Dragoncrest Cliffs ap mache sou sab

it was @Thibault she took next to the ocean. he had given himself into the waves with only a babyish hesitance.
but again, it was an aspect so rarely shared by daughters of the seacliffs that mireille had developed an idea of immediate and constant immersion for her sons, and any more she might bear.
"come, into de water," she urged him, back in the siren's bay but with no oysters to collect.

He came along like a dragging log. He knew, very well, where he was being taken. Thibault had practically refused to enter the ocean before.
He understood now- that it was vast. Open. Scary.
Even more scary standing in front of it, even with maman swam between the arms of the cliffs. Uncomfortable, uneased, unsure. Even so, he was her boy, and he would follow her until he learned if he could learn.
"I comin', ma.." looking ahead to her, then down to his heavy-stepping feet, he pushed towards the water. Until his feet got wet. Until he could feel sand pulling underneath him. For as confident as his steps became, or perhaps only giving in to his death fate, his eyes and pouty face looked as if he were being asked to figure out how to work a lawnmower alone.
Whatever that was.

He went incredibly still once he was wrist deep.
"....."
"What I be doin' now?"
With a heavier step forward, he tried to walk to her, his limbs lifting up comically high- far higher than he needed to like he reached for the sky! He big and he brave!
But he had a secret bigger than that!
hewasnotverybrave
"I gon' be doin' what you be doin'?" His eyes big, curious, moving gears.

"yes, thibault. it be important you learn to swim." mireille insisted firmly, raising a wet arm to wave him closer. "i know it be scary, baby. but it be less scary de more time you spend here."
he had entered bravely enough and now stood with his flanks wet. "come closer," mireille encouraged, knowing his feet would leave the bottom. "listen to your body, oui? you will float. do not be scared, i am here."
the sea was their birthright. she would raise him in the footsteps of val, to be a man of the salt.

"I not-" his poor voice stumbled, "I not scared," he tried to reassure his maman. He wished her to see that he was all brave and happy!
Though Thibault was far from all brave and happy.

"Okay," he said, looking at the water and feeling its weight pull at his legs. The farther he went, the more his body felt out of control. The more the small ripples and waves came at him, the harder he put his next foot down and slower he lifted it.

"Maman," he looked down at his feet now with every stride. Big, focused eyes and a frown. He spoke to her through it. This was- a big deal to him. His legs went deeper, deeper.. "It cold." 

"cold an' fast. but i be here, little boy, so come on, come on," mireille urged, setting a paw beneath his chest when his legs invariably could find the bottom no longer. "now. be still. feel de water. float, mmm? de sea will take care of you when you trust it an' when you trust yourself, thibault," mireille explained, pausing to examine her son's expression.

The sudden muffle of his mouth now heard. "MN!"

A step forward, and it appeared that Thibault's feet no longer were touching the bottom of the water. Suddenly, his legs scrambled fast and his chest was resting at the waters surface. His life depended on him kicking! He needed to kick! Kick! Kick!
He was not moving. 

He was floating. 

Shellshocked. He stopped moving, and like a zombie, floated towards maman, fluffed up like a pufferfish. No mind.
Only float.

mireille let him drift to her arms, cradling him there as mother otter with seababe. she sang a delightful small ditty in french, voice lilting as it ended.
"do you see? you are floating. it is de firs' step, an' you have done it."
her eyes shone down at him.

Maman looked at him, but Thibault's eyes themselves were not moving. Convinced that the sea was an anchor that wouldn't dare him leniency. The sense of danger was gone, because long had he been eaten and dead. This fate, this was death. They were in the afterlife.

After a long silence, filled with nothing but the angel song from his mothers voice,
"Maman."
His eyes dragged to move, finally looking to her.
"Am me floatin' 'cause I'm a boy?" Maman wasn't floating. Was it because she was magical? A woman? Or maybe she wasn't dead. Just him. 

mireille looked down at the innocent question of her boy. "you float because de sea chose you to be in her arms, thibault," the obsidian crooned. she sensed in the question the constant need felt by boys of the sea-cliffs: to be assured that he belonged among them.
and he did.
"listen, thibault, listen. hear her speak. she says 'do not fear me.'"