Dragoncrest Cliffs i. she's sipping star constellation

phobos! val's voice carried over the gale, his eyes squinted against the prevailing winds.

first sobeille, now phobos. worry edged itself hard against his heart.

he'd found stale tracks, half disordered by snow, and lost them all in the thicket.

rounding his shoulders against an expelling wind, val fought to have his hoarse voice heard over the storm.

*  *  *

a scouring winter squall beat sapphique and bent the trees beneath its fury. the sea hummed and thrashed below him as he carefully made his way through the thinning path on the cliff.

as always he turned his head inward, to not witness the churning depths below.

he called again for them both, his howl cut off by a peal of thunder.

the storm broke as a gathering of clouds darkened the horizon.

snow began falling softly over the muted landscape.

*  *  *

dusk gathered when val emerged from ankyra's tunnel. one last check, one last hope that both lost souls would be securely tucked within its chambers, waiting out the storm.

but the grotto's hearth was empty, as it had been a long time -- and the faded voices of those long-dead memories chilled val to his core as he made his ascent along the rocky slope that bordered sapphique's roiling sea.

he did not see the black ice beneath the snowpack until his foot landed upon it.

and before val knew it he was sucked out into the open air, falling, falling,

with the wind ripping through his obsidian pelt

and the roar of the sea playing in his ears

his mouth forming a perfect 'oh' of surprise as the realization came to him that now he was aerial in a way no terrestrial soul should ever be --

while the sea thrummed out her hungering crescendo, welcomed him with the suckling smack of hard water devouring flesh

swallowing him as a goddess might swallow her blood-tithe

leaving not even a speck of val where his body met the singular entity he feared above all else.