Naeris:
The ocean remembers everything.
Every storm I've summoned, every creature I've commanded, every secret spilled into its depths—it all lingers in the water's memory. And tonight, it feels restless.
As the ocean's guardian, I drift through the lower currents, my senses stretched across miles of blue. The pressure here would crush mortal bones, but for me it feels like silence—steady, endless, familiar. I am the keeper of its borders, the one who ensures no magic trespasses from the other realms.
At least, that's what I've always told myself.
But lately, something has changed.
The currents no longer obey as they once did. They murmur to each other, eddies spinning with secrets I cannot quite translate. The tide moves like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
When I reach the boundary line—a luminous veil that separates ocean from forest magic—I feel it. A disturbance. Faint, but undeniably alive.
I extend a hand toward the shimmer. Power hums against my palm. Not water. Not air. Something in between.
Fae magic.
Impossible.
No fae has touched these depths in centuries. Their kind keep to their forests and skies, bound by the same decrees that bind me. And yet…
The energy trembles as if it recognizes me. A pulse moves through it—soft, sorrowful, and strangely pure.
I close my eyes, letting the water flow through me. For a moment, I see something impossible: a flicker of silver light through dark mist, wings folding, breath catching.
The vision vanishes.
I should have dismissed it as a trick of the current, but my heart—damn it—beats faster. I haven't felt that in decades.
Focus, Naeris.
The ocean stirs in response to my unease. Storm energy builds beneath the calm, lightning whispering along the distant surface. I rein it back, forcing the sea to still. The last thing we need is a tempest born of curiosity.
"Guardian," a voice calls through the currents. It's Mareth, one of the lesser sentinels stationed near the coral gates. His tone carries unease. "Did you feel that?"
"Yes," I answer, my voice reverberating through the water like a low thunder. "A ripple. Nothing more."
But I know it's not nothing.
Fae magic has its own scent—green, alive, threaded with light. But this one was different. Softer. Wilder. Touched by something old and aching.
"Keep the gates sealed," I tell him. "I'll investigate the source."
Mareth bows, his scales catching the faint glow of bioluminescent reefs before he fades into the depths.
I remain at the boundary, staring into the shimmer. The light bends, revealing reflections of both realms—the deep blue of my world and the muted silver of theirs. Two forces that should never meet.
The law forbids crossing. The punishment is dissolution—body and soul unmade, returned to the elements.
Still, I reach toward the shimmer again. The moment my fingers graze it, the energy ripples outward, singing through the water like a chord struck on glass.
And there it is again—that voice. Soft. Trembling. Almost human.
You are not lost, little fae.
The words echo faintly, not in sound but in feeling, threading through the current like a dream.
I freeze. That was the ocean speaking, but not in any language I know. It's… answering something. Someone.
A connection forms, fragile and bright, pulling at me like a tide.
"Who are you?" I whisper, the words slipping past my control. The water carries them upward, toward the world above, where moonlight touches the surface.
No answer. Only silence—and then, the faint rhythm of a heartbeat that is not my own.
It fades, leaving me with nothing but the pulse of the sea and a question I can't silence.
Something—or someone—has touched my realm.
And I know, with a certainty that unsettles even me, that this is only the beginning.
The current stills. Then, slowly, the tide begins to move again—not outward, but inward, curling toward me like a beckoning hand.
For a moment, I let it happen. I let the sea guide me where it wants me to go. The pressure shifts, and light filters down from the surface, fractured into a thousand threads. The shimmer of fae magic lingers between them, faint as breath, slipping through my fingers whenever I try to grasp it.
It's not just power. It's… emotion.
Loneliness, maybe. Grief. A longing that feels almost alive.
What are you, little spark?
I shouldn't care. My duty is to guard, not to feel.
And yet—
Something is haunting in that magic's touch. It feels familiar, though I know I've never encountered it before. Like a song I once knew but forgot how to hum.
I close my eyes, letting the ocean flow through me, around me, within me. It answers every thought, every flicker of emotion. It has always been my companion, my cage, my purpose.
But now… It's restless too.
A pulse moves through the deep—a steady thrum that doesn't belong to the sea. I follow it upward, ascending through the dim water until the surface glows faintly above.
The moonlight cuts through the waves, silvery and alive. For the first time in years, I breach.
The air feels wrong against my skin—too thin, too sharp—but I stay. The horizon stretches endlessly before me, the dark edge of the forest barely visible in the distance. And there—carried on the wind—I hear something impossible.
A whisper.
Not words, not yet. Just sound. A voice shaped by pain and wonder, reaching across worlds.
The ocean hums in response, and I realize the truth that chills even me:
This connection isn't random. The sea itself is calling to her.
And through her, it's calling to me.
Lightning flickers far out on the horizon, a storm forming of its own will. I should stop it. I should pull the energy back into the deep where it belongs.
But I don't.
I let the storm breathe. I let the ocean stretch its fingers toward the distant cliffs where I can almost feel her standing—small, fragile, but burning with something bright enough to echo across realms.
Find her.
The whisper is not my own thought—it's the sea's.
And though every law forbids it, though I know the punishment, my heart answers before my mind can silence it.
I will.
The tide surges at my words, a vow sealed in salt and shadow. The first drop of rain hits my skin, carrying the faint scent of wild earth and silver light.
Somewhere above, beyond the reach of water, the world is changing—and I can feel her in the pull of every wave.