Totoka River 그 안에 숨겨진 비밀을 알게된 것 같아

@Marbas ♡ I apologize for the wait in getting this up.

Nine days out of ten, Coelacanth was content with the cards life had dealt her. She lacked a voice, true — but her unusual upbringing had given her a unique understanding of love, loyalty, and life. She was her mother’s steel-fanged farewell and her father’s lingering sorrow; the wanderlust of her wild brethren and the shepherd dog’s contrasting compulsive need for consistency and familiarity. She was Kirynnae’s soaring mezzo-soprano — she was all the songs and stories that Kailani, Serein, Sirimiri, and Brontide had collected in their travels — and she was the first fierce love of her Groenendael mother, expressed through the primordial language of touch.

Likewise denied the luxury of speech, Seelie grew to be a demonstrative creature who thrived on the indulgence of physical expression — and being the doted upon youngest daughter of a king, was wholly unaccustomed to having her affectionate overtures denied or misconstrued. Her upbringing had been gentle. Minus the tragic parting of her mother and father, she had been raised to believe that the world and its inhabitants were generally good — and even that hiccup in her happiness had come about for reasons that were definable and understandable.

Yes, Coelacanth was an optimist — but today as she visited her usual haunts, her dainty paws lacked their characteristic spring; her ink-feathered tail hung betwixt her slim hocks with a lackluster stillness; and the brilliance of her oceanic eyes was blurred with a rare solemnity — because today was the tenth day. Today her chest was tight with words she’d never spoken and songs that she would never sing — the inky ingénue was far from impervious to pain — so, leaving her sleeping brother to dream of his next great discovery with a tender kiss upon his brow, she wandered out into the predawn darkness to seek the solace of the river.

Catlike paws traipsed through the mirror-like deltas where the river made love to the sea, golden motes of sand muddying the reflective stillness with each tentative step — Coelacanth walked until the river deepened, widening into a curve deep enough to bathe in, and shivered as the river, carrying yet a whisper of a chill, swallowed up her paws, legs, belly, shoulders and neck. She wallowed like a hippopotamus, leaving only the crown of her head and half of her streamlined muzzle above water, willing the pressure in her breast to find its own way out of her soul and into the infinity of the sea.