Dream, Memory, and Blood (Olkhon Island | Baikal Lake, Siberia)

[Thalia]

While Tristan padded off to his own investigations, Thalia was content to wade quietly in her own thoughts. Scales still glittered distraction behind her eyes as she sat in the cold shallows and watched the empty water. By now even the ripples had faded to stillness. She might have stayed there a long while had he not offered a hand to hoist her up, which she took without hesitation as it floated into her peripheral. They’d witnessed something beautiful and sublime. Tristan seemed more interested in ascertaining whether she was hurt though, while she was still lost in the etherealness of the encounter and reluctant to let it slip so quickly away. “We did a good thing,” was all she said as she stood, voice soft as summer rain at the change of the season. Sad for what had passed, but glad for the memory it left.

“We should ask the cat how we get out. I suppose it lives here, so it must know,” she added after. The creature had fled back the way they came the moment the water had risen. Sensible thing. After her unceremonious slide through the tidal wave Thalia was soaked through again, but not much else had changed since the last time Tristan examined her injury. She was content to let him look though, and lacking distraction this time she peered back up at the study he made. Water droplets rolled down the curves of her face, and by the piercing way he was frowning down at her she wondered if it was bleeding again. A small price, really, and not one she regretted. Thalia wondered at the gravity of his expression though.

She laughed a little at his bluntness, and it pierced through the veil of her quietly sombre mood. “I do know that, yes.” Her eyes crinkled in a smile. “Don’t you feel anything?” She reached to tap a finger light against his chest to illustrate what she meant. The question was made in utter earnest. He’d touched the egg with too much reverence to be unmoved, surely, yet she thought he could wrap the entire moment up, fold it away, and never consider it again. It left her feeling adrift in the wake of her own emotions.