Tiberinus

[Thalia]

Nimeda’s hands trailed over the rocks, like she expected her palms to sink straight through. Her expression was a puzzle, caught in the drifts of memory’s tides. At her lowest ebb, before Jon had ever named her Nimeda -- before she had known Jon, even -- it was here that she found sanctuary. She could almost hear the soothing tides of the voice that beckoned back then, before it sank into oblivion. The connection went deeper, and older, though she didn’t follow it to fruition. Perhaps she would drown in the effort, it was so long ago, but it was enough to know that here was a place wedded to the identity of her soul. Not that she could articulate it as such, should Noctua even choose to ask. But it was what she had wished to share.

It was amidst her idle exploration, mind wandering, that something else plunked like a stone dropped in still water. “Oh.” Her brows knit. She shifted to a cross-legged perch, and turned to watch as Noctua stared down at the waters. The epiphany of identity floated for a while. Tristan languished in the conflict of it, caught in a war that left him scant space to exist in between, at least not while he allowed himself to be buffeted by its ceaseless storm. But Noctua clung to his own dualities -- not a war between, but a claiming of; a thing of titles rather than of blood. For while Tristan fought to be a man, Noctua rejected the very same existence.

Yet if his city fell as he inferred, what would that leave of him?

She blinked when he turned to answer the question, caught in wondering if it was what grieved him to such pensive and biting moods. Her eyes were wide, lulled, Noctua’s voice like an echo in the valleys of her very soul. The words were unknowable to her, but their cadence lapped like gentle waves. She had always liked songs, and if she also enjoyed puzzles, it was not necessarily for the solving of them, but for the majesty of their mystery. Her head tilted, palms light on her knees. Her hair spread like a cloud about her shoulders, fauna tucked amidst the curls at her crown, including a bloom reminiscent of those seen in Tuuru’s garden. Nimeda was a curious creature, but not a philosopher. The wash of his words, the ones she could understand at least, took a while to absorb. 

He excluded himself from his own answer, as she realised he often did when he spoke, like he really was the no one he proclaimed to be. Or thought he was. The truth of others Nimeda perceived with fondness. If the dream was a language, then it was one she listened to raptly, pulled into the currents of its visiting souls. She lived joyously through those connections, and rarely judged others for either flaws or magnificence revealed. She had told Noctua before that truth lived in this realm, though they had been speaking of the needs he found impure and she found intrinsic. 

“I do not know who illumines me. Perhaps I do not think so deeply as you, Noctua.” Her lips curled a smile, and though there was lightness to her tone, there was also a teasing gleam to her eyes that perhaps suggested playful evasion. He was prickly as sharp rock, but if he believed dreaming was illumination he would not find such enlightenment by sparring words with her. She stood from her rock then, grinning. “I heard your body break the surface of the water when you fell into the dream, though I was not close by. You tell me you are no one, and perhaps that is truth for you, but that is not who you are to me.” She did not reach for his hand, though the temptation itched as she passed him by. Her bare feet trailed into the clear waters as she headed up the incline, arms outstretched for a game of balance and whimsy. “Come on! It’s this way!”