06-19-2020, 10:00 PM
Where he led she followed easily, both curious and willing. On dry land the great disparity of their height brought her at eye level with the broadness of his chest, and her palm reached to splay flat against it as he pulled her dripping beyond the water’s embrace. Like an anchor dropped through the heavens of time, she was still dizzy with its rush, the secrets she showed him below the lake distant from thought. "It beats so ferociously," she confided softly. Enchantment flushed her warm, the words a breathy discovery, “and in too small of a chamber."
Tristan was built as tall and wide as a cliff looming over the sea, but she did not mean it to be a wry joke at his size, and nor did her tone suggest it. She had touched him like this once before, to comfort what she had thought at the time to be unease over the worthiness of his tainted blood to the wolf’s call, but she did not perceive that now. The polarity of his birth made him something else, not less, but like most unnatural unions it was likely to bring pain into the bargain of its gifts.
A little sadness swept in, the echo of something long past -- not entirely clear, even to her. Men so often destroyed the things they did not understand, or bound them away to rot. A heart fierce as his might resound like the threatening drums of war in ignorant ears, his only sin that he felt too much. “I wonder that no one ever paused to hear it clearly.”
She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold, then. Nimeda's soul had ever been a wild thing, too inquisitive to truly tame even when her loyalties were beholden. Ally and enemy were labels used by others, and she disregarded such rules with the cheerfulness of water slipping through cupped fingers when they were imposed upon her. It was why her friendship with Mara sustained even across ages, despite His disapproval in each turning he was her father. No cage ever kept Nimeda out, not even one gnawed upon by the bristling shadows of nightmare. Or the stronger bars of time.
Yet she had never been the one bound.
Her thoughts blurred softly with the burden of old memory, frayed by desires she’d given into freely, and now strangely diffused even within the confines of her own shell. When Tristan spoke of the lake and its mistress, her attention shifted slowly at first. She peeled away from him, lulled back down into the welcome of the surf like she might be about to dissolve into nothing but seafoam upon its glassy surface. He used words she would not have chosen herself to describe this place, and they twirled like plucked treasures as she considered the call of the water’s clear depths and the creature within. The cold glided up her legs at the descent, its current tugging at the skirts swirled in its playful grasp like it would pull her deeper. The wonder charmed, and she let it sweep through her unabashed. Tristan’s awe was quiet and reverent, and it moved her.
"She is hunted for what she possesses," she agreed, watching the sparkling ripples stretch out to the horizon like the covering of a blanket. "I heard her distress from afar. I hear it still. This world is filled with such secrets once you learn how to listen, and I have had plenty of time for practise.” In fact, on the very same current that snared her here, the Need delivered the only other soul who might also heed the call of such a creature with enough passion to seek her in the Waking world. The Grey Lady first revealed Tristan’s home for reasons that seemed unrelated at the time, yet the pattern ever cinched its knots. Nim rarely paused to reflect on such things. She saw too much already of the endings soon promised, and Tristan had told her himself of the Huldufólk’s prophecy.
Her hands trailed the water like she might slip deeper and away from such thoughts, but in the end she only watched it rush over her scarred palm as she lifted it, thinking briefly of the grimnir’s promise. Her trust in Noctua’s offered protections soothed any fear for her own well-being; it was not Grim’s threat to her she considered now, but how her memory of these creatures had first bubbled up with the horror of realising his callous slaughter of one of them. He was ruthless, but he was not evil. Would it give him pause to know the impossibility of what this one protected? Or would he see no more than an animal to slay for the second trinket he desired? She did not know, and she would not risk giving him the knowledge of where the Guardian could be found in order to find out. Perhaps in that ignorance he would yet be distracted by his pursuit of her Other, to first reclaim what was stolen from him. What she had stolen from him.
In that small way she might help. Yet she feared the grimnir was not the only hunter.
