“What is it?”
“It reminds me of my home. Where I am from. What I’m responsible for.”
“You’re responsible for a well?”
“You could say that, yes.” He smiled. Alianna wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but there seemed to be a sorrow to his expression. Rionan cleared his throat.
“Come on,” he motioned to the sea. “Unless you’re staying on the shore?”
“No, I’m not. I’ll be there in a second.”
“Alright.” He shrugged as he walked the short distance into the crystalline water. It was perfectly flat this evening, and he created ripples all around him as he strode in. Alianna watched Rionan move gracefully into the water, diving under when he got deep enough. As he surfaced, droplets of water ran across his hair, his skin, and glistened in the sun. She took in the muscles of his arms as he swept his hair out of his face once more. The way the air around her seemed to alight with a strange static, as if saying to her, “wake up, get in.”
Alianna sucked in a breath and pulled her dress over her head. She threw it down next to his shirt, kicked off her shoes, and walked towards the sea, trying her best to look effortlessly sultry.
She looked up from the sand. Rionan’s eyes were locked on her, his face still. His nostrils flared once in their strange way that she had noticed, but wasn’t perturbed by, and she paddled through the water towards him.
Alianna pretended she hadn’t noticed the intensity of his gaze, because after last night, she wasn’t sure how she shouldact right now. Should she move closer? Stay away? Flirt with him?
So, she lifted her feet behind her and began swimming through the water ahead of them. The sea was quiet, still, and inviting. There was no one else in the water this evening, and the empty sand stretched as far as she could see. A peaceful slice of serenity, just for them. With exceptional stealth, Rionan caught up with her, swimming alongside her.
It was rare that Alianna felt comfortable when it fell silent, in the company of others. Yet there was nothing awkward about silence with Rionan. She enjoyed speaking with him, laughing, but the silence seemed to convey something all on its own.
Alianna stopped swimming and began treading water, looking out to the horizon. She didn’t have to look sideways to know he had done the same thing.
“I love swimming,” Rionan said, voice quiet. “Where I am from, we had a beautiful lake. Huge. With a gorgeous waterfall at one end. The lake was surrounded by trees, and the most stunning birds lived in them. I’d often go there in the evenings to swim. I’d sit under the waterfall and watch the birds. I could close my eyes now and hear their songs.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Alianna said earnestly, turning to face him.
“It was.”
Rionan was still staring out to the horizon, all signs of joking lost from his expression.
“Why does that make you sad?”
His eyes met hers. “Do I seem sad?”
“You do. You seem full of sorrow. You saidwas.Is the lake not there anymore?”
Rionan sighed. “The lake is still there. The water was...corrupted. Polluted, in a way. Awful creatures live in the water now. The birds moved on when everything changed. The singing stopped.”
“Awful creatures? Like, piranha?”
He smiled softly, a sadness hiding behind it. “A little bit like piranha.”
“Well. I hope you can find beauty in whatever that space has turned into. Change is hard, and I struggle with it sometimes, too. But I also think that change can bring about new opportunities and new things. We just need to look for the beauty amongst the chaos.”
Slowly, Rionan turned and looked at her. He looked at her with an intensity that she had not seen before. It was not a look of lust, of merriment, of playfulness. It was a look that saw into her very soul.
“The beauty amongst the chaos,” Rionan repeated, his eyes not leaving her face. Alianna returned his stare, unsure what to say or do next. So, she just stayed there with him, looking at him. She hoped that he knew that even if they did not know each other well, he was not alone in whatever sadness these memories brought about for him.
Alianna didn’t know how long they stayed there like that. After a few minutes that felt like a lifetime, Rionan cleared his throat. “Pizza?”
Alianna nodded. “Pizza.”
They sat on the beach and shared a pizza. They talked about their favourite things in nature (brought about by Rionan mentioning the birds). He shared stories of nights he had spent under the stars looking at different constellations, and said that he would like to show her what she could find in the night sky one day, too. She told him about her quiet passion for learning about the little creatures that make up their ecosystem, and how everything has a place in this world. She told him that there was an exhibit on marine life that she wanted to goand see, but hadn’t got around to it yet, because you never know what new wonder you’ll discover when you are open to looking.
Something in this seemed to resonate with Rionan, and he remained contemplative for some time.
