y e a r n i n g

Having ‘the shore’ spoken of must have meant the monk's own, which was in the Krasarang Wilds… which was many miles from where Kihu usually resided around the Jade Forest. An unpredictable path for a bottle to take. It looked battered, too… like it had been at sea all that time and only recently found land.

I could no more stay away from the ocean shore than I could stop the sun from setting on it, I hope you will forgive me. Written word is as good as the spoken, so please consider yourself invited to introduce yourself further. I dearly wish to know who watches.

It was true that the paper was without signature but given how well he could recall the tiny one he’d sent forth himself a whole year ago, he had a strong feeling that Quetts was right: it had been the response and the lady he’d messaged had not, in fact, neglected interest the way he’d convinced himself she had. His heart felt a little lighter now that this revelation was in his care. Thank you was signed with a nod after the blonde asked if it at all seemed to connect the dots.

Imagine his surprise, then, when Kihu returned to his own cove within the hour and almost stepped on a second nestled in the water-lapped rocks. It was like The Tidemother herself was apologizing for the misdirected first.

The box of bait that he’d visited his friend to acquire was set down and the new note picked up—the glass that enveloped it far more pristine and the roll of parchment within crisp with scented yet minuscule atoms of perfume the sender unknowingly integrated in. Still no proof of time or hint at the author’s identity but the handwriting was exactly the same so his pulse stilled with enraptured nervousness over every word penned. Poetry, this time… and of the bittersweet kind given his DNA.

She spoke of magnetic fascination akin to a spell. Of uncertain fantasy. Of yet again desiring to see before her who exactly clued her in twelve moons ago to being safeguarded from the distant shade every time she reminisced by the water. Of… the side-effects he always feared would be cast upon those he tried to befriend let alone fancy. Had she heard wisps of his luring song in the spray without understanding? Had the homemade ink he used to write been subtly cursed with his entrapping essence? Or was she truly thinking such things with a clear, unaffected mind…? He loathed how impossible it was to tell. He loathed that he always had to question this any time something even remotely romantic crossed his path—loathed having to battle the clashing uncertainty over whether or not he ought to regret reaching out or rejoice in being known.

Whatever the case may be, it was clear to him that he must not respond in the way they’d tried to; it had been too vast and unpredictable a method to cast writing into the ocean no matter how starry-eyed the gesture was. He would keep the exchanges upon his person at all times in wait to see her at the usual sunset hour she tended to take her occasional walks by the beach and introduce himself then by showing both bottles. Naturally, he refused to consider first locking eyes with her from *within* the waves lest that be a scare, so he promised himself that he would brave walking despite the ever-so-subtle possibility that he’d already said too much in telling her he was ‘a creature of the water’ first and foremost.

Some days, as a change, he even himself sat veil-less and watched the horizon in wait for her. She was owed that much.