Sand chafes Lapis' skin, but she doesn't dare move. Any sudden shift could dissolve what hangs between them. She hasn't seen her in so long, and she can't take the risk. They lie on the bone-white beach, close to where the waves sprawl. For a moment, Lapis verges on something close to calm.
It's funny, she thinks. Not long ago, Jasper would have hated being so close to the shore. She would have hated it, too. They made this world, and span it as fully as two hemispheres. What would cage her on her own is, together, balm for an open wound. An offshore breeze sweeps the sea, stirring up a tang of salt air and iodine. Jasper's mane billows around her head in waves.
Lapis knows the underpinnings of the tide- to be thrall to another's gravity. The breakers scrabble over one another in their race to shore, rhythmic in their erasure. Thin, slithering eelgrass reaches from under each foaming crest. Reaching, demanding what it is owed. She's all that keeps Jasper from trickling back into the dark water.
Jasper's lips taste like brine. Lethargic under hers, offensive in their obedience. The more she tries to pry from them, the more they yield. She seeks fire, but reaps ashes. The sun dips below the planet's horizon, blood-red clouds lingering in its wake. She sinks along with it.
Malachite had taught her how to drown- a dread of lesser life. Something similar builds in her now. It works its way in slowly: she's fine at the onset; then the seconds tick by; her lungs start to burn; soon, her chest is tight enough to burst. She holds this moment as desperately as breath.
She watches Jasper's chest rise and fall; the motion has her craving something steady. Her hands waver in the space between them. She could pass right through her if she's not careful. Lapis reaches out for her still, pressing her palms to clammy skin.
She tucks herself beneath a large, sopping arm, and Jasper soaks into her skin. The wind can't find her here. When she closes her eyes, it feels just like the ocean. Jasper's no different- Lapis fashions a vessel, and she fills it. But Lapis can't keep her. Every stolid second takes her farther away.
Nothing will hold still. It's eroding from right beneath her, sucked out like sand at the tideline. Lapis balls a fist against the other's breastbone. "Say something," she hisses- but Jasper lies dumbly. Lapis searches eyes as placid as pools. The sky's brilliant hues ebb in their depths; like dull mirrors, they reflect gray landscapes.
Night falls in an indigo veil. She has drowned over and over; she knows how it feels to hit the break point. The sensation is the same- blackness closing in from all sides. She braces for what will follow: giving up; sucking in water; sinking, sinking.
Lapis dispels the illusion. With a resentful flick of her wrist, the other's body sinks into the sand, returning to sea. It leaves only a sodden swath of beach.
It's just water, after all. She hasn't seen her in so long; she's looked for so long. Lapis has lost more than she's ever found.
She beckons the water, draws it from the tide, and conjures up another ghost.