Song Of The Sea
He opens his eyes wide under the water and suddenly, he’s in the sea.
It’s their little grove — their corner of paradise, she calls it. She’s in the centre, hair billowing around her like smoke, and her palms are outstretched, awaiting his grasp.
“I’ve missed you, my love,” she says, and when he hears it, it sounds like a song.
There’s a story the astreans tell of the song of the sea.
Of a knight who fell in love with the ocean, a love never to be. She bewitched him, or maybe she was calling to him, or maybe it was true love. Regardless, it ends the same way every time, no matter the storyteller: the prince walks into the sea and drowns. The sea turns red — with bloodlust, with grief, with the stain of violence, with passion — and he is mourned.
Zenith hates that story.
His head bursts out from the bath like he’s breaching the surface for the first time all over again, but his wings are uncomfortably curled into his body at the sides where the bathtub limits his ability to stretch out his limbs fully. He could hide them, but he never does. In fear of losing his identity, maybe. He dips his head underwater again, breathing in the water as easily as air.
He hears her sometimes. She’s still there, still waiting for him, and he’s failed her in his exile from the sea. Now, the time she’s loudest is when he’s submerged in water, his hands caressing the ghost of his lover. She appears to him in spectres, her fingers tracing his shoulders as gently and lovingly as she did before.
Today, he calls out, a dolphin’s chirp tumbling forth from his lips. When they met in secret gardens, fronds of seaweed hiding their embracing forms from the sealight, they used to use these cries to signal their presence to each other.
He opens his eyes wide under the water and suddenly, he’s in the sea.
It’s their little grove — their corner of paradise, she calls it. She’s in the centre, hair billowing around her like smoke, and her palms are outstretched, awaiting his grasp.
“I’ve missed you, my love,” she says, and when he hears it, it sounds like a song.
He takes a step towards her.
“Why did you leave me in the sea?” Her eyes are smiling, but there are tears there.
As quick as anything, he tumbles into her embrace, squeezing her to him desperately.
“I haven’t left you,” he murmurs. “I’m right here.”
Melodious vocalisations echo through his mind.
“I’m always right here.”