Cas' Memories

The door of the tavern swings shut behind her with a little more bang than she’d meant. Vela already left to find her own brooding spot. Kadoren had lifted a claw like he was going to call out to her, but let her go.

Sometimes, for a tiny moment, she wishes that she hadn’t made herself so stony and unapproachable by design. That she could bring herself to accept kindnesses offered, that her indifferent attitude didn’t eventually drive people away from even trying.

And then she remembers what happens when she lets herself get attached.

She just needs to get away right now.

Slate isn’t far behind, but she doesn’t care. He can surely feel her stormy mood, and he usually has the rare good graces to keep his mouth shut at times like this.

She’s intending to wander aimlessly, but her legs have a mind of their own. They chase the sound of waves, the scent of brine, the past. And she finds herself standing at the coast.

It’s not home. The sand in Nale was paler, the water a little clearer, mirror-like. But its shores were skimpier, near impassible in some parts due to cliffs and trees and overgrowth. This beach is wider, golden sand and murky blue waters stretching long over a flat coast.

But if she closes her eyes, it sounds like home, smells like home. Feels like home. The sand beneath her paws is just as soft as she sinks down into it. The waves sing the same song no matter where you go.

Nale was never home to her. It was when they were together on that little beach, their broken home behind them and the empty blue horizon, full of potential, beyond.

Pain shoots through her heart and she has to shove even a pleasant memory down. This is why she doesn’t let herself feel anything when she can help it. It’s a slippery slope and she’s losing her balance.

How much death has she seen by now? Too much to finally slip over some random dragon’s father dying in a cave.

She’s losing herself. She really is. Or did she lose herself when she became nothing more than a vessel for magic? When her life and her feelings stopped mattering? Maybe this is her old self resurfacing.

She lays her head down on the sand, still warm from the dead sun. There’s no room for that Cas anymore, and she’s never been quite sure who she was anyway. The timid hatchling with all her anxieties, the reckless young adult consumed by anger, the runaway still trying not to think. Nothing ever quite real, quite right.

And now just nothing. When she runs out of anger, when this old ache comes creeping back, there really will be nothing left of her.

She closes her eyes. She doesn’t let herself think of a home she can never return to, but there’s still a sort of peace here. An ancient calling in her blood, an echo in the swells like a lonely lullaby.

Under the stars, with the steady lulling waves around, she feels finally safe. When Slate calls softly out to her, she doesn’t hear him.