“We,” she amended absently to Tristan’s vow, to include herself in the promise. Then she turned and began to wade her way back to shore, arms outstretched for the nimble game of keeping her balance over the rocky pebbles shifting under her toes. Her gaze sought him like she finally remembered he was there, and she smiled warmly to discover his ponderous, gold-eyed solemnity. Her own mood lightened with the surety of his words, and she did not hide the rush of her delight for his sincerity. "I do not know what they call this place in the world beyond. It’s had many names,” she told him, though he did not ask her the question. Probably he thought it a futile one, and usually he would be quite correct. Unlike the ephemeral unknown of the cities that rose and fell around Mara’s prison though, this lake was something ancient and immutable, and for that reason it was something more intimately knowable for her.
Mischievousness edged her smile, and the shine of the epiphany lit her up, though it was the sharing she enjoyed now, not the muddied discovery of the knowledge itself. “The long dive down was not an illusion just because I like the swimming, though I do.” She laughed, and might have levelled the accusation back at him, for he swam not much like a wolf at all. “I know of nowhere else that stretches closer to the earth's heart, Tristan. It’s the deepest lake there ever was, or is, or ever will be. That’s where she will be found."
Ice tickled down her back as she came to stand before him, a diversion she might have made a laughing game of in the absence of other curiosities. Nimeda rarely adjusted her appearance as other flickering dreamers were wont to do to reflect their comforts. Tristan was similarly soaked through, and the last time they had met he’d persisted in a charming ritual of warming them with towels in his small home. He looked now like a man accustomed to the bite of cold and little affected by it, not one choosing to ignore its chill touch without bothering to erase its evidence.
Mirth tilted her head. Droplets rolled down Nimeda’s own cheeks like whispers, not icy claws. She did not shiver at all, though her skin paled almost as deathly white as the cast of her sodden dress; colourlessness that made wet river stones of her wide grey eyes. Her appraisal of him was as open as she was unselfconscious of herself, the returned proximity reminding that he had leaned to kiss her not long before. His arousal lingered, sudden realisation of which warmed a reaction through her own body. She found him strange in a fascinating way. People were inherently full of surprises and contradictions, and Nimeda considered them things to embrace rather than judge. She didn’t question. Tristan seemed a man particularly contradictive though, which perhaps explained the fond amusement of her expression now.
“I have shown you the trail,” she said, pleased to have remembered his own words to offer them back now; the advice must have filtered somewhere deep. She smiled and reached a finger to chase the snaking run of a water droplet on its journey down his abdomen. “But you must tread the path.”
Tristan was built as tall and wide as a cliff looming over the sea, but she did not mean it to be a wry joke at his size, and nor did her tone suggest it. She had touched him like this once before, to comfort what she had thought at the time to be unease over the worthiness of his tainted blood to the wolf’s call, but she did not perceive that now. The polarity of his birth made him something else, not less, but like most unnatural unions it was likely to bring pain into the bargain of its gifts.
A little sadness swept in, the echo of something long past -- not entirely clear, even to her. Men so often destroyed the things they did not understand, or bound them away to rot. A heart fierce as his might resound like the threatening drums of war in ignorant ears, his only sin that he felt too much. “I wonder that no one ever paused to hear it clearly.”
She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold, then. Nimeda's soul had ever been a wild thing, too inquisitive to truly tame even when her loyalties were beholden. Ally and enemy were labels used by others, and she disregarded such rules with the cheerfulness of water slipping through cupped fingers when they were imposed upon her. It was why her friendship with Mara sustained even across ages, despite His disapproval in each turning he was her father. No cage ever kept Nimeda out, not even one gnawed upon by the bristling shadows of nightmare. Or the stronger bars of time.
Yet she had never been the one bound.
Her thoughts blurred softly with the burden of old memory, frayed by desires she’d given into freely, and now strangely diffused even within the confines of her own shell. When Tristan spoke of the lake and its mistress, her attention shifted slowly at first. She peeled away from him, lulled back down into the welcome of the surf like she might be about to dissolve into nothing but seafoam upon its glassy surface. He used words she would not have chosen herself to describe this place, and they twirled like plucked treasures as she considered the call of the water’s clear depths and the creature within. The cold glided up her legs at the descent, its current tugging at the skirts swirled in its playful grasp like it would pull her deeper. The wonder charmed, and she let it sweep through her unabashed. Tristan’s awe was quiet and reverent, and it moved her.
