A million miles | Open

[Wavepool]

Water, it ebbed and flowed, rolled across the beach in such breathtaking waves, fell from the sky all across the world, be it as gentle rain, or monsoons. Water was everywhere, and when you could call on it, when you controlled those waves, when you were the one driving the rain, there was so much more that you could do, that she could do. Gazing down into the stream below her, Wavepool stretched a paw out, pointedly ignoring the now white fur on her limb, reaching out to the flowing body of water beneath her. There was no difference, the feeling that had been with her for so many years, in the back of her mind, it was gone, the same as it had been yesterday, and the day before that, and the past week. The stream didn't change its course, it didn't so much as ripple in a way that wasn't natural, continuing to flow on its path, reflecting the distorted visage of the feline above and the pained look that stretched across her face.

So...that was it then, it was....it was just gone? The power she had held for over six years now, the ability that let her continue to fight for her home even when her body could not keep up, the power she had cherished and worked so hard on for almost all her life, it had just...been stripped away from her? She had been hoping that maybe it was still there, merely locked away, somewhere inside herself, that maybe training would bring it back, or that it might come back with time, but now she knew, it wasn't coming back. Another thing to add to the list of all the things that she had lost, that had been taken from her, all because of a stupid mistake. She shouldn't have gone out there on that boat, she should have just stayed home, spent the day with her husband, with her children.

Yet another thing she had done her best to remain hopeful about, and yet another thing that had only ended in pain. She didn't recognize any of it, any of the territories, any of the groups that laid claim to these lands, none of it, which meant that wherever this was, it was a very, very long ways away from home. Hunched over the small stream, the sound of her tears dripping down into the water below was barely audible over the sounds of the jungle, her quiet sobs echoing through the nearby trees. She felt so helpless, so much smaller than she had once been, weeks ago she had felt on top of the world, and now it felt like that same world only wanted to push her down. Just when she had finally found a home, after years of wandering the lands on her own, when she had finally settled down, given up her nomadic lifestyle, within months it was all stolen from her again.

"W-What...w-what am I su-supposed to do?" she choked out, gazing into the distorted, equally anguished face reflected back to her from the stream. What could she even do, in the face of this? It wasn't the first time this had happened to her, yet the previous time, the answer had simply been; nothing. There had been nothing she could have done, there had never even been any hope of returning, and it seemed like that might just be the same here. So...was that it then? Was she supposed to simply accept that there was no hope, that her husband, her children, they were all gone now, that she would never see any of them again? She couldn't accept that, she could never accept a fate like that, but in the end, if the situation was the same here, against such overwhelming odds, what chance did she have?