Waves

They had spent the previous night holding one another around their bonds, tied up with the horses while the Masks laughed around a fire. Soona remembers comforting a hysterical wife who wouldn’t stop hooting, desperate to find her husband who wouldn’t, or couldn’t, return her calls.The agony behind her cries cut deep in Soona’s gut. She had been trying to soothe the distressed ape, but was instead being consumed. Flashes of Noa dangling from the tower, flames closing in as they devour everything she’s ever known, the hulking mass of the gorilla leering down, smiling, reaching, Noa’s howl as he—The wife’s cries were cut off with a sizzling bright blue. She collapsed into Soona’s trembling arms as the Mask walked away, bored as though he had simply plucked a weed.The wife walks beside her now, blankly staring forward. Today, they are both silent.----------After leaving the abandoned city, Noa follows the tracks across a beach. This fic takes place the day before, when Sylva's hunting party & Eagle Clan must've crossed it.