Blackfoot Forest The Butterfly Blooms

That's a pretty name. The boy couldn't help the words, full of sudden wonder as he realized this girl reminded him of someone.
It was subtle, so much that a less superstitious individual might not have caught the similarity, but Alarian would know it anywhere. Another ocean witch. But where the one he had met before had been darkness and crushing depths, this girl was the sunlight reflected off the surface of the waves. She was clear skies, crystalline blue waters, the gentle breeze carried to the shore; at least, he thought she was.
Ali hadn't met so many witches he could yet tell the difference so easily, but she seemed to embody the ocean well enough to him. The grace and kindness, the formality and delicate accent-- it fit in a different way than the other witch had. She had been the face of the void at the ocean's floor, the death-whispers in the final moments of drowning, and he had not trusted her the way he did Thelxiope.
You're an ocean witch, aren't you? It was a hushed question, one he could not resist finally asking, but not accusatory. He was rather enamored with it, actually; to meet two faces of the ocean already in this land seemed a great honor. I've met one before, but she wasn't much like you. She was... dark, like the bottom of the ocean.

At her question, he paused a brief moment to wonder if the glance meant he was to answer as well. Then, he admitted: My whole side feels on fire.