A blanket of stars covered the sky, and the sound of the waves crashing upon the shore lended a pleasant ambiance to the evening. Ysabeau trailed close to the edge of the water, though not far enough to feel its cold kiss. The black sand of the beach had always interested her. In the night, it made the entire expanse appear almost void-like, like an abyss. It helped clear her mind to come here, and so she came here often. It did not hurt that it was nearby to the home of the Guard, where she spent much of her time when she was not on active duty elsewhere.
She kicked a stray rock out of her path, her falcon yellow eyes narrowed slightly in thought. A new Polaris had been elected, and what she knew of him was sparse thus far, but intriguing. She had been in the crowd when he had burned his own hand on the pyre for the Father. It took a certain level of devotion to pay the price of flesh, and this had piqued her curiosity. With the transition came the typical changes: the Guard's duties were amplified, more forces were placed at Toulon Palace, and in general, everyone waited with bated breath to see how the Polaris would spend the first few months of their tenure. So far, only the first two had come to pass. It was still too new to tell how Kaladin would shape up.
She paused in her ambling, turning to face the surf. She was not much for swimming, but she had a strange desire to wade out into the water, to see how far she could go. She had last felt this way when she was in the depths of her training, balancing school and her family's punishing physical regimen to prepare her for life in the Guard. That seemed so long ago, now. She had been so young. She was still young, but during nights like these, she felt she had been alive for a hundred years, and that every moment was a scrape against her psyche. She sighed, letting the sound of the waves slowly smooth the ire from her mind.
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