Abel was changing. Whether it was intentional or not, Caracal's intervention sent the nightmares away. At the same time, he had begun acclimating to the daylight. The brightest of days still sent him squinting, searching for shade, but for the first time his family might catch sight of him out and about.
Today, he set out behind
@Ava Amara, wondering pleasantly what they might do today.
ava changed alongside her brother. it was in little ways, almost immeasurable. no matter the intervention of her saviors, where manners were concerned ava would always trend towards rougher edges.
where abel preferred shade, ava often frolicked in the sun. yet she was rarely far from her pied brother, and when she retired to his form in the cool shade their fur seemed to melt together, a stark pool of ivory and obsidian.
today abel ventured beyond his favored patch of shelter. ava slowed enough to nip his shoulder before she took to a canter towards the low tide.
Abel had not yet realized how to adapt to the cruelty of the world. He wanted to surrender himself to something larger than himself; he wanted the universe to hold him. He wanted to be loved unconditionally. He was falling into a bottomless pit, seeking constant reassurance to overcome his inner sense of helplessness and paranoia.
He found this comfort only in Ava. He didn't believe that anyone else would love him the way she did. She didn't see that he was made of sin, and she didn't mind that he couldn't verbalize his thoughts or affections to her. The time they spent together was enough.
So spend time they did. Abel typically avoided the water; there was something nebulous about it he didn't like. In his dreams, it swallowed him whole. But if Ava led, he would follow, and he would do so without fear. He nipped at her hocks as he trailed behind her creeping shadow, dipping his toes in the water for the first time since his baptism, and only the second since he'd set foot on the island.
in ava’s mind they were two sides of a similar coin; castaways on a new frontier where they were distinctly Other.
this set them apart, and in turn unified ava to abel and likewise. theirs was a journey few others would encounter in a single lifetime.
she coursed through the sand unaware of her brother’s apprehension of the sea. to her it was an extension of her life, a glittering blue reminder of something she was supposed to have but didn’t.
pausing at the lip of a pool, ava peered down at hers and abel’s reflections. they were shimmering and fractured by the water’s ripple - it held her attention for a long time.
the children separate to wander into their minds for some time. ava is taken by her reflection but abel prefers to avoid his own, instead captured by how the water felt when it touched him. it was cold and refreshing against his toes, but it pulled at him as it swayed, threatening to take him from the island and all he had ever known. he found it to be a comfort and a terror, and what was new there?
he looked over to his sister, squinting for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the light reflecing off the glimmering pool, then observed her as she observed herself.
moments passed where ava was lost to the world around her, as abel was temporarily lost to the terrestrial world when his paw traced ripples in the water’s surface.
a shimmering echo followed each ripple. ava watched as her reflection bowed in and out and then distorted, blacks mixed with blues that blurred and lost their distinction.
she waited until her reflection — theirs — stabilized on the surface — and then she pounced with both paws diving deep into the waters.
in this way they played for hours; two innocent children unaware of the hardships ahead.