Totoka River 내가 바보같아서 바라볼 수 밖에만 없는 건 아마도

The fall of water was mesmerizingly hypnotic. When she tired of watching the delightful maelstrom caused by the miniature cascade’s churning tumble, Seelie cast her seablue gaze further, wider, watching the river’s serpentine flow as it spilled into the glassy delta chain and was transformed by the touch of the sea. Oxtli — where are you? A toneless whine trembled from her lips as she closed her eyes and focused on her fiery brother, with his masquerade mask of ink and his sunny smile. He would have something in his mouth, she thought fondly, and gave him a gleaming bauble — a handmade dreamcatcher adorned with chips of sea glass, bright pearls, and soft, white feathers. Then, hesitantly, beside the vivid and shining thought of Amoxtli, she placed the shadowed subtlety of Marbas — not as she had seen him last, but as she had seen him happiest, shot through with bourbon strands from the light of the rising sun, splashing in the brackish water. I am sorry, Marbas. I am sorry.

Perhaps she dozed for a time — she was exhausted — but her soul was restless, her feelings of loss and guilt relentless. You are alone. You are wounded and useless and alone. Flattening her tufted ears against her slender skull to ward off the negative thoughts that plagued her, Coelacanth bestirred herself to resume her previous activity — and it was in this manner that Kierkegaard found her, staring raptly down at the billowing cascades with a mournful cerulean gaze.

Kierkegaard’s Nathimmel saw him before she heard him; and perhaps this was unfortunate, for the flash of movement out of the corner of her eye frightened her — she dipped her slim muzzle accordingly to guard her wounded throat and chest as a low, toneless flutter of a growl shaped her virginal lips into the unfamiliar contortion of a snarl. She looked more like a drowned and offended kitten than anything truly predatory, but Crosscurrent had said much the same of her purebred mother and bore the notched ear and other assorted scars to prove it. The snowmelt had done its trick and numbed her wounds, reducing some of the painful swelling that surrounded the ugly punctures, so she forced herself to rise to her catlike paws with meticulous care and face her intruder — though she was far more likely to flee than to make good on her implied promise of malice. Then, “N-Nathimmel?” came the ghost’s voice, and all of Seelie’s defensive wariness fell away.

Kierkegaard! The atramentous creature whisked her feathered tail in eloquent apology, though it was unlikely he was able to see it — half-submerged, it resembled a line of blurred ink. Still, the expression in her oceanic eyes spoke for her, flashing with shadows of guilt at her initial reaction. This unnatural darkness receded by degrees as the joy of being graced by his presence, pure and unfettered and warm, cast within her eyes a bioluminescent brightness. Moving stiffly, she carefully exited the pool, biting back the whimpers of discomfort that thickened her useless throat — she could not cross the distance to him as she wished to, feeling a sense of hesitation at the thought of crossing boundaries she could not see, but offered a plaintive, pleading whine of invitation that he might show her where they lay. She took two shuffling steps forward, her forelegs moving gracelessly, and tipped her head entreatingly despite the pull of aggravated tendon that jolted her senses.