There's something soothing about sand under foot. The way it molds and pushes and falls around itself as hooves glide into it with ease. Its a different sensation than the hard resistance of dirt or the spongy firmness of grass. Coris' relishes in the sensation, steps snapping up higher than needed to fling the grains further. He can feel them collecting in-between his toes, but the ever present roar of the tide promises to cleanse him.

There were no beaches where he came from. No mighty sea or screaming gulls. There was only ice and snow and unrelenting ground.

A breath is drawn in and the scent of salt tickles his nose. Such a foreign aroma it cannot help but chase away the smoke of memories. He came to this place for such that purpose. He'd seen the dancing blue upon the volcano's rim, and since scuttling down began to bear in its direction. Though it was only the prior day that he'd stood upon the twisted peak of the fire mountain, where his pleas were answered by the mare of the moon and his fate sealed with a nod of the head - it felt like it had already been forever. Coris smirked at this feeling. He supposed it felt an eternity because it had been nearly as long since he'd seen home. Odd that he'd never quite felt this ache in his chest until he'd agreed never to return there, a pact sealed with the stars of the night sky and the word of a mostly honest stallion. Assuming the supposed night-mare actually was a god and her decree viable.

I doubt and yet still I search for the faces she spoke of, Coris mused, stopping along the darker, wetter sand nearer the froth of the rushing tide. What else had he to do, but hope she was everything she was meant to be? If nothing else, he'd waste a few seasons searching, no different from what he was doing before he hiked across the veins.

A dismissive snort cleared such tumbling thoughts. Too much thinking for a stallion more accustomed to using his horn and hooves. Teeth clenched - there was a grittiness when he bit down and he could not help but wonder how sand had gotten in his mouth - as Coris walked towards the waters edge. No sea-horse, the stallion flinched and balked at the white, rushing waves that chilled and numbed and soothed all at once. Since his wayfaring times outside of Alaglasia, Coris had found the ocean to be a valuable tool for him. Two fresh kills were slung across the nape his neck, blood still faintly dripping from the doe's hock. Knotted with leather cord, the scraps of animal pieces were tugged and dowsed by the sea. Her salt would leech into the flesh and cure it of impurities and lingering blood that would otherwise make his work messier later. Up to his chest the waves broke, and with white-rimmed eyes he shuffled hooves as the sand underfoot threatened to run out from beneath him. The leather adornments on his back were better left un-salted, but his chest strap would need oiling eventually after this little dip. Careful to avoid his head getting wet, the leather across his face and guarding his horn's base too precious and too ancient to be handled so carelessly by the foam.

Stiff and steadfast as he was, Coris' eyes eventually snagged on the pair mad enough to let the ocean consume him. For a wild moment Coris thought them drowning, fighting to reach the shore ling. Not one tending to involve himself in other's business, Coris was mildly irrational due to his own fearful respect of the lady sea and the mighty force she provided. Half-panicked, Coris' body began to thrash through the liquid salt, limbs moving agonizingly slow in the depths as he called out in a shrill whinny to them.