Ocean's Breath Plateau [m] Tell me, when the party ends, will you still love who I am?

Later she would appreciate Chakliux for this moment, the gentle way he led her to the water. That was where she wanted to be. In the water. That would help. That would make her feel clean again.

Her cries quieted as she stood, but the tears continued to fall even as she followed Chakliux numbly into the water. A forest. All the trees looked the same, Scarcely more than a trembling whisper, and she could not recall more than that, not now. The water touched her and she shivered. A chill was settling over her. That numbness, returning.

He helped her, and she let him. The sea swept away the scent and with it some piece of herself. Her thoughts were fragmented, halting, scattering until she anchored herself to the steady presence of the man she had chosen for her husband. Marina felt adrift and filled with loathing but she trusted Chakliux; he was a part of her now, a cornerstone of her existence in the same way Moontide and her children were.

She did not want to leave the water. She pressed herself into his arms there, shivering, caught sharply between the want to never be touched again and the need to flee that encroaching feeling of bone-deep cold. There was warmth here; safety. And she needed it desperately, even as she was gripped again by a sick twisting sensation.