Through Smoke and Ashes

Twenty Four||Kellso

Breaking through the horizon, I finally saw it, the faint, familiar stretch of land rising beyond the endless blue of the sea. Pontheugh. Home.

My heart lurched at the sight of it, beating so hard against my ribs that I could feel each pulse beneath my skin. The coastline was still distant, little more than a dark line separating the sea from the sky, but even from here there was something unmistakable about it. I had spent so long staring at that horizon in the opposite direction, watching Pontheugh disappear behind me as the ship carried me farther and farther away, never knowing if I would ever see it again. Now, nearly a year later, I was sailing toward it once more, and I couldn't decide whether the feeling twisting through my chest was relief, fear, grief, or something far more complicated. Every time I tried to settle on one emotion, another rose beneath it, until I could no longer tell where one ended and the next began.

I rested my hands against the railing, feeling the rough, weathered wood beneath my palms as the ship carried me closer to home.

The ship moved steadily beneath me, its hull rising and falling with the slow rhythm of the waves. Salt hung thickly in the air, coating my lips with its bitter taste and clinging to my skin in a fine layer of dampness. The wind tugged at my clothes and carried the sharp scent of the ocean around me, while the rhythmic creaking of the ship's wooden frame blended with the low groan of the sails overhead. Waves lazily struck the sides of the vessel, sending sheets of water spilling upward before gravity reclaimed them and dragged them back into the sea with a soft, rushing hiss. Each wave disappeared beneath us only to be replaced by another, an endless repetition that somehow made the approaching shoreline feel even more real.

I kept my eyes fixed on Pontheugh as it slowly grew larger, searching the distant landscape for anything I might recognize. The longer I stared, the more details began to emerge from the haze, the shape of the coastline, the distant rise of the land, familiar pieces of a place I had once known without ever needing to think about it. Somewhere beyond that horizon were roads I had walked, buildings I had entered, people I had once known. A life I had lived.

Above me, hidden somewhere behind the thick layer of clouds, I could feel Naxan.

I couldn't see him, but I didn't need to. His presence was there, steady and unmistakable, woven through my thoughts like a thread I could grasp whenever everything else threatened to slip away. The cloud cover was the only reason he could fly so close without drawing attention to himself, his enormous shadow concealed somewhere above the pale gray blanket stretching across the sky. Every so often, I could feel the faint shift of his awareness brushing against mine, a quiet reminder that he was there.

He was the only reason I hadn't fallen apart.

"Naxan tries best."

"I try my best." I softly correct him. I turn away, unable to watch the land grow in front of me. Instead, I walked across the deck of the ship to Kayne.

"Are you glad to be back? I'm sure you missed your dragon." He was sitting on a set of steps.

Kayne broke his gaze from the land before us. "I was speaking with Rypth just now. She is happy with my return."

I smiled softly. Kayne had been separated from his dragon for more than a week, and judging by the way he kept glancing toward the horizon, I could tell it was starting to wear on him. I could barely go a few hours without seeing Naxan, let alone an entire week. Our journey by ship had taken nearly three days, and even with Naxan flying somewhere above the clouds, I could already feel the absence of him settling uneasily beneath my skin.

I had grown so accustomed to his presence that being unable to see him felt strangely incomplete.

"Are you jealous that another female has been stealing my attention?"