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when he's far away, he dreams of her still.
it is a siren's call, cast down upon broken surf and churning waves, calling him forward into an endless sea. it is like watching himself through the eyes of someone else, as he walks, one step at a time—until his ankles are drenched in ocean shallows, until his body has plunged into the ocean deep. he never notices when he has fully submerged. he only realizes when he sees her face.
she speaks quietly, gently—the softest song cascading from her mouth, muted underwater and yet he feels it, rocking into his body with the undertow. her fingers brush across his cheeks, a divine creature that so easily cradles him, and he willingly lets himself go under, drawn by her pearly lashes and iridescence.
a human of any other kind would fight it. he is someone who, in any ordinary circumstance, would do the same.
but he is no stranger to the tide. he knows what it is like to drown.
the water does not scare him. she does.
there is no other that could bring him to his knees, like a pilgrim at the feet of a priest in confessional. there is no sword that could best him, no arrow that could yet pierce his madly beating heart—none except for the one that has him sick with cupid, lost in the call of a distant siren.
he has this dream almost every night, of her wispy silks like jellyfish arms, of her delicate skin like fish scales, and he lets himself go under. lets himself be pulled into her kiss, where he is at the mercy of her stolen breath, the only thing that decides whether he lives or dies when he’s this deep beneath the sea
and then it fades to nothingness, to a void of blackness. because at the end of every dream, you eventually must wake up.
"will you miss me?" she asks him, with a coy sense of mirth that leaves his chest warm and alight.
the sea is all but a soft sigh, the birds quieted down to a sweet chirp. summer dusk traps them in a vignette, a single moment of time forever captured.
she touches him with the softest hands, and she regards him always with the most subtle smile and a far-off gaze. he lets himself lean into the palms that hold him, a sigh pulled out of him like a loyal dog resting in the hands of his master, and he knows without a doubt that he will.
"yes," he tells her without even bothering to fight it. "i will miss you more than anything."
but what more can he do?
he presses the softest kiss to the inside of her wrist, where he feels her pulse—soft and alive and beautifully hers—and watches with adoration as her eyes soften and her fingers shake.
and he knows that she would miss him, too.
she leaves little tokens of affection in every letter.
she tucks seashells and pearls into thick envelopes that carry the scent of minty seagrass and floral sea ganoderma. when he spies the coral-printed envelope at the bottom of his mail pile, it is always the one that he grabs first.
"jeez, you're like a wild mutt." scaramouche scoffs with a pinched-up nose and a set of rolling eyes. "it's just mail."
but it wasn't.
he sits in his office and pages through every single message she has ever given him. he wishes he could write her back more often. he wonders if she hangs onto his every word just like he does with hers.
he cracks the newest envelope open with a nearby knife, fumbles for a moment with pulling out the letter—and then a strand of dried wildflowers fall from the page. he hastily catches it before it hits the floor.
when he unfolds the letter, he sees cursive inscribed in a warm pink. she told him once it was ink boiled down from a coral-eating squid.
i’ve been struggling to keep up with my duties, the letter says, condensed. i miss you. i wish you were here.
and childe, as impulsive as they come, hardly thinks as he packs his things to simply go.
i have dreamt of you every night.
there has not been a day where i do not think of you.
we don't see the water often, here. it is rare, in a frozen tundra like this.
but i went to the docks this morning, and i saw the ocean—
it was beautiful, dark, deep, and blue. infinite in depth, like a sky without stars. you just can't help but wonder,
how far does it go?
the letter sits on her desk. she runs her glove-less fingers over the indentations of a heavy hand's inscription, and sighs.
and that's what i think, mimi.
that's what i think everytime i see you.
she stares at the midnight sea and tastes the brine in the air, dancing on her tongue.
the black water swallows up the stars in its reflection. in this darkness, she cannot tell where the sky ends and where the ocean begins. all she can see is a sea of stars: a pitch blackness punctuated by silver drops of ink, spotted across the dark page.
it is funny, how her soul knows this spot so well. it is like her roots carried deep, another flowering piece of coral in the middle of watatsumi, grounded down far beneath the sand until it tastes the salt of the sea. her spirit always leads her here, barefoot until she's standing in the very same spot on the beach shore where she had touched his face and whispered her goodbye.
do you remember where you kissed me?
