Kai's Memories

"Kai, come on!"

She hears Alistair shouting even over the roar of the waves, but she can't move from where she's collapsed in the sand. She's been under a spell since the moment she saw the blue rising over the horizon.

She hears Alistair stomping over, probably about to pick her up and drag her off into town, but Balmin speaks up before he gets there. "I'll stay with her."

Kai manages to tear her gaze away. Alistair is hesitating, arms crossed as he gives the former cultist a glare, but finally he turns away and walks off towards the town. "Alright, whatever."

Dezzy gives them a worried glance, but follows too. She wishes they saw what she did, that they could trust him too.

What little time this buys her won't feel like enough when he comes stomping back. But right now it's as precious as a pearl, as the smooth iridescent shell clutched in her hands.

She runs her thumb over it again and again as she sits there, watching the waves that just touch her knees before receding again. After some time Balmin comes over to stand next to her, watching it too.

Dezzy and Alistair don't see it. The way the waves catch the light for a moment, the gradient of colours that sparkles, touched by the sun, the coolness of the water as it reaches out and takes your hand. Standing in it, how it moves all around you like an alive thing, grand and infinite as it stretches the horizon.

It's almost scary. The dark depths below the enticing sparkling blue. The strange creatures that live in it. But it calls, and she must answer. Even if she can't step into the water, she must be there to listen.

Balmin can see it. She can tell by how his expression loosens as he stares at it, how he relaxes but remains alert, watching. She doesn't have the words to explain how she's feeling. But if she tried, he would know what she meant.

"I grew up by the ocean," he says, suddenly.

There's a kinship in that, and she lights up. Alistair and Dezzy are as opposite to her as they can get. "I did too!"

They share their stories. A child staring out at the ocean. A village nestled near the sea. A question occurs to her, and she opens her mouth.

But there's a sadness in his words, the way he hesitates before he speaks of his childhood home. And she knows without asking that that place is gone.

The shell twists in her hands. They stand there together for a long time, watching as the sun darkens and the waves with it, until the light held in the ocean has vanished.

Maybe that's what she saw in him before. Neither of them can go back.