"She is hunted for what she possesses," she agreed, watching the sparkling ripples stretch out to the horizon like the covering of a blanket. "I heard her distress from afar. I hear it still. This world is filled with such secrets once you learn how to listen, and I have had plenty of time for practise.” In fact, on the very same current that snared her here, the Need delivered the only other soul who might also heed the call of such a creature with enough passion to seek her in the Waking world. The Grey Lady first revealed Tristan’s home for reasons that seemed unrelated at the time, yet the pattern ever cinched its knots. Nim rarely paused to reflect on such things. She saw too much already of the endings soon promised, and Tristan had told her himself of the Huldufólk’s prophecy.
Her hands trailed the water like she might slip deeper and away from such thoughts, but in the end she only watched it rush over her scarred palm as she lifted it, thinking briefly of the grimnir’s promise. Her trust in Noctua’s offered protections soothed any fear for her own well-being; it was not Grim’s threat to her she considered now, but how her memory of these creatures had first bubbled up with the horror of realising his callous slaughter of one of them. He was ruthless, but he was not evil. Would it give him pause to know the impossibility of what this one protected? Or would he see no more than an animal to slay for the second trinket he desired? She did not know, and she would not risk giving him the knowledge of where the Guardian could be found in order to find out. Perhaps in that ignorance he would yet be distracted by his pursuit of her Other, to first reclaim what was stolen from him. What she had stolen from him.
In that small way she might help. Yet she feared the grimnir was not the only hunter.
“We,” she amended absently to Tristan’s vow, to include herself in the promise. Then she turned and began to wade her way back to shore, arms outstretched for the nimble game of keeping her balance over the rocky pebbles shifting under her toes. Her gaze sought him like she finally remembered he was there, and she smiled warmly to discover his ponderous, gold-eyed solemnity. Her own mood lightened with the surety of his words, and she did not hide the rush of her delight for his sincerity. "I do not know what they call this place in the world beyond. It’s had many names,” she told him, though he did not ask her the question. Probably he thought it a futile one, and usually he would be quite correct. Unlike the ephemeral unknown of the cities that rose and fell around Mara’s prison though, this lake was something ancient and immutable, and for that reason it was something more intimately knowable for her.
Mischievousness edged her smile, and the shine of the epiphany lit her up, though it was the sharing she enjoyed now, not the muddied discovery of the knowledge itself. “The long dive down was not an illusion just because I like the swimming, though I do.” She laughed, and might have levelled the accusation back at him, for he swam not much like a wolf at all. “I know of nowhere else that stretches closer to the earth's heart, Tristan. It’s the deepest lake there ever was, or is, or ever will be. That’s where she will be found."
Ice tickled down her back as she came to stand before him, a diversion she might have made a laughing game of in the absence of other curiosities. Nimeda rarely adjusted her appearance as other flickering dreamers were wont to do to reflect their comforts. Tristan was similarly soaked through, and the last time they had met he’d persisted in a charming ritual of warming them with towels in his small home. He looked now like a man accustomed to the bite of cold and little affected by it, not one choosing to ignore its chill touch without bothering to erase its evidence.
Mirth tilted her head. Droplets rolled down Nimeda’s own cheeks like whispers, not icy claws. She did not shiver at all, though her skin paled almost as deathly white as the cast of her sodden dress; colourlessness that made wet river stones of her wide grey eyes. Her appraisal of him was as open as she was unselfconscious of herself, the returned proximity reminding that he had leaned to kiss her not long before. His arousal lingered, sudden realisation of which warmed a reaction through her own body. She found him strange in a fascinating way. People were inherently full of surprises and contradictions, and Nimeda considered them things to embrace rather than judge. She didn’t question. Tristan seemed a man particularly contradictive though, which perhaps explained the fond amusement of her expression now.
“I have shown you the trail,” she said, pleased to have remembered his own words to offer them back now; the advice must have filtered somewhere deep. She smiled and reached a finger to chase the snaking run of a water droplet on its journey down his abdomen. “But you must tread the path.”
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)