had always been that way between them and it worked for each of them to become the moon or the sun, an offset to one another’s enigma. Yet, their affinities had always afforded them a wide berth of honesty that wasn’t often found with anyone else. Essetia was unashamed with Caneo and was even less abashed to simply feel in his presence. They didn’t need walls to keep them apart or together— they came to one another at will, as friends would.

Of course, such appellations had never crossed Essetia’s lips nor did she ever desire the confines of titles and endearments. She was a flighty creature after all and she came and went as she pleased. “That’s good to hear.” It was not a lie; the mare was glad to hear that Caneo was settling nicely into their desert quarters despite the sweltering heat of a particularly nasty summer. And then he went about his way introducing, or rather just mentioning, the companion he’d yet to give name to while Essetia listened with rapt attention. She’d finally drawn away from contemplating the wash of white and the shells that swept onto the shore that had nestled at her feet. Instead, she studied the novel creature her dreamer had taken to heart, her eyes tracing the raised scales along the serpent’s back where she was not quite hidden from the sun. “Odd qualities for a reptile,” she commented with fascination. She wasn’t quite accustomed to ophidian breeds and their preferences, but appeared enraptured anyway.

Caneo had once done as much for her and Romul, even if the wolf was missing presently. As it dawned on her, Essetia grew momentarily distracted by her own version of regret. She did long for her companion and perhaps that was what had caused the rift in her heart to widen, but there was other news more integral to his absence than a mere day or two apart. “Romul stayed behind… in the Throat,” she answered without prompting. Caneo had come to know her well enough that she wouldn’t depart their home without him for good reason, but the cause deserved more explanation than a mere moment would allow.

She listened then, as Caneo talked about his fear of the sea, and she nodded lightly. A smile had touched her lips at his admission and she felt somehow lighter because of it. “I was born in the World’s Edge… the sound of the sea has also been a soothing one.” Then she turned again, gesturing out toward the roiling waves, “It still is, I think.”  But he was moving on, clearly in higher spirits than she, but more apt to hear what she had to share then. The spy didn’t think that birthing twins had been especially fun as Caneo put it, but it had been something special in all regards. She chuckled then, her eyes warming considerably as she thought of Gyda back home in the south, “I now have children if you can believe it—twins. What about you? Have you been up to anything fun?” Just like that, the truth was purged and then repressed, like a song that just wasn't good enough to sing in front of someone else. Essetia knew there would be questions, but until then, she would sit atop her mountain of regrets where she belonged.

And then, she knew their relationship was shifting, moving into something else, because she wasn’t a young spy anymore, just as young mother with too many responsibilities. Besides, ‘fun’ couldn’t possibly describe the wayward affections she shared for Ulrik or how large a toll they’d taken. She didn’t like to think about it anyway.