her hand is hardly steady whenever she writes. it mirrors the way her candle flickers and spasms, a fire struggling to stay afloat melted wax on the last dry strand of a candle's wick.
i could never forget.
she knew him. in his heart, there was a pinch of darkness—a little thorn he could never outgrow. it pierced and pierced, and so from it, he would always bleed. there's something he carries with him. something that he just can't get out.
she knows his hands. they were rough and calloused and gloved and warm—he has killed so many with his hands. the very moment they had met, his eyes were dark with death, and those hands were stained with fresh blood. but there, on that beach, in an eclipse of a moment—he had touched her so gently, as if gentle was all that he has ever known. (it was not, and this, she also knows.)
but his smile is what she knew best. enough to crinkle his eyes and make the freckled constellation across the bridge of his nose shift with moved skin. she memorized those stars before. she swears she sees them somewhere in the pitch above the sea. and it is this that she perhaps loves of him most.
it was the smile that melted on her lips until for a heartbeat, for a moment, for a second—it was hers.
i won't pretend that i don't know what you are, she writes, insinuating but never fully stating the dark, crimson markings of his fractured past.
but i will cherish you nonetheless.
and in the morning, when she sees the beach from a short distance, with her dressed feet in soft soles and silk socks, she dreams.
she dreams of that soft, ocean blue—not in the arms of the sky nor the sea, but tucked in two eyes, staring right back at her.
she stands before her desk, draws her fingers softly across an endless sea of envelopes, and he smiles.
"i got your letter." he says in lieu of a greeting, and for this one moment, he does procure her i miss you between his fingers and waves it by his head.
she flinches, turns, and gawks at him.
"childe?" she breathes, as if she's unsure if it's a dream.
but for childe, dreams always lead him below the sea.
"this is real." he promises, a fox-like mischief picking up in his voice. "otherwise, i'd—"
she throws her arms around him, tucks her head into his chest and inhales as if this is the first time she has ever drawn breath. she holds him and holds him—and without even thinking of it, his arms automatically fall around her, bracing her closer until his chin rests on the crown of her head.
they don't say i missed you.
they don't even say a word.
they sway quietly to the same rhythm that the sea carries in each crash and undertow. but then they both walk, glued close together, barefoot down the beach.
and it's funny, how his soul remembers this place.
his home would always be elsewhere, somewhere across the sea. but for this moment, as he lays down with her across the sand, there is a sense he belongs.
there is a sense that a part of him has never truly left.
she dreams of a starlight sky, a thousand leagues below the sea.
she sees celestial pools of jellyfish, of astral life in the shape of dolphins and fish.
and in a school of ocean creatures, one stands out among the rest.
it lies in the shadows of the darkness, and yet it carries its own light. it crashes and calls in a symphony of echoed howls and hums. she feels it toss and turn in her soul, like the ocean lived inside her bones.
a narwhal pierces through the surface, then dives down far beneath her.
and though the other fish turn and swim away, some stick to her, as if sensing her trust.
because for some reason, she feels that this creature was no enemy, but a friend she has always known.
seagulls cry over a pink sunrise. the sand is soft against her back. they are both too fond of both the land and the sea to let the grit of it bother them as they lay.
childe presses soft kisses into the dewy outline of her skin, and she sighs.
"i'd like you to come home with me, one day."
she blinks up at him, counts the warm amber of his lashes, smiles at the shape of starry freckles on his skin. she runs her thumb down his cheekbone, and he leans fully into her hand. the touch was intended to only be slight. she extends her palm and lets him be cradled into the nook of her skin, instead.
"why is that?" she says with some curiosity, imprinting the feeling of his jaw into her memory.
he pauses, taking her free hand into his own, running his thumb across the lines of her skin.
his voice is whisper-quiet as he clasps her hand over his chest. she feels his heartbeat rattle to meet her fingertips.
"i think..." he breathes out, brows knitted together. "you're a piece of myself that i don't ever want to let go."
she considers the words, watching as the sunrise paints his skin in an outline of gold and rose.
"i want to bring you to my family." he admits. "i want to bring you home."
he frowns, but she gently pulls him down until their noses touch.
"it's not a good explanation, is it?" he huffs, breath fanning warm against her cheek.
"no." she smiles.
he gives her a cheeky side-smile of his own, eyes crinkling until constellations shift.
"but i understand." she adds, just before he sinks in—until his mouth was on hers, and they both tasted salt and seafoam.