Chapter Text
The first thing I can recall is an ache in my mouth and the bitter taste of sand on my tongue.
The sky was a pallid gray, wispy clouds brushing across like a flurry of soft feathers left behind by a creature passing overhead. In the distance, I heard the dying roars of thunder just past the sandy cliffs that laid before me, the last remnants of a storm fizzling out into a misty breeze. In a few hours time, the winds would pick back up, and the gods would arise furious from their slumber once again.
But in this dull window of peace I’d found myself in between the months of raging disasters from sky to sea, the world had never seemed brighter than it did at this moment. I shielded my eyes with my arm, stumbling around to gain my bearings. After scraping my palm on a piece of flotsam, I opened my hand to find a ragged scrap of canvas: black with a speckle of color faded on the corner; a singular puzzle piece led astray from the rest of the image. Reaching up to push the brittle, matted hair out of my face, I pulled the cloth over my eyes, darkening my surroundings significantly, enough so that I didn’t have to squint whenever I looked around. I took my first deep breath in, swallowing the crisp morning air, seasoned with the salt from the water. Planting my unscathed palm against the ground, I heave myself up, feeling the grains of wet sand fill in the spaces between my toes. I could never quite rid myself of it from then on.
Ahead of me, lies a path of uncertainty, winding and coiling around itself like that of a serpent, twisting itself into knots and pulling itself taut, never quite knowing where it itself ends.
There wasn’t much that I had known then, but one thing was certain:
This is not the beginning.
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There was something else, too. I almost missed it had it not scraped my heel. Lodged in the sand was a shard of indigo so deep that it almost looked like a splintered piece of the midnight sky, or what I was more familiar with: the shadowy depths beneath the surface of the waves behind me. As the waves washed over my ankles and nearly swept away the striking object, easily spotted amidst the golden grains, I bent down and scooped it into my hands, trying to ignore the bite of saltwater that seeped into my shallow wound like venom. Its wet, smooth surface was far too small for me to have been able to make out my reflection within it; it would be a few more weeks until I finally discovered what I truly looked like. But as soon as I felt its cool brilliance against my skin, I knew that I was not merely a plain stone but a host, its power contained and thrumming from within. It was something special, and anything special found on the ground goes straight into a pocket.
Except for the fact that I didn’t have pockets.
And it’s not because I was a woman. It was because I was naked.
Finding more of that scrap cloth on the shoreline, I was able to fashion myself a modest shawl to wrap myself up in, which would suffice until I found myself something more proper to clothe myself with. With a bit of the extra material, I wrapped up the strange crystal, holding it firmly in my fist. It made me feel safe. Looking up, the clouds overhead were darkening, making it clear I had overstayed my welcome on the small beach. Taking small, tentative steps deeper into the island, I wobbled under my weight and nearly ended up with a mouthful of sand once again.
I am not made for this, I had thought.
Still, I persisted. Holding myself up against a wall of stone, I whipped my head around in every direction, deciding where to go now that I’m standing. Everywhere I looked, I encountered an uncomfortable unfamiliarity emanating from the shadows that stretched from every jagged corner. It was only when I looked over my shoulder, back at the ocean that spat me out, did I realize what exactly I wanted to know the most, and where my journey ahead would take me.
What exactly of mine had the sea stolen away?