[SpringsSong]

Honora sighed as she stretched out on the black sands of Sa'fir, her golden-blond hair tied back in a ponytail.  She always enjoyed coming out to the beach, and today--a nice, warm spring afternoon--was no different.  The sands were just warm enough to seem almost theraputic to her, but not too warm that it was painful or uncomfortable to lie on.

But Honora could not help but feel like there was something missing.

So, the girl merely lay on the sands, trying to get her bearings on why she was just lying there in the sands instead of out walking around.  Walking would easily fix the main issue she had right now, which was her apparent lack of motivation, but--well, she lacked the motivation to even get up.  Besides, the clouds that were floating overhead looked rather pretty...

[crow]

It was not often that Sivain strayed so far from home without Kitzu. The two had been companions for far too long, and the familiarity, at first a forced thing due to its necessity, had grown casual years and years ago. But now he found himself wandering on his own more and more, perhaps stirred to restlessness by the stasis of having finally settled. She had more friends now, and was well-adjusted enough finally to be winsome and carefree among strangers. With that came others who might be trusted to watch over her, if only for a short time. Sivain, who did not care either for strangers or for company, simply drifted along, looking for places of interest in which to be solitary.

The ocean did not usually compel him. Its waters were too listless, and he could not swim well enough to venture deep into the loveless embrace of the water. There was nothing for him to lose himself in, and staring at it and its constant ebbing waves only served to stir his thoughts. But today he was bored, or adventurous, or foolish. Today he found himself alighting on a cliff above the water, and looking at it wistfully. His old haunts were not as satisfying as usual, and he knew he had to return soon. What he wanted was one sweet moment of absolute numbness before that had to happen. Maybe his motives were more desperation, with that in mind.

So he willed away his wings, the last remnants of his other form, and jumped. The moment before he hit the water would have been glorious for some, but Sivain had seen better days, and he had been capable of flight, too, for some time. It was when the surface rose to meet him, pounding his body with brutal force and then dragging him down with cold insistence, that he found his release. Even with the sun so warm, the water was merciless, tugging him this way and that in its frigid depths. When he could hold his breath no longer, he rose again to the surface, gasping for air. He repeated the process--- taking a breath, submerging and staying down as long as he could before rising again for air--- time and time again until, exhausted, he dragged himself onto the beach and lay there, just out of reach of the waves. He didn't care if the sand got into his fine, dark hair, or the way that the slightest breeze made him shiver. That was the point of this form. He was an approximation of a mortal, small and weak and brittle.

When he had come back to himself enough to look around, he noticed another laying on the beach, and tensed. This was not part of the plan. Whyever was he running into strangers so often these days? But he was too tired to get away, and if he kept to himself, perhaps she wouldn't notice him. Perhaps she wouldn't care. Yes, that would be nice.

[SpringsSong]

Honora remained where she had been, staring up at the sky as she sighed.  Why had she even come here?--there was nothing of significance for her here at the beach, was there?  Why had she even come here in the first place?

She had no idea, she realized.  There was nothing significant about the becah for her, other than it was pretty, and she felt drawn to it.  She slowly stood up, allowing her wings--mostly white, but tipped with blue and pale yellow, much like the shade of her hair--to fold around her, giving off the appearance of a cloak.  She stepped closer to the ocean, allowing it to lap up against her feet, when she noticed the other figure there.

Automatically, she was intrigued by him, but remained rooted to the spot.  He looked interesting, but something within her cautioned against moving closer to him too soon.  Instead, she wrapped her wings around her form closer, stepping out of the water as she shivered slightly.  If one looked closer at the hem of her dress, which was barely visible underneath her wings, one would notice that the hem was fairly tattered.  She also kept her wings wrapped protectively around her, as though the slightest breeze would positively rip right through her if one were to come.

[crow]

... Wings. He saw wings. Sivain had to look, and blink, and then look again to be sure of it. He was never prone to hallucinations, but all the same it was hard to believe... There was a great manner of oddity that he'd seen in these lands, but never wings, not like that. For a moment, he entertained the idea she might be an angel, and instantly he was on guard, but her manner was unlike the angels he knew.

Curiosity piqued, he began to study her more closely, noting with systematic callousness that she seemed to be out of sorts. Her clothes were damaged, and the manner in which she held herself spoke of insecurity of some sort. He checked himself, and almost it made him want to laugh, the idea that anyone would take his sad soggy self to be worthy of caution, but then his appearance did not exactly suit the reality. That made him wonder if she knew, but somehow that didn't seem right either. So, to conclude: waif-like, cautious, possibly having gone through some sort of rough patch recently.

In other words, exactly the sort of girl Kitzu would have wanted to take in.

