Dragoncrest Cliffs granny helped me take the wise route

thrashing shredded the peaceful waters of siren's bay into bloody foam and sand churned to murky clouds.
a male sea lion, young and filled with the confidence of youth, had come to his end just away from the flat stone where they had gained their visions; where chani perched now, far too close.
an orca tossed the sea lion, droplets of red catching the sunlight as they fell in pearlglow among the waves. the scene's power transfixed chani, and she found herself singing in eloquent dirge as life circled in its pattern just out of reach.

maman’s vile slug bile did its potent work. it had only been a few weeks, but sobeille’s sickness now seemed a lifetime ago. she wondered what it was that brought her to heel so suddenly, and shivered with quiet knowledge hid within herself.

a song more dirge-like than joyous broke over the crest of the waves. sobeille followed it until she saw chani, perched precariously close to the thudding of the sea below.

when sobeille followed her gaze, she gasped. dark shapes loomed under the churning water, and the insidious remnant of a merlot bloom stained the surface.

she wondered of the lives of orcas. many times she’d watched their hunts and strained to hear their mournful songs. she felt a kinship to them, and asked herself if they ever looked upon the world of the surface, and pitied the wolves that lived their lives there with no hope of ever tasting the unknowable beauty of the deep.

song faded over bloodied water, and chani felt her soul's inexorable bond pulsing there upon the sea.
what called her could not be denied. she belonged to the seacliffs and the foam-flecked waves; to the brinewind and the sharp scent of blackpine and sweet lichen mingling. she belonged to the saltflowers and the rain that fell to stir the sea; to the storms over her grandmothers' graves and to the lightning.
her song ran hoarse; she trembled, wanting strangely to join them both there in the water and witness the eternal wild for herself, taste the blood for her own.

chani’s song joined the inexorable chorus of the open sea. all of life was an orchestra; some minor chords, some major crescendos — each cell of life playing their part as they wove in and out of the ceaseless tapestry that comprised the living.

the orcas were out of sight now, but blood on the water still lingered. there was a savage beauty to the way the waves darkened and turned, their edges rimed in foamy pink.

the colors, the songs, and the dark shapes faded away. suddenly sobeille felt intensely lonely — though she did not know of the mutual ache straining from chani’s heart. this place was theirs, and they were made of this place — the belonging of it reverberated in their very soul.

sometimes i be t’inkin it would be fun to swim out dere an’ join dem. sobeille whispered, canting her mournful gaze chani’s way. but den i worry — what if dey t’ink i be a fish? we do not stop to t’ink about what we eat — what if dey are de same?

"what if we are alike in dat," chani whispered, deeply considerate of the scene before her as well as miette's soft words. "i want also to go wid dem." lifting one of her strong paws, she sighed. "but we cannot swim as dey do. so dey would not see us as alike dem."
an unfairness! to be so much of the sea, to taste its salt in her own blood, and yet be denied a fundamental existence beneath the waves.
an unfairness!
her eyes still upon the foam-flecked crimson, she spoke without turning her head; "do you believe t'ere be a way to become one of dem? or to die an' come back as one?"
saltwater transmutation; had their own grandmothers sought such magick or had they been content with the land?

sobeille sensed the longing, the unfairness, the injustice of a soul borne in a vessel altogether unsuitable for it.

for a while the waves crashed and the groan of stone and salt wind was all that was shared between them.

then she spoke: i don’ t’ink so. the fat seal that chased her off the black stacks came to mind. did he get reborn? what about bugs, and the fish and deer she ate to sustain her ever-hungering body. did their soul immutable find some other sphere in which to spread their golden light?

she thought of the girl on the beach, who saw worlds within worlds from an eye that must come from some other order; she saw connections where sobeille saw dead ends, a network’s stunning constellation where sobeille saw only single stars. some religions i t’ink believe dat. but i don’t. mebbe we came from dat, or our children’s children will become dem - but not us. we are stuck in de body we be born to.

another beat of waves slammed their fists across the stone they stood on. but sometimes i be lookin’ close at dem seals, and i t’ink mebbe once, we were one an’ de same a very long time ago. sobeille could not easily share how she knew this — it was in hours of carefully studying the impressive skull cayetano had given her — but it was also in other ways: watching the seals obsessively on the beach. observing their chaotic chatter. the way they rested, or reared their young. and ultimately — the same way they bleed a deep and visceral red, just like her.