Drowned

Prompt 3- Relationships
{Majanthi}

.:+:.

It was not often Majanthi wondered on her fellow Wanderers, or her mother 000, most of her time was consumed in tending to her Biome in an ongoing, endless cycle. Perhaps once in a while she would think on one of them, prompted by a strange cloud in the sky resembling her kin, the subtle trickle of water in unseen places, or the roar of the wind mimicking waves crashing against cliffs. Sometimes even gnarled trees clinging to life would prompt something, or a piece of litter left by humankind amidst the desolate and far-out spaces.

These times of reflection and recollection were rare and fleeting, however. She had much to do and could not afford to linger in old memories, or musing of what her kin were up to. Once upon a time she had put some effort into trying to impart wisdom upon them, but they seemed mostly (or perhaps entirely) uninterested in such things, so she let them be. She perhaps wished they might have listened, or felt the same as she did in that she had something to offer- but she would not press it. She might not spend much time in keeping up relations with her kin, but there was no need to push too far and ruin what little connection they did manage to hold on to all these many, many years.

Speaking of many years...

Majanthi paused, her slow shambling across the landscape coming to pause, miles and miles of sun-scorched, dusty terrain dotted in scant shrubbery and sharp outcropping of sandstone all around her. This place was vast and stretching, little pockets of life all huddled up together and clinging desperately to rocky soil that held tightly to what little rain and moisture it ever saw- which was incredibly scant, compared to what it once was, so very very long ago.

Majanthi stopped, her feet sinking into the sand and head lifting slowly toward a ridge of weathered sandstone ahead of her, it's walls striped across by dozens of tan, orange, russet, and pale yellow layers. Her eyes lift tiredly all the way toward the top, to where the sun was trying much too hard to peek out from behind the jagged outline of the rock, and the looming figure perched atop it.

"Makoa." Majanthi murmured lowly, her voice breaking the large Wanderer from his own thoughts and earning his attention downward to where she stood. He turned his head, cocking it slightly as he peered over the edge of the ridge and peered down toward her small form far, far below, as calm and carefree as can be.

"Hello Majanthi." The Ocean Master chirped brightly, Majanthi only dipped her head slightly in a return of the greeting, before getting straight to the next;

"What are you doing here?" The Desert Wanderer inquired, and it came out rather bluntly, though she hadn't meant for it too- Makoa didn't seem to mind, of course. Nor did he even really register it as blunt at all, the slight edge to her tone simply bounced straight off him like his pelt would shed water.

Makoa leaned a little further over the edge, settling down on his elbows as his front feet dangled nonchalantly, a small burst of light breaking passed him as he adjusted and causing Majanthi to blink against the sudden bright.

"I'm visiting old friends." Makoa answered with such ease, his toes twitching a little as he gestured toward the sandy ridge face just under his touch.... And in doing so the rock face seemed to ripple, the sediment suddenly bouncing like the surface of disrupted water and solid stone quickly becoming nearly translucent as several figures buried deep within the rock suddenly appeared, glowing dimly. There were half a dozen or so, all different shapes, sizes... Creatures, their remnants and fossils. All of them very old, and some of them of a like that hadn't been seen alive on the earth for so very a long time- a time back when this place had been very different from the parched land Majanthi now considered among her own. Back when-

"-Do you remember this place? What it was?" Makoa asked lightly, his eyes stuck to those ghostly visages moving sluggishly underneath him, old souls and spirits stirred back into wakefulness after being long asleep. They could feel Makoa there now, recognize his spirit just as easily as the Wanderer recognized his 'old friends' in turn, and just as Majanthi could feel them faintly herself. She'd always been aware of them in some way, where they had been buried and drowned in centuries of sand, and not the water they once called home. Centuries of sand that came after those miles of water and ocean had dried up, rendering it a part of her Haunt in time, rather than allowing it to stay as it once was- Makoa's.

Many places had changed in thousands of years, oceans had dried, rivers too- the reaches of Majanthi's Boundary slowly creeping outward and growing in many places her fellow Wanderers had once called their own. They were technically hers now, but perhaps those places were still theirs all the same- a shared place between herself and all the rest, regardless of the century.... Time had always been less linear for the Wanderers, and more variable dependent on their thoughts and feelings at any one moment. Majanthi had always seen it this way, as she herself had several times found herself in one century at a simple mention of some event that had occurred, or tugged to some time specific by those objects and spaces she came across where memory had imprinted heavily enough.

So, if she could be whisked away to some time since passed by so little, she had no issue believing that was where Makoa was now- halfway immersed in this moment with her, while the other half of him was still swimming among currents from thousands of years passed, with those old friends of his he'd come to visit. And she believed it more while she stood there and saw the bones buried in the stone begin to stir, and could have sworn she felt the dry air suddenly gain a salty tang to it, a ghost of a sensation of water and seaspray washing against her hide.... Not a ghost, but a memory and a place in time tied to both it, Makoa, and herself all at once.

Majanthi's posture sagged a bit where she stood, her gaze lowering from Makoa, the rock face, and those spirit-bound fossils so long ago drowned. Her gaze met her feet and the parched sand underfoot, silted and grainy, all hues of tans and creams- but still with faint hints of powdery white where salt had dried and crumbled into dust as the water receded, and miles of ocean floor were exposed to a merciless sun. A small sigh escaped her as she dipped her head a bit, and did her best not to let herself get dragged back into that time of oceans that Makoa was anchoring here even all these centuries passed. Where Makoa had swam in schools with those he called his friends, and who had lost their lives and homes when water became dust, and this bit of Makoa's Haunt had passed over to her- but would never be entirely hers. No matter the lack of water or sea, it was still Makoa's Boundary, just as it was hers, and always would be.

"I remember."