But Sivain was not Kitzu, and he had been told by Rhodes many times (as he was the one who would listen, not Kit) that food cost money, heating cost money, and mysterious homeless people didn't bring any in. So no, he wasn't going to take her home. he was going to stare at the sky and ask, in as bland and emotionless a voice as he could muster, "What are you looking at?"

[SpringsSong]

"What are you looking at?"

This question caused the woman to jump slightly--the question, of course, had come out of nowhere, almost, for she had gone back to ignoring him, for he seemed to want to be left alone.  After a few moments, though, she said, "The ocean.  The sky.  The sand.  You lying in the sand.  The rocks.  Everything and nothing."

Even as she said this, she had bent down and picked up a handful of the black sand, the tattered sleeve of her dress showing through as she grasped the black grains in her hand.  It starkly contrasted her pale skin, and the girl looked up with golden eyes.

The sand slowly sifted through her hand, and she shook her head.  "...it is not there..." she said after a moment, frowning as she looked at the sand again.  "It is not there, and it was not in the shallow water... where could it be...?"

[crow]

The reply left no doubt in his mind that she was indeed crazy. It was always the crazy ones. Sivain almost despaired of this new world, where things such as he walked freely, and were commonplace enough that he seldom had to explain himself much. Decades later, it was still a culture shock, a slap in the face after an entire lifetime of constant, sacred gods and the knowledge that all else was mortal. Now winged girls and girls who turned into wolves and people with motorcycles wandered into his life.

He could always just ignore her. He tried to tell himself that. It would be easy, doing nothing. He could lie on his back here and wait for the world to pass him by, for the entire population of mortals on the Estate to wither into dust, for Kitzu to get mad enough to look for him (and search long enough to find him). He could wait. He was good at waiting.

... All this he told himself as he knew that he would not do this. He had been a hero first, once upon a time, and then the guardian of mortals: a patron of underdogs and fragile things. It was too deeply ingrained in his nature to let things lie quietly, at least without someone else for which he might be a voice of sense. Apparently being sensible was no good when he wasn't doing so for someone else. With a sigh, he heaved himself off the sand, feeling all the weight of gravity as it begged him to just collapse back down and forget. He walked up to her slowly, that she might not startle at his approach, and said, "You do not look upon that which you wish to find, which was not quite a question. "What is it you wish to find?"

[SpringsSong]

Honora was still startled by his approach, but not as much as she could have been.  When he asked the next question, Honora's look became one of puzzlement.  What was it that she wished to find?  That was what she was trying to discover.  She knew that there was something from her life missing, but she didn't quite know what it was.

"I am not sure what it is I wish to find," she said.  "All I know is that I have lost something, but I do not know what.  But... I feel like it has something to do with who I was... or maybe with who I am," she said.  "I... I remember nothing, other than this is not my natural home, that I was bound to serve a princess, and that I had not this form," she said, touching a rock.  "This... I used to be able to go through such things at will, and now, I cannot."

Finally, she sighed.  "I think... what I wish to find involves... memories?" she asked hesitantly.  "For I cannot remember why I should remember that world, and that Princess, and the ability to pass through solid objects..."

[crow]

Sivain had known of cases where people lost their memories only by word of mouth for most of his life. It was not until they had found a ghost in the basement of the Estate's castle that he had seen such a thing firsthand, with Nanashi only knowing enough of himself to tell them his name and the barest summary of his condition. But that could not really be considered the same, as Nanashi was not actively searching for anything beyond a little company and a lot of worldly knowledge, which the specter rather badly needed. All this meant that for once, he had no idea how to help. That, more than anything, intrigued him.

"There are a great many princesses," he said, not without mirth; the corners of his mouth lifted in the faintest of smiles. A more pressing concern was her one solid claim: that she should be able to pass through objects. Beyond her wings, this spoke of an even greater power. It also gave him an idea. He sidled up close to her, trying not to blanch himself at the prospect of his presence so near to another, and placed his own hand on the rock while taking care not to actually make contact with her. It took a moment's concentration, and then his own hand turned curiously translucent and slid into the stone, and then out again, re-solidifying. "Do you mean like so?" he asked, backing away and looking at the woman again.

[SpringsSong]

"I know that there a great many princesses," Honora said.  "But I would know the one that I was sworn to serve--her memory is imprinted on my conscience, but I do not know why it has been imprinted."

When he demonstrated his own hand going through the rock, Honora could not help but stare in shock as she said, "That... is exactly what I meant.  That... yes.  Yes!  I know I used to be able to move through things at will, because that was more often than not how I would reach my Lady," she said.  "I... I'm not sure how to word it... but... yes... yes," she said, her voice trailing off.